Hearts of Iron 3

[alanschu]

Haha, it'd only be a handful of people if I do it

[EUIX]

I am sure the first CORE mod will fix a lot of issues the die hard fans have.

[alanschu]

Yes probably. Or Stony Road

 

 

I'm just messing around as Germany, and so far having a good time.

 

The game does have performance issues, but alas. I'm still having a good time haha.

[Kaftan Barlast]

Im going to try this, I will probably be utterly raped by the AI even on easy.

[alanschu]

It takes a bit to get used to the new unit hierarchy, but I am starting to appreciate its level of detail.

 

If you're a geek like me, managing your Corps/Armies/Army Groups/Theaters is a lot of fun haha.

 

Sounds like setting your troops on AI is actually pretty effective. If you're uncertain about putting them ALL on AI control, what people have been doing is taking a corps (up to 5 divisions), and setting a goal for them.

[EUIX]

I am having severe slow downs, the game is unplayable for me right now because 1 hour in game takes like 10 seconds even on the fastest setting, and this is in 1936 I am afraid to think of what will happen in '41. Also there is apparently a bug with consumer spending that makes large nations unplayable, in my game Guangxi Clique has taken over Taiwan and Okinawa in '38 because the Japanese AI is totally destroyed by this problem. I think I am going to have to wait for another patch before things are cleared up.

 

Also there are extremely severe errors in the world map. Stalingrad is in the wrong place, the Wakhan Corridor is under UK control which means Russia and UK border one another in Central Asia, Southern Ontario is messed up, the shape of China is all wrong, the Manchurian border should run along the Amur but they totally screwed up the curvature of the river so Heilongjiang province now has a some bizarre shape, also USSR has no border with Korea, instead Manchuria has access to the Sea of Japan, Sakhalin is not divided properly between USSR and Japan, etc, etc, etc. Some of these are cosmetic but others like Stalingrad in the wrong place needs to be fixed.

 

And what the hell is wrong with the colors? I can barely tell some countries apart all the colors are too light.

 

I don't understand why they did such a bad job on the map when all their maps in their previous games were pretty good. I haven't had a good look at the whole map yet but judging by the posts on the Paradox forums the situation is pretty awful.

Edited August 9, 2009 by EUIX

[alanschu]

I've never really be bothered by map errors to be honest.

 

 

The slow downs are an issue for sure, but I haven't had as bad as you (or people on the forums) seem to be indicating. It seems a bit random as some people with significantly better computers have bigger performance issues than others.

 

 

My computer is an Athlon 64 X2 4200+ (2.2 GHz) with 2 GB of RAM on WinXP 32-bit. I have turned off trees and multisampling just to reduce the load. When I first boot up it's usually really good, so my guesstimation is that there is memory leaking out somewhere.

[EUIX]

I am on a dual core 6400+ with 2 gigs of ram and its really slow for me. It might have to do with the fact I have a widescreen monitor so I always use widescreen resolutions, otherwise the picture gets stretched.

[MacMichael]

Using a dual-core and found that switching the game over to a single core speeds things up. Game runs a little faster and the initial start up is cut roughly in half. Haven't had a chance to try out the hotfix they released today, but it sounds like that improved things for most people, speed wise.

[alanschu]

Is there a way to set it to go single core without loading the game first and then setting CPU affinity in task manager?

[MacMichael]

Is there a way to set it to go single core without loading the game first and then setting CPU affinity in task manager?

 

I use a program I came across a while back called CPU-Control. The first time you set it, you do have to have the game up and running, but after that, if you have CPU-Control running, it does it automatically.

[Kaftan Barlast]

Could anyone recommend me a decent noob guide? Because I just aimlessly faff about doing nothing at all and fiddling with menus. I know theres a game in there somewhere but I havent found it yet.

[alanschu]

Ask away!

[213374U]

Could anyone recommend me a decent noob guide? Because I just aimlessly faff about doing nothing at all and fiddling with menus. I know theres a game in there somewhere but I havent found it yet.

It'll take time for folks to come up with well-written tutorials complete with pictures and all. Mostly because people don't know the game yet all that well and Paradox games are very deep.

 

I'd suggest you try HOI2 first, which is still awesome, with plenty of documentation to help you get a hang of the game, and you won't have to deal with the ****load of bugs that is like a staple of Paradox games at release. I'm going to hold off purchase of HOI3 for that very reason. I had hoped it'd be different this time around, but no such luck. On the other hand, learning everything on your own may be your cup of tea. It's not mine, tbh.

Edited August 11, 2009 by 213374U

[alanschu]

There is a lot similar to HOI2, but I think there's also a significant amount that is different that I don't know if that will work as well as you'd like :\

 

 

Particularly from a combat/managing your armies perspective.

[lord of flies]

Here' a noob guide: don't buy this game for a few months, unless you like paying $40.00 for an open beta. AI-wise, the Japanese AI sticks all of its folks on the border with the USSR so the Chinese can easily repulse them, Italy defends its borders with Germany, France leaves the Italian front totally open and allows them to easily annex all of France. Consumer goods calculations are exponential or some **** that makes France and the USSR incapable of actually using their IC properly. If you don't increase the threat of the Allies, the entire world ends up on their side (including Japan). The weather system can make all of Germany get trapped in a month-long freeze in the middle of July. Playing it on a multicore computer actually makes it go slower.

 

But hey, at least the Theatre AI works!

[alanschu]

Just had my first taste of combat and I did enjoy it. I demanded Danzig from Poland to start the whole thing off. Decided to manually manage the eastern front.

 

 

Had to get used to the fact that only troops all starting the fight at the same time start the fight off together, otherwise they end up in the replacement pool.

 

I don't really care for the really long delay after attacks though (it can be reduced through technology though). However, I probably can't complain too much because I ended up defeating Poland in exactly one month.

 

 

I would echo Lord of the Flies sentiment to wait on purchasing the game. I'm having fun with it, but I could easily see it being a chore for a lot of people.

 

 

Though I didn't have the diplomacy issues that a lot of other people are having, but at the same time I figured I shouldn't game the system like I did in HOI2, and actually did diplomacy and espionage from the beginning, and didn't do a gigantic troop build up/aggressive actions until later in the pre-war period.

 

Right now the Axis consists of Hungary, Italy, Germany, and Croatia, and the Allies consist of UK, France, Poland, and South Africa ( I think Canada just joined too but I can't remember).

[EUIX]

I been running a Communist China game, so far Shaanxi has taken over Manchuko, Guangxi Clique took over Taiwan, Okinawa, and invaded Korea (but has just been repulsed) and Nationalist China invaded the Liaoning Peninsula. Meanwhile in Europe the war started a bit early but Ireland and Finland joined the allies. Now historically Finland...sure possible but Ireland? WTF?

 

With regards to Kaftan I would recommend you put the game off for a month and wait for this giant mess of bugs and performance issues to be sorted out, as of now it's just not worth the time and effort.

 

Hearts of Iron is ultimately an enthusiast game because unless you role play your country so that you play the game realistically it's too easy to just cheese your way through the game. Such as playing Soviet Union and make 500 infantry divisions and then just throwing them at Europe. The German AI in the previous games was never good enough to actually push you back to the gates of Moscow. I would always place all my divisions at the gates of Moscow and just let the Germans eat up most of European Russia for role playing purposes.

Edited August 13, 2009 by EUIX

[Calax]

I been running a Communist China game, so far Shaanxi has taken over Manchuko, Guangxi Clique took over Taiwan, Okinawa, and invaded Korea (but has just been repulsed) and Nationalist China invaded the Liaoning Peninsula. Meanwhile in Europe the war started a bit early but Ireland and Finland joined the allies. Now historically Finland...sure possible but Ireland? WTF?

 

With regards to Kaftan I would recommend you put the game off for a month and wait for this giant mess of bugs and performance issues to be sorted out, as of now it's just not worth the time and effort.

 

Hearts of Iron is ultimately an enthusiast game because unless you role play your country so that you play the game realistically it's too easy to just cheese your way through the game. Such as playing Soviet Union and make 500 infantry divisions and then just throwing them at Europe. The German AI in the previous games was never good enough to actually push you back to the gates of Moscow. I would always place all my divisions at the gates of Moscow and just let the Germans eat up most of European Russia for role playing purposes.

*has seen the french kick the crap out of germany until they were at my russian borders*

 

I'm not kidding... it was in HoI2 (admittedly I was playing on the noob setting, but STILL!)

[alanschu]

Are you running with the hotfix EUIX? I have heard that that helps the Japanese out a bit (though they are still too scared of USSR over the rest of China).

[Llyranor]

NEW YORK

[213374U]

...and the manpower issues, resources and leadership imbalances, mad supply system, unrealistic air AND naval warfare models, and probably a bunch of other stuff I'm forgetting.

 

But yeah, this is what the game needs. They should keep adding features. It's not like that could introduce new bugs, right?