Hearts of Iron IV
Hearts of Iron IV was released in 2016 as the latest entry in Paradox Interactive’s long-running Hearts of Iron series of grand strategy games. Continuing the tradition of its predecessors, the fourth title brings players the full scope of the brewing world at war, with 1936 and 1939 scenario start dates. Players can take the roll of any existing nation on earth at the time, and must manage resources, industry, politics, the development of new technologies, and the organization and deployment of their armed forces as the globe erupts in war.
As with its more immediate predecessors, Hearts of Iron IV, or HOI IV as it is often abbreviated, continues to present Paradox’s traditional grand strategy model with many changes to the nuances of combat and diplomacy from previous titles. A new resource was added, political power, that enabled each nation to make changes to its government and laws, engage in direct and indirect political maneuvering, and research national focuses. Political power accrues at a base amount, with modifiers adding or subtracting to the daily gain as appropriate. There is no penalty for running out of political power, but if the player is reduced to a negative gain of power they will be unable to continue developing focuses.
The national focus tree is perhaps HOI IV’s biggest addition to the series. Instead of scripted events guiding the course of historic events and developments, each nation now has a focus tree that contains numerous political choices that initiate diplomatic actions, develop countries, and lead to war. Historical events such as the Anschluss of Austria appear as part of a chain of focuses that guide the historic development of the Third Reich, culminating in war with France and England. Most nations utilize a generic focus tree which provides industrial development, military research, and the option to make a nation communist, democratic, or fascist. The great powers come with unique, highly developed focus trees, and with expansions more of the minor nations such as Australia and Romania gain their own special focus trees as well.
In past titles, players were concerned primarily with the assembling of armies and navies, who led them, and how they were utilized in individual battles. For this latest release a slew of detailed mechanics now define the operating parameters for division performance in the field. Divisions are made using templates which automatically draw the appropriate equipment from the national stockpile during training. Combat width, which increases or decreases based on the number of battalions a template requires, determines the operational viability of a specific template. If a template’s width is too high it will be unable to participate in most battles; if it is too low it runs the risk of being overwhelmed by larger opposing divisions.
The division template and how it interacts with the numerous combat mechanics is perhaps the most confusing and arbitrary part of HOI IV, and a hallmark of the game’s overall style. While the template is easy to learn and use, the reasons for its performance on the field are cryptic and at times illogical. Numerous guides exist online regarding appropriate templates for various widths and purposes, but performance of these templates in game varies heavily and the player is often at a loss to understand why a supposedly advanced template design is failing to overpower inferior combat formations.
This complexity permeates most aspects of the game and is certainly prevalent in the military side. The use interface serves perfectly well at informing the player about their ships, planes, and combat formations. However it’s over-reliance on symbols and parlance leaves most new players confused as to what any of the unit commands actually do. This level of complexity is more subtle in the economic and diplomatic sections, where symbols are more easily decrypted and effects are more basic. Yet nuances remain, with most players finding certain political actions restricted or even inaccessible depending on a variety of factors relating to their own nation as well as the world in general.
Of course, in typical Paradox fashion, all this complexity doesn’t exist without a way to subtly manipulate it. The division template designer allows for almost any combination of units to be applied as long as the player has enough army experience to afford it. Factories can continue producing obsolete equipment, and even when going the historical focus route players don’t have to make alliances or enemies with the traditional targets. Admirals and generals can be swapped at will, with a short travel delay, and air wings can have any type or number of planes assigned to them.
The user interface features a level of customization as well. Players can assign specific symbols to division templates allowing them to be identified at a glance. Ships, air wings, and armies can be renamed and the color and symbol utilized by each army can be modified for distinctive recognition. Notifications also crowd the top of the screen, highlighting production, diplomacy, or other areas that might need to be addressed. Clicking on each notification brings up the relevant screen and, although not precisely perfect, allows for quick examination of any deficiencies.
HOI IV goes a long way in telling the player what they can and should do. Sadly, it is also quite adept at telling the player what they cannot do. The default settings for a standard game are designed to funnel the normally free-flowing mechanics into the more predictable historical setting of World War II. Diplomatic actions, economic and military laws, and even national leaders are all restricted by a complex web of ideology, world tension, and military parameters. These cannot be circumvented, and the passage of game time has been observed to be the only true cure. Most nations have at least three years of in-game time to adjust themselves, but ambitious players will find the limitations on their goals frustrating and sometimes completely obstructive. It is highly recommended that players familiar with the basic mechanics adjust their game’s diplomatic and ideological settings to ensure the maximum number of options are available.
At its heart, HOI IV is a WWII simulator to the core. Its alternate paths and options are numerous and extensively developed, but prospective players should approach the game with the foremost notion that they will be playing through historical WWII. With this mindset, the restrictions and difficulties that may arise will seem more flavorful and less belligerent, allowing gamers to gradually ease into the notion that events need not follow a set pattern. Coming to HOI IV with the idea of immediately turning history around may lead to substantial disappointment that can overshadow the elements of the game that are actually done well, such as the division template designer and the nature of focus trees as player-driven events.
Grand strategy is a niche genre for a reason, and players may surprise themselves by finding that they like, or dislike, this style of play when it may have a great deal of, or no, relation to their preferred genre. Anyone that enjoys nation building and logistical organization will fit right into HOI IV and shouldn’t hesitate to try the game out. The new content from the many DLCs might seem overwhelming, but it helps in the Hearts of Iron series to start at the end of development to avoid learning strategies that are rendered obsolete by later updates. Of course, the game is perfectly playable with any DLC combination and is overall reasonably priced. Most importantly, prospective gamers should remember that failure is part of the learning in this game, and quite often the thrill of a hard won victory in the greatest conflict in human history is worth the harsh learning experiences required to achieve it.
Hearts of Iron II
First published in 2005, Hearts of Iron II, with its accompanying expansions, is considered one of the flagship titles of Paradox Interactive and the title that launched the Hearts of Iron series, which at the time of this writing is on its fourth iteration. Following a design formula that would become Paradox’s standard, Hearts of Iron II, abbreviated Hoi2 by the fanbase, is one of the largest scale grand strategy games about WWII that has ever been produced.
Hoi2 takes the setting of WWII and puts the player in an almost godlike position of control over a country. The player must manage national resources, production, politics, and the command logistics and organization of their nation’s military. Many mechanical liberties are taken to showcase the level of removal that the player has from the day to day business in their nation, and to simplify complex processes like weapons research and industrial production. The smallest controllable unit is a division, air squadron, or naval flotilla, with brigades appearing as dependent attachments to divisions and ships. Industrial production involves simply ordering a unit to be produced with parallel and/or serial runs, while ensuring there is enough Industrial Capacity, or IC, to complete the process on time.
Yet the simplification of most of the specific processes in Hoi2 has resulted in many general processes being included, such as the management of specific territorial infrastructure, the direct diplomacy between over fifty potential nations, and the hidden nature of combat modifiers such as weather, terrain, and division overcrowding. This has all resulted in one of Hoi2’s biggest noted flaws: abrupt complexity. Beginner players see the exact same user interface as advanced players do, and must manage all of the same systems. The tutorial covers the basics of gameplay, particularly the movement and organization of divisions, as well as the basic controls for diplomatic and political interaction, but fails to accurately inform and test the player on the nuances of combat or the potential optimizations of even basic systems like industrial modifiers and chains of command.
All of that is to say that Hoi2 is very hard to learn; it’s not to say that Hoi2 is a bad or poorly designed game. Once a player has broken through the wall of ignorance that effectively locks all but the easiest playable nations, they are able to explore and enjoy a wide range of options and possibilities. Although the game is primarily a WWII simulator, with historical events coded in and most national AIs programmed to follow historic courses, the player can take their nation in any direction they please. Radical changes like turning the United States communist or Japan allying with the Soviet Union take time and skill, but more subtle actions such as successfully defending France can be accomplished with only a modest level of familiarity with the game.
An introduction to Hoi2 cannot be made easier for new players, but is absolutely worth the effort for anyone looking to take on the roll of a major world power in one of the most significant periods in human history. Obviously the major powers of the period are the ones with the most capacity for flexibility and outright conquest, but any nation that was present at the period can be played. Most importantly, the game proceeds in a sort of real time, with each hour of each day from the start point (as early as 1936) to the game’s end (as late as 1964) proceeding at a rate between 1 hr every five real seconds to 4 hrs per real second. The player can adjust that rate at will, and even pause the game to issue detailed orders and react to events and notifications at their leisure.
If any gamer every looked at a map, illustration, or diagram of a WWII front or operation and imagined moving those unit markers and shifting vector arrows, than Hoi2 is their dream game. It’s primary learning method is failure, but the player loses nothing but time by exploring different nations and strategies that might end in defeat in order to acquire essential familiarity with the game’s mechanics and nuances. Hoi2’s simple graphics and well designed processes ensure that it runs smoothly on old and new machines with minimal software requirements. The grand strategy genre will not appeal to all strategy gamers, but for those that enjoy the complexity of large scale command, Hearts of Iron 2 is a title worth mastering.
Warlock II: The Exiled
After Paradox Interactive’s fun-loving, fantasy-filled 4x Warlock: Master of the Arcane became a surprise success it wasn’t long before fans of the game were delighted to learn that Paradox was producing a sequel. Warlock II: The Exiled, which was released in 2014, brought improved performance, a greatly improved user interface, and new content to the burgeoning Warlock series.
The first thing that should be made clear about Warlock II is that it should be viewed more as an expansion than a sequel. Warlock II contains tons of new content and new campaign modes but its foundation remains the same. Players will recognize the graphics, mechanics, races, units, and terrain immediately. This doesn’t in anyway detract from the enjoyment of Warlock II or its position as an improvement over its predecessor but it is important for players to avoid the potential disappointment of viewing Warlock II as a true sequel in the same vein as Age of Empires III or Warcraft III.
The story of Warlock II follows the narrative setup by the Armageddon DLC of Warlock. This is reflected by a major change in the campaign layout. Players now follow a linear progression of story quests and scripted events to return from the outland shards of the multiverse to Ardania where the United One, a Great Mage who successfully cast the Unity Spell, awaits to confront them. All of the 4x elements of Warlock remain for this campaign mode (except the Unity Spell victory, which is not available in the campaign mode). Players can explore the outland shards through portals by completing a quest to open a portal and sending units through to the new world. Story quests can be completed at the player’s discretion allowing the player to explore all of the randomly generated shards before finally proceeding back to Ardania.
An alternative form of the campaign called Battle for Outlands mimics the outland shard environment of the campaign without the story quests turning it into true 4x freeform gameplay. Each shard is based off of a single terrain environment found in Warlock on Ardania and the various underworlds. Several new terrain types were added to the previous underworlds of Warlock and seventeen shards can be found in a single game on the largest map size. Each shard has enough room for three to four full sized cities, but this isn’t a serious problem with Warlock II’s new special city mechanic which allows players to convert unwanted cities into specialized minor cities that can produce gold, mana, or serve as fortresses. These special cities only occupy the tiles immediately around them and do not count towards the game’s new city limit feature. A city limit should seem unusual in a 4x game but it can be expanded through research and is sufficient for player needs in all but the largest maps.
All units, structures, spells, and great mage perks from Warlock return in Warlock II and are joined by two new races: the multi-racial Planestriders and the mechanically oriented Svarts. The new races feature entirely new unit rosters and each brings two Great Mages to the usual selection of Great Mage profiles. As with the previous races, the Planestriders and Svarts specialize in the production of certain resources and emphasize certain unit and damage types. They blend in very well with the existing races and add greatly to the sandbox potential of mixing racial combos in large games. Warlock II also adds several new Great Mage perks and starting spells; including ways to moderate the city limit and the possibility to select starting shards and even a spell that can summon a random lord for hire. DLC has also been released providing more start locations, starting lords, and unique spells.
Perhaps one of the most notable changes in Warlock II is the enhancement of the spell research system. In Warlock five low tier spells appeared randomly at the start of the game for the player to research. Each spell would be replaced by a related, higher tier spell when it was researched. Now spells have been divided into Sorcery, Wizardry, and Divine categories and further broken up into several tiers based on their cost and power. Researching a certain number of spells in a category unlocks the next tier of spells for research giving the player much greater freedom to choose what spells to get and when.
Sadly, multiplayer has not seen much improvement since Warlock. The campaign and Battle for Outlands modes are both compatible with Warlock II and, despite a buggy launch, are for the most part very stable. However, the lingering lack of simultaneous turns, while appropriate for a 4x game that emphasizes combat, is a real damper for a game with limited demographic and economic micromanagement. The additional fact that the interface is only somewhat successful at keeping track of units strung out across the many outland shards makes turns in the later game laborious as each player checks on their multiple worlds while the other players idly stand by.
Graphics requirements have not increased by any noticeable amount. Machines and internet connections that handled Warlock should be able to just as easily manage Warlock II. The voices and sound for the new units is a welcome addition to the existing cast. Another minor change was the transition of several of the Great Mage’s expressions into fantasy languages. This change certainly increased the flavor of encounters with other opponents, but considering the limited number of phrases utilized in diplomacy it can be a minor annoyance as the AI babbles random words at the player over and over.
Warlock II is a very appropriate follow on to Warlock. Even though it lacks the all-encompassing content overhaul that marks a true sequel, Warlock II vastly improves on every feature of Warlock and fans of the first Warlock game, and the Majesty series of games in general, will certainly enjoy Warlock II. The added content greatly increases replayability even for those gamers who have already exhausted Warlock as the new races, game modes, and content provide even more options for exploration and racial combos. Perhaps the greatest mark of Warlock II’s triumph (and tragedy) as a follow-on is that after playing Warlock II, the original Warlock will appear too lackluster and uninteresting to revisit.
Warlock: Master of the Arcane
By the time Paradox Interactive released one of its titles set in the Majesty universe game setting in 2012 the 4x genre was well established with the Civilization series and its latest iteration Civilization V serving as standard bearers. Warlock: Master of the Arcane takes many traditional elements made popular by these other titles and adds a strong fantasy combat aspect to it. Indeed, saying that Warlock is a ‘fantasy Civ V with more combat’ would be a pretty accurate summary of the game’s overall appearance and performance.
Warlock, despite its similarities, was not meant to be a Civ V clone but rather uses reliable mechanics of 4x play to facilitate its new concepts of fantasy adventure and conquest. Domestic management, particularly in the areas of ideology, policies, and great people are toned down or practically non-existent. The centrality and dynamics of military conquest takes a prominent, almost central role with each faction featuring its own unit and unique building roster and special Lord hero units appearing to add their considerable ability to a faction’s might. Spells also make a significant appearance, providing the only element that could be equated to technology as the spells must be researched before they can be used.
As with many 4x games the storyline is oriented around the characters that represent a faction’s leader, in this case the Great Mages. When selecting a Great Mage the player can view several paragraphs of biography and backstory. This ties into the in-game lore, accessible when clicking on the portraits of units, and to a lesser degree the narrator’s exposition when the player achieves victory. Aside from this there is little story to be found, with most of the in-world immersion coming from interaction with AI Great Mages and the exploring of the uncharted Ardanian landscape. While this does effectively limit the game to one mode in singleplayer and multiplayer this is not a major detriment to the enjoyment of Warlock. Just as in other 4x games the narrative is primarily crafted by the player. Players can even customize or create their own Great Mages by choosing a portrait, name, faction color, race, and starting spells or abilities.
Other prime elements of single player enjoyment stem from exploring Ardania and parallel worlds. With each new game resources, monster lairs, and neutral cities are randomly generated offering new challenges each time a new game is begun, ensuring that each race can be thoroughly tested before the process becomes routine. Sadly the AI is less lacking in staying power with limited diplomatic ability and generally simple (if sometimes effective) defensive tactics. The world’s monsters however form a vastly greater threat, particularly in pursuit of holy sites or rare resources in the parallel worlds.
Although multiplayer doesn’t exactly bring anything fresh to the experience of Warlock (aside from the obvious benefit of another human) the game is fairly easy on internet requirements. It’s turn-based play is sadly limited to the active player, no simultaneous turns are present, but as a turn-based game with little in the way of In-between-turn processes the game experiences little variance in bandwidth requirement. Unfortunately random crashes can be more common than one would like and frequent saves are recommended. Several patches have ensured that primary functionality are maintained so simply playing the game is unlikely to induce an error, yet with the release of Warlock 2 further multiplayer support is not to be expected.
Warlock: Master of the Arcane for all its flaws is a masterful first step in what could become a very entertaining and endearing series. Warlock 2 (which will be discussed later) follows in its steps with many improvements and gives great credit to everything Warlock served as a proving grounds to develop. Warlock’s games are lively, humorous, and for the most part fairly prompt with a fair amount of customization options for players to explore. Any 4x player, skilled or casual, who wanted to see fantasy and more combat in their Civilization games will be more than satisfied with what Warlock: Master of the Arcane has to offer.