Thanks be to Mindless, who forced me to acquire this game under pain of death. Now for the real topic.

Hearts of Iron II is a grand strategy game where you take over the running of a country from the year 1936 through to 1947, from Germany all the way down to Haiti, and try to either survive or conquer the world. I generally go for the latter. You take over such things as production, diplomacy (including a choice of ministers for your nation), war and espionage (in the expansion packs).

Now, my question is, does anyone else play this game and what sort of strategies do you use? Specifically ones that take the game in an ahistorical direction. I'm still not very good working with naval powers such as the UK/USA/Japan, but Operation Barbarossa is also pretty difficult to succeed in without a clear plan of attack (and lots of firepower). Any suggestions?

 

I was wondering if you meant II or III. I tried playing 3, but the fact that I only get money every second day still makes me go oO and keeps me from playing it.

 

Conquer the world in eleven years?

how... productive.

 

Well my record for conquering France is about two weeks so the world in eleven years ain't that far out of an objective.

Also, I've tried playing HoI III but everything just seems too crowded or unclear for me to enjoy properly. Like the specific territories not being differentiated without being highlighted, that really annoyed me.

 

For some reason I really enjoy playing as the smaller countries in HoI2, like Austria or Haiti... welll, maybe not Haiti, but I enjoy playing as countries that I dont have to scroll across the screen 3 to 4 times to see the other side (I'm looking at you USSR) and can easily keep track of my military. But I also have to admit I don't play it very fairly. Cheating is a fairly frequent occurance in my games because I simply cannot be bothered sometimes XD.

 

Kudos to Xiph for getting me into this game. And as for Barbarossa, just take all the objectives needed for the Bitter Peace (Leningrad, Stalingrad, Moscow, Baku, and Sverlovsk), and pocket as many Soviet divisions as you can. They'll fall apart without supply, and the Luftwaffe is epic at using CAS to flatten Soviet divisions. Good air force is always needed for the Soviets, and they have a pretty shitty air force.