Hearts of Iron IV - Now out!

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Hearts of Iron IV, Paradox's upcoming World War 2 grand strategy game, is now available for pre-order. Shop around for the best deal!

Official blurb:

Victory is at your fingertips! Your ability to lead your nation is your supreme weapon, the strategy game Hearts of Iron IV lets you take command of any nation in World War II; the most engaging conflict in world history.

From the heart of the battlefield to the command center, you will guide your nation to glory and wage war, negotiate or invade. You hold the power to tip the very balance of WWII.

It is time to show your ability as the greatest military leader in the world. Will you relive or change history? Will you change the fate of the world by achieving victory at all costs?

Main Features:

*Total strategic war: War is not only won on land, sea and in the air. It’s also achieved in the hearts and minds of men and women.
*Authentic real-time war simulation: Let the greatest commanders of WW2 fight your war with the tools of the time; tanks, planes, ships, guns and newly discovered weapons of mass destruction.
*Assume control of any nation: Choose from the greatest powers striving for victory, or the small nations trying to weather the storm.
* Turn the world into your battlefield: Experience the full WWII timespan in a topographical map complete with seasons, weather and terrain. Snow, mud, storms can be both your strong ally and a ruthless enemy.
*Negotiate or force your will: Experience the advanced politics and diplomacy systems, form factions, engage in trade for resources and appoint ministers to your party.
*Intense Online Combat: Battle in both competitive and cooperative multiplayer for up to 32 players. Featuring cross-platform multiplayer.
* Give your nation a unique edge: Experience the flexible technology system, where all major powers get their own unique identity. Develop detailed historic tanks and planes through research and army experience.

System requirements:

Minimum:
OS: Windows 7 64-bit or newer
Processor: Intel Core 2 Quad Q9400 @ 2.66 GHz / AMD Athlon II X4 650 @ 3.20 GHz
Memory: 4 GB RAM
Graphics: ATI Radeon HD 5850 or NVIDIA GeForce GTX470 with 1GB VRAM
DirectX: Version 9.0c
Storage: 2 GB available space
Sound Card: Direct X- compatible soundcard.
Additional Notes: Mouse and keyboard are required. / Latest available WHQL drivers from both manufacturers/ Internet Connection or LAN for multiplayer, Up to 32 other players in multiplayer mode.

Recommended:
OS: Windows 7 64-bit or newer
Processor: Intel Core i5 750 @ 2.66 GHz / AMD Phenom II X4 955 @ 3.20 GHz
Memory: 4 GB RAM
Graphics: ATI Radeon HD 6950 or NVIDIA GeForce GTX570 with 2GB VRAM
DirectX: Version 9.0c
Storage: 2 GB available space
Sound Card: Direct X- compatible soundcard.
Additional Notes: Mouse and keyboard are required. / Latest available WHQL drivers from both manufacturers. / Internet Connection or LAN for multiplayer, Up to 32 other players in multiplayer mode.

Useful links:
* Development diaries
* World War Wednesday - developer video playthroughs

Doesn't seem like a ton of value in the upgraded tiers.

I will definitely be grabbing the $40 version, and I will play the hell out of it.

Kamakazi010654 wrote:

Doesn't seem like a ton of value in the upgraded tiers.

I will definitely be grabbing the $40 version, and I will play the hell out of it.

Yeah, I pre-ordered the US$40 tier too ($30 after Green Man Gaming's coupon) - the US$50 tier only adds a bunch of sprites, and I'm not too keen on paying blind for DLC in advance (the top tier).

Fingers crossed, the game will live up to its promise!

PeterS wrote:
Kamakazi010654 wrote:

Doesn't seem like a ton of value in the upgraded tiers.

I will definitely be grabbing the $40 version, and I will play the hell out of it.

Yeah, I pre-ordered the US$40 tier too ($30 after Green Man Gaming's coupon) - the US$50 tier only adds a bunch of sprites, and I'm not too keen on paying blind for DLC in advance (the top tier).

Fingers crossed, the game will live up to its promise!

What was the code for the GMG coupon? The best I can find is 20%.

I believe it's IRON25. I'm very tempted to pre-order. I loved HOI2, but completely bounced off HOI3.

I'm hoping that this time I can finally get a handle on one of these Hearts of Iron games.

I'll be waiting for post-release impressions for sure.

I'm sorely tempted, but I think that HoI is possibly the only game I've got where I've never seen a decent Let's Play of it. Even the ones I've seen from people like Quil18 have usually only lasted a few episodes and gotten really bogged down in the minutiae of things like the chains of command.

Think I'll wait for the Xmas sale on it. Unless someone really does do a good LP.

B Dog wrote:

I believe it's IRON25. I'm very tempted to pre-order. I loved HOI2, but completely bounced off HOI3.

Yep, IRON25!

I'm in the same position as you - while I respect what HOI3 tried to do, HOI2 is my true love - I find HOI2 more elegant and less fiddly. I pre-ordered HOI4 because of my faith that the developers have learned their lesson (davet010, this ties into your point).

I'd really like to do a text-and-screenshot LP of HOI4, real life permitting!

PeterS wrote:
B Dog wrote:

I believe it's IRON25. I'm very tempted to pre-order. I loved HOI2, but completely bounced off HOI3.

Yep, IRON25!

I'm in the same position as you - while I respect what HOI3 tried to do, HOI2 is my true love - I find HOI2 more elegant and less fiddly. I pre-ordered HOI4 because of my faith that the developers have learned their lesson (davet010, this ties into your point).

I'd really like to do a text-and-screenshot LP of HOI4, real life permitting!

I've preordered too. We should try to get a multiplayer game going at some point. The Stallaris multiplayer game is a blast!

Less than 2 weeks!!!!!

So tempted by the GreenManGaming discount.

Paradox has posted the first of their tutorial series of videos, this one on Battle Plans. Should be a new video in the series each day until launch:

Oh lord, there's Let's Plays going up. And I can follow what's going on...

STAY STRONG !

The tutorials they posted are actually pretty good.

Getting excited...

Watched episodes 1-3 of Quil18's LP series.

He's not given up yet and the Spanish Civil War is understandable (in a gameplay sense) - I remember the three episodes he did of HoI 3 stalling at about this point in huge discussions about orders of battle. But in this one, even the decisions to support (he's playing as Italy), to send lend-lease or even volunteer forces seem to have been dramatically tidied up.

It's out! I downloaded it at about 12:01 eastern today. I haven't had a chance to fire it up yet though.

PWAlessi wrote:

It's out! I downloaded it at about 12:01 eastern today. I haven't had a chance to fire it up yet though.

Envious! I can't wait to try it after I get home from university tonight.

TJ Hafer has a glowing review up: http://m.au.ign.com/articles/2016/06...

A quick note on difficulty: I get the feeling that HOI veterans should play on hard. Will report back.

I'm awaiting Elysium's Let's Play videos.

This game scares me.

Played the tutorial with Italy and I'm a happy customer.

Things are fairly well explained but I'm still falling back to the official tutorial videos. The systems are quite different than EUIV so I'm not gaining much efficiencies yet from my xp with other Paradox games.

I know it's not usually the focus or strong point of Paradox grand strategy but I love the dynamic weather and day/night cycles on the world map, right down to the reflection of the sun on the ocean.

I do like that they have linked the tutorial and info boxes to the Wiki. That works well and helps with the minutiae.

Can't believe I forgot this thread existed. I posted some very early observations in the Wargamer's Corner.

Has anyone done a Lets Play of a game with multiple people running a single country? (Is that even supported?)

Yonder, the developers have done a LP of multiple people playing France:

PeterS wrote:

TJ Hafer has a glowing review up: http://m.au.ign.com/articles/2016/06...

That's a helpful, comprehensive, and well written review. Thanks for sharing.

Very curious to hear what everyone thinks of it here!

I'm loving it. I've got 12 hours played so far in my first campaign as Italy. I accidentally started the global conflict by attacking Yugoslavia with England guaranteeing them. I saw the warning that they might take action but thought it was too early for them to jump in. I'm loving the battle plan system as it really allows me to think bigger picture here. Here's my current situation in November of '41. I don't think Japan is going to start anything with the US as they got their butt handed to them by China. The US has taken the national focuses to get itself into the war in early '42 so I expect things to change quickly.

I've really had to garrison France and Italy as England has attempted multiple landings requiring a strong response from me.

IMAGE(http://i.imgur.com/s3rVThk.png)

I'm working through the tutorial. I missed the part in the battle plan tutorial where you assign divisions to the battle plan. Actually, since I was playing around with the editor, maybe I de-selected my divisions. Anyway, when I started executing the battle plan (and unpaused the game), none of my divisions moved. The nice thing though was that the battle plan arrow said, "no divisions assigned" which was nice because that helped me notice that I had NO DIVISIONS ASSIGNED!

Anyway, I'm enjoying the game so far.

Yeah, I'm still a little sketchy on how the battle plans work despite playing for about 10 hours and watching the battle plan tutorial 3 times.

PWAlessi wrote:

I'm working through the tutorial. I missed the part in the battle plan tutorial where you assign divisions to the battle plan. Actually, since I was playing around with the editor, maybe I de-selected my divisions. Anyway, when I started executing the battle plan (and unpaused the game), none of my divisions moved. The nice thing though was that the battle plan arrow said, "no divisions assigned" which was nice because that helped me notice that I had NO DIVISIONS ASSIGNED!

Anyway, I'm enjoying the game so far.

Is it smart enough to do a similar warning if you have grossly too few divisions assigned? If you make a Battle Plan pointed at 15 regions with 100 defending divisions and you have 11 divisions assigned to carry it out, for example.

Yonder wrote:

Is it smart enough to do a similar warning if you have grossly too few divisions assigned? If you make a Battle Plan pointed at 15 regions with 100 defending divisions and you have 11 divisions assigned to carry it out, for example.

Kind of. When you select the front line, it will highlight the provinces green, yellow, or red to indicate if you have enough troops there to cover that line. When you make the battle plan (draw the arrows) there's a little bar at the bottom of the screen under the general's picture that will give you more info as to what how the AI thinks the battle will turn out.

Impressions are positive. The UI and nation management are definitely more elegant than previous HOI games, and It's clear what leads to what.

Assessing the gameplay is harder. The tutorial was pretty cool; however, democratic Australia on veteran difficulty probably wasn't the best choice for a practice game, as I didn't have the industry or manpower to accomplish much. I did send 4-5 divisions to North Africa, which spearheaded the Commonwealth offensive into Libya, and then joined the Anglo-French invasion of Northern Italy. While Italy is in deep trouble (hemmoraghing manpower and with foreign armies on her soil), Germany is doing much better. Despite fighting Britain, France, and the USSR at the same time, the Germans have taken Paris, Leningrad, and are at the gates of Moscow. Yikes!

I still can't work out the air interface! Maybe I need to check the tutorial again.

Yep. This is very deep and lots of fun so far.

I screwed up my first peace conference tutorial, so I restarted. This time, I selected the "4" skill armor guy to conduct the campaign, and instead of drawing the offensive line straight through the mountains to Addis Abbaba as I did the first time, I hooked it through the plains.

This caused my troops to split more than the original, and instead of slogging into the mountains and defeating the troops there in a few months, I had a group of four divisions rush in through the plains. This left fewer troops to fight in the mountains and we were stymied there. My four divisions were cut off from land supply. So I ordered them to fight on by taking control of them seperately and aiming them at the capitol. (Simply click unit and right-click target state).

This caused the Ethiopians to try to pull some forces out of the mountain fight; they were caught instead as we overwhelmed the ones left behind and advanced. There was only one division in the capitol when I got there, so even my worn-out troops took them out pretty quickly. And that ended the war.

The first time, I didn't have any troops end up cut off, but with a "1" commander instead of a "4", individual fights took longer, it seemed. They proceeded pretty much straight-line, allowing the Ethiopians to reform and get about 3 divisions to the capitol. We still won, but took more losses in the process.

Still, it's a good example of how small changes (commander, offensive plan) can create big changes.

After winning the war, the Brits now moved their troops to my east AND west borders. I assigned my Italian Ethiopia army (the ones that stayed behind) to the western border, but that did not set up troops on the eastern one. I found I could select the army, grab four divisions, and ctrl-click the eastern, separate border and those troops then set up a defensive line there. That was pretty cool.

Also, I had some troops sailing from Ethiopia to Sicily after the war, but they were still part of the Italian Ethiopia army. I found I could remove them from the army and assign them to a new Libyan army (with a defensive-minded general and staff) while they were in transit; no special requirements to change units between armies, probably due to radio and such.

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