As many as 100 million people may have been killed in what has been universally referred to as the most destructive conflict in human history. Well over half of those were civilians- innocents left to starve during rationing, millions murdered for their religion or ethnicity, or many others who simply found themselves in the wrong place during a bombing raid. Bit of a bummer way to start off a review, right? Imagine how Paradox Interactive was feeling, trying to make an entire video game based off of World War II (or the Second World War for the Brits out there). This Swedish development house took the tasteful route, depicting all the intensity and complexity of war without any of the atrocities. So while you could literally be Hitler you couldn't be literally Hitler. Just one problem, Hearts of Iron looked like a brick and was immensely unintuitive- you could spend hours reorganizing the command of your armies- so it flopped. Not to mention the game was banned in communist China for depicting Taiwan under Japanese rule (which it was at the time, but you know....).


So Paradox tried again in 2005 with Hearts of Iron II. The technology system was better but everything else? Brick. Then 2009 rolled around and with it Hearts of Iron III. And how was it? Brick, unintuitive, not happening. So the Swedes opted to work on the more lucrative and potential-filled Europa Universalis and Victoria series. Once they got tired of that, however, it was back to World War II. This time, it was promised Hearts of Iron IV would not look like a brick and you would not spend eight hours stopping your nation's freefall. It was finally released on June 6, 2016 because why not coincide with a major WWII date? Let's see how the Second Great War fares on 2016 technology!



Who Said Hitler Has To Take Over Europe? Why Not Yugoslavia? Or Luxembourg?



On September 1, 1939, Nazi Germany invaded Poland, triggering World War II. Long story short, Adolf and his Japanese pals bit off a bit more than they could chew and by 1945 the Fuhrer was dead and the world would be divided between two ideologies for the next forty-five years.


But that's the official story, the one you've heard a million times in history class- which you mostly just slept through so you could go home and play video games. Well now you're home, and surely you don't want to recreate that same story? No, because here you can pick whatever country you want to be, provided it existed on January 1, 1936, or August 31, 1939, the two official "starting dates". You have until January 1, 1949 to run amok and do whatever you want. Want to conquer Brazil as England? Sure thing! Invade and absorb America as Canada? Of course, there's even an achievement for that! Conquer the world as Luxembourg? Well that's a bit of a stretch, but if you REALLY want to.....you could!


Paradox is known for its vast open strategy games where you can do whatever you want in a historical setting. Besides, the AI does so much crazy stuff an alternate history world is practically guaranteed. Letting you run free in the WWII-era world is one of the best game ideas to date, and it's great that it's finally been implemented well.



It's Not a Piece Of Cake To Run a Huge War Machine! Or An Economy. Or Technological Advancement. Or Diplomacy.......



Before you start doing anything, you have to pick the nation you want to play as. The game suggests a few contemporary great powers right off the bat: America, France, Great Britain, Italy, Germany, Japan, and Soviet Russia. Each of these have unique focus trees (more on that later), flavour technologies (they give the same bonuses as the "default" techs but have new names), and "national spirits"(America has the Great Depression, which lowers factory output and total recruitable, war-ready population). But assuming you don't want to play as a particularly strong nation, there's a whole new world, literally, under the "Other Countries" button. You can pick any nation here- Australia, Ecuador, Bhutan, Xibei San Ma, you get the idea. Then you pick the difficulty of your game, from easiest to hardest, Recruit, Regular, or Veteran. However, this is not so much a measure of difficulty- Recruit gives you several bonuses to political and diplomatic factors, Veteran gives you several penalties in those same fields, and Regular gives you no penalties or bonuses. Still, it's very easy to understand and ties in perfectly with the nation selection system. There's also a historical focus button. If it's on, countries will do as they did historically, for the most part. If it's off, they'll do anything and indeed perhaps, everything.


So you start up and-WHOA! That's a lot of stuff to manage! You have a whole field of notifications at the top of the screen! To make it more convenient for you, I'll break down every aspect of running the nation and review each aspect individually.


The Joy of Politics!


The national flag in the top left corner opens the politics tab. Here you can control the development of your country via focus tree, her trade policy, enlistment policies, and economic law as well as a sick portrait of your leader. If you want to do anything on this screen (except for the focus tree) you need political power, usually 150 points of it. Every day that passes, you get 1 to 1.5 political power depending on the size (larger countries get more), influence, and political system of the nation. PP may also be gained through random events. Once you get 150 points you can change policies or higher some advisers either to improve industrial output, trade efficiency, or most importantly, change your ideology. Are you a democratic nation that wants to turn communist? You'll need a communist revolutionary, who will gradually increase the concentration of commies in your national assembly. That effort can end one of two ways, either your people accept the new system or a civil war will begin which you must win.


There are three default factions for each ideology: the Allies for democracies, the Comintern for communists, and the Axis for fascists, headed by Great Britain, the USSR and Germany, respectively. You don't have to join a faction but it certainly helps if you're in a vulnerable position, such as being surrounded by opposing ideologies. Certain countries can even create their own factions- Poland can form "Międzymorze" (don't ask me) with the Baltic states and France can form the "Little Entente" with Czechoslovakia.


The focus tree allows you to pick several "national focuses" that give you bonuses for certain sectors of your country, such as industry, navy, and army. As "tree" would suggest, everything is linear, so you can't just modernize your air force, let's say, right away. It takes time and progression is gradual. Every focus takes 70 in-game days to complete. Note that some foci are mutually exclusive, so eventually you will have to make a decision as to which path(s) you want to go down for each sector. The aforementioned great powers will have unique focus trees- the USA's' includes foci like the Works Progress Administration and several "War Plans" which allow you to go to war with several different nations. Everyone else is stuck with the default tree, divided into army, navy, aviation, industry, and political sectors. I can understand not wanting to build a tree for everyone, but leaving so many other countries untouched here screams of laziness.


As a whole, the political system is significantly improved from HOI3 with more control over your regime and less punishing rigidity- no imploding approval rating for slightly modifying your cabinet here! All I have to complain about is again, the few unique focus trees, discouraging play as more obscure countries.


What Do Interwar Cavalry And Jet Engines Have In Common? You Have To Research Them!


Even the most remote, uncivilized brutes have to keep up in this day and age! Technology is divided into land equipment and doctrine (tactics and strategy), naval vessels and doctrine, warplanes and air doctrine, industry, and engineering. As you can see, all of these have something to do with war, as this game is about World WAR II.


Every nation starts off with different technologies already researched. European powers and the USA start off with high-grade (for the moment) infantry weapons , ships, artillery, etc. Places like Afghanistan or Bhutan, however, may not even know what a tank is. And because they spent so long so primitive, the latter countries will have to work harder to catch up than the great powers will have to work to compete with each other. That's right, everyone has a base research speed- usually Westerners are faster than normal and primitives have slower speeds. Also, while you can research techs in different sectors together, you can only research as many techs as you have slots. Again, Westerners have more, everyone else has fewer, perhaps as low as two, though the number can be increased via the focus tree.

On top of the sector system, techs can be segregated between those that unlock stuff and those that give bonuses, and chronologically. Regarding the former, here's an example detailing the three-step path to nukes:


1) Atomic Research: 2% less research time for all techs, unlocks Nuclear Reactor research (bonus tech)

2) Nuclear Reactor: Allows you to build reactors, which you need to make nukes (unlock tech)

3) Nuclear Bombs: Let's you build nukes if you have reactors (unlock tech)


For the latter, on the side of the screen there will be years marked next to or above technologies. These are the "unlock" years. You could very well get these before unlock years but if you try an ahead of time research penalty will be applied proportional to the amount of time from your current date to the unlock year- +200% per year. Want to research Night Vision? That's a 1943 tech and you're on July 10th, 1941. That's a 300% penalty for you. Ouch.


This entire research system is leaps and bounds up from the quagmire of HOI3 where certain techs could be repeated indefinitely with no apparent rhyme or reason, progression was unclear, and bonuses gained, if any, were marginal. There are even unique units this time around, such as the B-17 from 'Murica. All in all, great job here, nothing wrong.



Diplomacy: Are You a Smooth-Talker or a Plain Dealer?



Diplomacy is pretty simple. Relations are bilateral, meaning two countries can each....do stuff with each other. Relations between two nations can peak at +100 but unlike other Paradox games, they don't have a floor. That means one country can have downwards of -40,000 relation with another. Yeah, that actually happened to me with a country I had nuked several times. The better relations between two nations, the more likely either nation will grant the other things like military access and better trade deals. Those with the same ideology can even invite each other to the same faction, improving relations further. Most interestingly, someone with one ideology can increase its influence in a country with a different ideology, which may lead to a change in government. This is a useful tool to increase the size of your faction.


Another improvement from HOI3, the simplicity of diplomatic affairs improves the game's attractiveness even more, making it even more appealing to potential newcomers not just to the series, but strategy gaming as a whole.



Let's Make a Deal: Trade Time!



Another simple mechanic. You need six resources to run your factories; Tungsten, Oil, Aluminum, Steel, Rubber, and Chromium. If you don't have enough, your production will suffer immensely and your people will suffer. Once you build some convoys you can get these resources from other countries that have a surplus of any of them. Remember, though, these are natural resources so if you want to stop importing you'll need to take over states that have them. That's for the war section, though.


I love how this system only took me six (really three) lines to describe. HOI3? Probably would take fifteen. No complaints.

Construction And Industry: It's About Building Stuff So You Can Build Stuff!


Every state in your country has a certain number of available building slots. The number of available slots vary depending on population, modifiers controlled through the focus tree, and industrial advisers. There's a lot of stuff to build, including but not limited to:


-Forts

-Radar stations

-Air bases

-Rocket sites

-Ports


Before you run off to build as many rocket sites as possible, take a breather and listen up. If you want to build anything at all, you need civilian factories, assuming you don't want to import everything. So really the construction game consists of balancing civilian factories with everything else.


There are also military factories. Here you can build all manner of military equipment, provided you've researched what it is you want to build. You can't just build jet planes and Sherman tanks- you gotta figure out how to build them first. Every separate military item you build constitutes a template, which can have up to fifteen factories assigned, though you can have multiple templates provided you have enough factories. Similarly, naval dockyards are where you build ships. The more dockyards you build an assign to a template, the more ships will be built of that type.


For once I'm not going to compare this section to Hearts of Iron III (guess how this game compares, though). It's great on its own. All you have to focus on is having all the requisite resources and you're good to go!


I know you're getting tired of all this softie peace-time trash. So without further adieu.....



War Never Changes, But The UI Does!



Unless Command and Conquer-esque psychic combat can into real life, men and women with guns, tanks, and planes have to fight wars. All armies in this game are made up of divisions. Preset divisions include infantry templates, light tanks, and cavalry, but you can edit these templates to update them or even alter them to include more mixed compositions and support battalions like engineers or field hospitals. Once divisions get all the supplies they need to start training through military factories, they will train up to 100%, though you can deploy them at any time. Of course more training will improve combat performance, but then they can always train while deployed.


To make an army, simply highlight all the divisions you want and click on the green plus sign at the bottom of the screen. Any army without a leader is a bad one- assign a general by clicking on the empty portrait in the corner. During combat, generals will develop certain specialties like improved fighting in the desert or urban environments. However, generals can only effectively command up to 24 divisions. You can upgrade generals to field marshals for a few PP. Field marshals have no limit on how many divisions they can support, but lose and can no longer develop specialties.


When you want to do war, you'll need to give some plans to your armies. For land combat, you must first assign a front line on the enemy border, then draw up some offensive lines. Activate the plan and the army will do its best to push towards the offensive line, but if they screw up you can manually control some divisions and mop up the errors. More complicated plans can be drawn up, including paradrops, naval invasions, and multiple consecutive offensives. Be sure to keep a close eye on the situation and see if those get necessary or otherwise helpful.


There are several important things to keep note of when at war. Composition is key- too many infantry units and not enough mechanized troops to back them up will give you nothing but grief. Ensure you have enough factories and resources to keep the effort running. If you're going through tough terrain, build some infrastructure in the area to keep your boys full and happy.


Lastly, be sure to capture victory points. These are cities that are deemed to be of great importance to a nation. Each city will have a certain amount of VP attached, national capitals may have as many as 50 points of 100! There's also national unity, which represents how unified your country is in the face of political turmoil and foreign opposition. If one's unity is low, fewer victory points will need to be captured for that country to surrender.


I never thought it would be this easy to control Second World War armies, but I was wrong. Paradox did an exceptional job at improving the user interface and making the whole war experience far more intuitive.



War Has Never Looked And Sounded So Good!



This game's graphics are some of the best in the entire genre to date. To start, all the world's countries are depicted with unique colours that make identification all the easier. You can easily spot waves in the ocean and ships bobbing with them. Snow can be seen in winter and gets more vicious the further north you get. At night, cities glow like diamonds in the dark (bet you weren't expecting that). Everything looks spectacular at a glance, and there's even great attention to detail- look at the soldiers. They aren't just static, they look around, wipe their shoes, do push-ups. It the midst of battle you can witness signs of fatigue and in retreat they limp away, covering their eyes. Even the menus look good. Amazingly I haven't found any major graphical glitches yet, despite the reputation of Paradox for glitchy releases. What else can I say but....woah.


What's been the best friend of graphics since time immemorial? Music! Much like Victoria and Europa Universalis, Hearts of Iron IV boasts a spectacular soundtrack faithful to the time period depicted. The tracks often feature bombastic brass sections that become increasingly loud over time, evoking images of soldiers throwing grenades on the beaches of Normandy, tanks racing across the deserts of Libya, Marines readying for battle of off Okinawa. Listen to these songs out of context and you'd swear they were from the period. Even on the opening screen you'll be amped and ready to make some history.

So yeah, great graphics, great music. That's all.



Pros:


-Huge amount of control in WWII environment

-Intuitive political, industrial, and research mechanics

-Easy-to-understand diplomacy and trade

-Phenomenal military system

-Spectacular music and graphics


Cons:

-Few significant, but rare bugs (haven't encountered them so I can't discuss)

-Focus trees could be improved



Consensus:



Hearts of Iron IV is probably the best Second World War strategy title to date. It has everything you'd need or want from such a game, particularly in the war system. If you're into strategy or war, or especially both, pick this up now.

IStillSeeTheX :  What the.....what happened in this post? Its completely blank not unless what I am thinking happened actually happened? This can happen to some members, but I would really like to know what happened to your work of 3000 words?

Eniitan : Trying to figure that out myself. Tried to edit it back in but that didn't work. I'll try again in HTML. Good thing I have this saved.

IStillSeeTheX : Ah I see. Sorry to see your work not to be put up I hope you can find a way to do and fix what needs to be done. I am sure you will be able to do it.

Hang in there. I know what it's like to lose huge, important posts (although in this case, you have the backup. WOOHOO!). Perhaps instead of editing it in, you could make a Google Drive document with the restriction "Can View" and share it?

EDIT: It's fixed! Thanks Barathemos!

Bit strange how that works. But I'm not complaining anymore.

IStillSeeTheX : You used the word "u n i o n" when saying "soviet u n i o n" which is why your review appeared blank. 

IStillSeeTheX : Woooo!!!! Glad it's fixed.

Well I'm glad that your review was fixed because I really enjoyed it. This game sounds some what like a RTS game. And by the sounds of it, it must be pretty good. I will actually like to play this game myself. Im definitally going to check it out for sure. I wish the site had more info on the game though.