Hearts of Iron IV [Review of the game]

Comrades! Today we celebrate the anniversary of the Great Communist American Revolution! Hooray! Hooray! Hooray! The Red Sun today shines especially brightly to all the workers of the proletariat! And on this significant day, our ground forces were able to successfully land in the Far East of imperialist Russia, which abandoned the faithful and bright path of communism! At the same time, their ally, Germany, is desperately fighting the superior forces of the Polish-Estonian-Lithuanian coalition, which are already located three hundred kilometers from Berlin! In honor of such a glorious day, each worker of our right business is supposed to be a pint of selected beer for three pennies!

If you have a small attack. This is not a nonsense nonsense and not a temporary parallel, accidentally created by one teenager in an orange vest. This is all the result of a long process of building communist sentiments in the United States, neglect of Stalinist purges and, as a result, the conspiracy of the Trotskyists who returned the Russian Empire to the map of the world, as well as the far -sighted policy of the Polish state, who decided to create an alliance from the Baltic countries to confront Nazi threat. And all this in one party in Hearts of Iron 4! Or, as it has been crying for a long time with us – Victory Day.

Paradox and her games have always been a closed club with a high entry bar. While other developers tried to make their games accessible and understandable to anyone who wanted, as if on purpose, thousands of menu, submenu, tables, graphs and other complex garbage, from which modern playwalks so carefully tried to get rid of.

But even among such "botanists", there is the most important ( Victoria We are awkwardly silent for a comic effect) – the most incomprehensible and terrible, capable of causing a nervous tick simply by showing a map of the game world. And the name is series to him Hearts of Iron. Battalions, divisions, corps, flotillas, aviation wings, political parties, factories, resources, fronts, espionage, research, development of weapons, antibiotics for soldiers and a natural table from the size of a hundred cells, in which the characteristics of your troops are spelled out. To deal with all this avalanche of information, even a hundred front -line grams would not have been enough.

However, time goes on and even Paradox They realized that the more accessible and understandable the game will be, the better it will be for everyone, especially when the game itself has a very good potential. Which, unfortunately, not many could reveal. And so, releasing "humanized" Europa Universalis 4, Crusader Kings 2 And recent Stellaris, The Swedes tried to make their most loaded project more accessible – Victory Day. Whether it turned out? This will be discussed.

And so, the game invites us to choose between 1936 and 1939, respectively. The first option is some lull in front of the storm, which allows you to prepare its state for the upcoming war or, to turn the course of history and hit in a completely different direction than your chosen one. This option is perfect not only for those who want to block the history of the country before the start of the Second World War, but also to those who first decide to try themselves as president or dictator. Fortunately, there is enough time.

The second option throws the player immediately by the first September 1939. The Germans stand at the Polish gate, hiding behind the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, and politely ask if Poland will come out for a walk and if not, let them give them to Warsaw. All historically important events (like Austria’s Austria or Japanese invasion) have already occurred and will not be possible to greatly redraw the existing world order, but the game immediately throws the player who was eager for the player directly into the bead.

It is worth noting that at the start of the game there is a point of conformity of history. If it is activated – AI, which controls the states, will act within the framework of their historical protege, repeating its past actions. If you turn off this option, you can well discover yourself in a completely different world where the USSR is fighting with Great Britain, and Germany is friends with Poland.

Having chosen the reference point, the player will provide a choice from the “large seven” of countries (from Japan, to the USSR), each of which has not only distinctive characteristics like a political system or weapons, but also with their own “ideas” that determine the whole style of play. In addition to these seven countries, one can also note Poland, which also has its own tree of ideas, which allows, for example, to organize a Baltic alliance. Well, of course, no one forbids you to choose any other country throughout the globe, they will not have only unique ideas and they are some branches that allow you to blind from their state some kind of communist country with developed aircraft or right-wing dictatorship with formidable ground-based force.

Without putting off in a long box, let’s talk about the tree of ideas. Or, as it is called here – Focus tree. Using their previous achievements from EU4, Paradox They took national ideas that opened bonuses for each power and expanded it several times. So, each state has several dozen conditional “perks”, which open in a tree -like, sometimes mutually exclusive order, once every seventy days. Each open feature gives any bonuses, depending on both the perk itself and the selected country. For example, the USSR can organize Stalinist purges, which will reduce the level of counter-revolutionary sentiments in the country.

In addition to such individual political characteristics, focuses are occupied by a special niche that allow you to adjust their foreign policy. So, the Third Reich has a whole separate tree for the capture of Europe. It contains perks from the category of “Molotovaya-Ribbentrop Pact, Poland Section, Austria Anschluz, Union with the USSR and many others that allow you to change your list of enemies and allies in the roots.

Some tricks open only when https://casino-love.org certain conditions are reached. Such as a solid number of factories. Or, for example, the Soviet Union has a perk “Defense of Moscow”, which increases the number of protective structures at the capital, if the enemy approaches it close.

Well, the remaining tricks make it possible to accelerate the development and study of your political, industrial or military industries. Ultimately, having studied the necessary perks, you can completely redraw the world map, create an invincible union, make a powerful production factory from your power, or become an advanced science of science, which only adds reigree to the game.

Having dealt with national tricks, it will come to look into the window of politics. Experienced players will immediately notice his some impoverishment, which is compensated by the mentioned tree of ideas, but still. In the political information window, we will be made to understand which parties have the greatest influence in the country when the next elections will be, what ministers are appointed and what is happening with a call or trade.

Spending points of our political influence, we can change all of the above points. We can assign a certain person to the post of military adviser and thereby increase the firing power of artillery. Choose a specific company that will be the production of equipment and reduce production time on the line. Change the form of foreign trade or conduct a militarization of the economy, increasing the production of military equipment.

Having put on the appropriate managerial apparatus around you, you should look into the research section. Here we are waiting for various branches of technology in industry, aviation, artillery and ground forces. A familiar system of tree-like and mutually exclusive research will allow the player not only to invent some new tank, rifle or special. The unit, but also allow you to choose between, for example, the concentration of production or vice versa, its greatest resettlement in order to reduce potential damage from air sections.

In addition to the usual research, their scientific resources can also be allowed to develop special doctrines. Whether it is terrestrial, air or sea. Here the player will have to choose what he wants from his army. Will she be strong in defense? Or will carry out lightning -fast blitzkrings? Will the army be numerous or perfectly trained? Each branch excludes the adoption of everyone else, so you should think in advance about the specialization of its army.

Another important parameter that you should follow from time to time is the level of universal “chaos” that is happening in the world. The more all kinds of skirmishes, captures and sections of the land occurs, the more this counter grows in the corner of the screen. When he approaches a hundred, it already becomes clear to everyone that it is a stone’s throw. This will help all kinds of democratic states to justify the militarization of their economy or a more extensive call of recruits.

Having dealt with scientific and political affairs, let’s move on to the matter of urgent and more physical. To industry. Now, instead of the old factory production system, the game has a more convenient system of the production line, which are already operating for factories. The player is free to choose what exactly he needs to produce on a certain line, also choosing the number of military factories involved in this line. The longer the line produces the same equipment or weapon, the more efficiently and faster it works, unless, of course, it puts sticks in the wheels of the lack of resources.

For the operation of each plant on a certain line, a certain resource is required. Weapons need steel, and all kinds of equipment – oil, and the like. The production of these resources can be engaged in yourself if in the territory of your state there is a deposit of these resources. Or you can organize trade with your neighbors so that they provide you with the most necessary.

But you will have to pay for resources not by rubles or pounds, but by your production. For each resource, one of their civilian factories will have to be leased. They are spent on improving infrastructure, protective structures, radars, airports and, actually other plants. Therefore, if you decide to buy up all the resources around, you risk being left without production.

At first glance, it seems that such a system is complicated, but it is worth digging into it, understanding how the trade routes work, how to build new plants, how to rebuild existing fronts of the front, how to effectively redistribute the existing military plants for the production of scarce weapons, as well as understanding how the response exports of excess resources (for which we ourselves are rented out of strangers), then the production of goods and the production of goods and the production of goods and the production of goods and the production of goods and production the economy as a whole becomes quite understandable.

Before you begin to resolve issues with neighboring states for an violent way, let’s talk about how to do with peaceful ways. Namely – about diplomacy and espionage. In addition to all kinds of union agreements, Bellie’s incidents, exploration on the battlefield or “peeping” for other people’s research, it is worthwhile to separately note the possibility of supporting parties within a potential enemy. Several inhabited Cossacks can reinforce a revolutionary fire, which can turn into a real confusion and turn the political system in the country upside down. Unfortunately, the AI ​​itself prefers not to use such interesting things.

Well, now it’s time to talk about the most interesting – about an uncompromising meat grinder, about millions of soldiers, about a hundred divisions, about war. To begin with – you will need those who will fight. Depending on your mobilization policy, every month, recruits will be in your army from which you can train divisions. In addition to recruits, each division is necessary for weapons, which is produced on those very production lines with the efforts of military factories.

The divisions themselves consist of separate infantry battalions, tanks, artillery, cavalry and various machines. Support units are also supplemented to them, such as repair units or mobile hospitals. Of the equipped battalions, there is already a need for a certain equipment. If you currently do not have enough weapons or people, then the production of new divisions to stop, although they can be allowed into battle and in such a state gained state.

As soon as you chose suitable divisions from battalions, armed and equipped them with personnel, you will have to encounter the scale of the “organization” of the division. This can be said, the moral of your people. If she sinks to zero – they will refuse to move and generally will fight disgustingly.

Completely finished divisions can already be united in entire armies. And the army to give the generals to the generals. As soon as you form a certain army, you can choose the front of the upcoming hostilities, draw the path of the offensive, indicate the necessary tasks and order your army to prepare. And hoping that this time, the schizuated AI will not begin to alternate and mumble your army, because the battles here are still throwing cubes.

Millions and one trifle affect the chances of your victory. Weather, landscape, fortifications, equipment, numbers, aviation support, composition of divisions, general experience, time of day, time of year, presence of ships or support of artillery. And taking into account the fact that AI sometimes acts very strange, refusing, for example, to take enemy troops into the boiler, preferring to run away or attack them on the forehead, then you have to very often abandon a rather interesting system of warfare for the sake of the usual drag of detachments from the province to the province. And then the gifted computer general suddenly wants to attack the enemy’s fortifications with just an arrived, half-dead detachment.

And since we started talking about the fleet and aviation – they are not intuitive to manage them. You still produce them on military lines, collecting air wings or flotillas, which later can order to fulfill a certain task: to bomb some part of the card, support the ground forces, enter the battle with the enemy forces. Overshadows all this that the areas of the card available for such actions are very extensive. And, for example, in order to bomb Warsaw, you have to indicate the current region for its aircraft not a specific province, but the whole region – Eastern Poland.

If you are accompanied by luck, if your troops have an uninterrupted supply of equipment and soldiers, then the front begins to move, little by little repainting the captured territories in your color and moving the front line towards the enemy. Looks, honestly, very atmospheric.

Unfortunately, all this atmosphere still requires effort. The local interface, although it has become more friendly than it was previously, is still difficult for understanding and, for example, to find how to use the notorious aircraft, you have to open six or seven tabs. In order to increase your chances of winning the battle, you have to click on every location to see, swamps there or meadows. Whether it is raining there now or not, because the developers did not screw a special map for the landscape or weather effects.

You will really have to “study” to just play the game, not to win. Local training kutsya to disgrace and includes only one and a half dozen steps, which is certainly not enough for the game of such depths. Just to realize exactly how to design divisions better – it will take more than one hour.

But it is still worth. Paradox really tried to make the game more accessible, abolishing many extra elements, although some of them gave their charm to the game. Getting a good picture, some comfortable innovations and getting rid of unnecessary ballast, Victory Day 4 definitely deserves attention. At least in order to look at the map in childhood, draw arrows on it, decorate “your own and strangers” and watch how the world changes at the behest of our actions.

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