We take a first look at one of Paradox's more intriguing free to play PC titles

Ok, let's be honest for a second. When I was flicking through the media sheets for the first time during last week's Paradox Convention, my initial thought when I saw Hearts of Iron: The Card Game was "Lolwut?". I mean a trading card game? Really? Sounded suspiciously like some kind needless merchandising ploy. But hey, I like Paradox, so I put it out of my mind for the time being. After sitting down with the Producer however, it was hard not to be excited, intrigued and impatient to get my hands on it all at the same time.
 

The early rounds, where you build up forces, will be the quickest and least interesting

It was clear right from the beginning that this wasn't going to be a gimmick spin-off of the Hearts of Iron brand, or a half-hearted cash-cow. The producer, as well as the external development team are all card game fans, and they're creating what they see as the ultimate WW2 trading card game (although, Fredrik tells us this is the only WW2 TCG on the market - is there a reason for that, perhaps?). A lot of their inspiration seems to stem from their annoyance at Magic: The Gathering TCG, which is a heavy-weight in the TCG world right now right up there with Yu-Gi-Oh (and Pokémon, I guess, but no one actually plays Pokémon).

At launch, there will be 120 (plus 20 special promo cards) different cards spread over three factions and a multitude of unit types. Infantry, Airplane, Tanks and Support form the core of a deck, which are used in offensive and defensive roles. In addition to that, you have Factory cards, which provide resources so that you can deploy units, and Doctrine cards, which dictate the 'how' and 'when' of offensive manoeuvres. The game tries to emulate the fun of a card game, but also tries to keep it simple, whilst at the same time catering to the more strategic style of play like it's name-sake. The Hearts of Iron branding is more incidental to the fact that it's a WW2-based card game than anything else, but it's certainly apt.

The main aim of every game is to acquire ten Victory Points for the win, and you get Victory points by winning combat phases and if you manage to attack a defenceless opponent. You start off each game by choosing which 'Doctrine' you wish to use - although it's unclear whether this is permanent for the whole game or whether you get to swap out, add new Doctrines or what have you. Anyway, a Doctrine lays out the conditions with which you can launch an attack. If you don't pick a doctrine, and if you don't meet the conditions, you can't attack.



After the initial draw & discard phase at the start of every match, there are three main phases: Draw - self explanatory, Arm - where you can generate resources and/or deploy units and Combat, which is also self-explanatory. If there is a combat action, there is an additional 'Repair & Rearm' phase where you get to repair any damage done to your units. In every round, you have three action points, which apply across every phase - so you could draw three times and not be able to do anything else, or draw once and then deploy two cards on the field etc... At the moment, it seems only deploying factory cards - the ones that generate resources, actually costs Action Points. Deploying units is free in that regard, but only because each type of unit card has a resource cost (which is what the factories are for) so it makes sense.

During combat, there are also three phases: Long, Medium and Close range. Each unit type will be suited to one of these phases (some ore advanced units might be useable in two). So Artillery -long range, Infantry, close range, Tanks - medium range, etc... Some cards have special rules or modifiers that you need to be aware off. For each battle phase, you pick what card you want to send forward, and then damage is allocated. Each card can typically take two 'hits', and then it's dead. Some cards deal an instant-kill, some have other special abilities... but in general, you choose what cards you want to fight in all three phases, square off, allocate damage, and then survey the aftermath. The strategy comes in making sure you play the right card, at the right time, in the right phase, and strategic allocation of damage as well. Once combat is over, you go into the repair phase where you can try and patch up your units, and then the whole process starts again. It' unclear whether the rules change later in the game, or what happens after the first combat round, as our demonstration stopped after one exchange of blows.
 

Until you meet the conditions on the blue Doctrine card, you can't attack

Now, one of the crucial issues in any free-to-play game, not to mention a game that revolves around collectibles like a card game, is the pricing model. HOI's pricing model seems very competitive, almost aggressive. Unsurprisingly, many of the people who are working on this project are also Magic fans, and they are just as pissed off as everyone else is about how costly that game can be sometimes. Sign up packages include a starter deck, a promo card, some booster packs, and a couple of tournament entry 'tokens'.

So far it, seems that the Hearts of Iron: The Card Game will draw its revenue from two sources - ranked match entry tokens, and boosters. There are two types of matches you can play in HOI - Casual and Ranked. Casual's are free, but you get no reward for winning them. Ranked matches are self-explanatory, and incur an in-game currency fee to enter, but winners get boosters and possible other prizes as well. This is where Paradox Connect really shines, as any currency won/generate/bought from other Connect titles (let's say, Salem, or Dreamlords) can allegedly be brought over into HOI and spent there. You can also spend real money to get entry token. The Boosters part is again self-explanatory - you pay money for booster packs to get new cards.

What's interesting though is Paradox's incentive system. This is one of the few instances where we've seen a free-to-play model that's actually more in favour of playing for free than paying. The closet is EVE Online (even though it's subscription), where eventually you can earn so much in-game currency you can buy time-codes with that and never have to spend a real penny again. Essentially, Paradox will give you an 'allowance' in in-game currency every week, provided you do the minimum amount required - something arbitrary like play x amount of matches in a week or something.

On top of that, they give you allowance bonuses for doing any one (or more) three types of 'Missions': Medals, Combat and Propaganda. Medals relate to the Paradox Connect achievements - you unlock an achievement that week you get an allowance bonus. Combat Missions are akin to kill-streaks in an FPS - you get x amount of kills, you win x amount of matches, and you get another bonus. These ones will be refreshed weekly so that you always have something new to strive for. The final one, Propaganda, relates to the games Twitter and Facebook integration, but pushing updates to these platforms, you also get an allowance bonus, although they mindful not to flood them with spam.
 

Combat is a simple affair, with damage being represented by tokens

This game really epitomises what Paradox wants to do with the Free-to-play market. It may be a tad on the simple side right now, but with one ear firmly trained to the community, we can easily see this getting bigger and better very quickly. Their aversion to what they call 'gimmicky' 3D renderings or effects is interesting - even the Yu-Gi-Oh DS games have some 3D elements to them now, but it's probably not going to affect things too much. We're quite taken with this game, and we can't wait to put it through its paces and see how it performs in the long-term. Hearts of Iron: The Card Game is due out sometime in Q2 2011, with a closed beta starting within the next couple of weeks.

Most Anticipated Feature: Where they go post launch. It's a little on the simple side right now, but that's key we think for building up a fan-base. But a "ten-page design" document was mentioned that was chock-full of ideas, so we're interested in seeing where it can go from here.