Hearts of Iron IV

[Josephus]

Yeah, I think that was my misake. I assumed it knew the port my units were in was the origin point.

[MadBurgerMaker]

If you like counters with NATO symbols, these are nice: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=699668071&searchtext=counters

I also got this to go with it: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=698665197&searchtext=

I use Coloured Buttons, DzK Better Counters and better terrain view.

Well, I ended up having to go back to the regular counters, since DzK hasn't quite gotten the stacking right yet.  When you have multiple armies and groups in smallish areas (for example when your AI generals manage to get like 30 divisions cut off in one province because they were doing their stupidass unit shuffling thing) it turns into a confusing clusterfuck.

E: Also, get this: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=700278562&searchtext=

[crazy canuck]

Playing as UK. No historical option. I decided no peace in our time and guaranteed Czechoslovakia. We went to war, but there was a coup in Germany. Hitler was killed and Germany got mired in a civil war, which is making the war somewhat easier. Still enjoying it. Italy is holding out. That said, there are, as have said, strange UI issues. Frequently I rebase planes, but can't seem to issue orders to them. Very annoying. For some reason if I upgrade my planes, then any new planes go towards upgrading the old. I have no option of keeping the old ones active (sending them to the

There's other nitty gritty issues. But so far it's fun.

When rebasing you have to wait for the planes to arrive before issuing them a new order.  It is cumbersome.  It would be a lot better if you can issue an order for when they do arrive.  The airbase interface is very cumbersome but I eventually got the hand of it.

The rest of the game makes up for those shortcomings imo.  My first go through as the Soviets had the Germans walk all over me.  I forgot to do a few things, like put my economy on a war footing and I didnt know I had to manually upgrade my equipment in the division designer.   Next time around was a blast.  The Allies did not declare war when Germany invaded and conquered Poland.  And so the day after Poland fell Germany declared war on Mother Russia in 1939.  I had to stand along for a little over a year when the French declared and then a few months later the UK joined in.  By the time the Americans joined it was pretty much over.  But for those months alone it was touch and go. The timing of France's entry was perfect - my medium tank divisions were starting to come out of training fully equipped...

Painting the orders of the map takes some getting used to and I am not sure I really have the hang of it yet.  Sometimes I see stray units heading in the opposite direction I want, and so too often I end up issuing manual commands.  But when the planned attacks work it works well.

I just really wish they could come up with a better air war interface.

[MadBurgerMaker]

One thing I haven't figured out is how to "paint" a front along the borders with multiple countries (say, France, Luxembourg, Belgium, and the Netherlands). It won't let me keep drawing when I get to the end of the border.  I can do it with the fallback lines though, but with those, it doesn't seem to distribute units very evenly along the line.  It's nbd for France and such, you can just make separate armies, but something like Luxembourg, where it's just one province....it leaves a hole.  I've just been plugging it manually, but mer.

E:  Ah ha.  Hold shift and drag along the next border.

[frunk]

When rebasing you have to wait for the planes to arrive before issuing them a new order.  It is cumbersome.  It would be a lot better if you can issue an order for when they do arrive.  The airbase interface is very cumbersome but I eventually got the hand of it.

If the new area is within range of the old base you can still issue the new order, so it isn't always true.  Which is part of the annoyance, it'll work sometimes but not all the time.  I'd prefer if it would let you issue an order for anywhere, and if the current base isn't in range of the order it would be a popup warning and turn into a no-op.

[Josephus]

I didnt know I had to manually upgrade my equipment in the division designer. 

Doesn't the division designer have a "Use latest equipment" toggle?

What annoys me is that say you upgrade to fighter II, your production continues to produces fighter 1 unless you tell it too.

And it's not just the Airforce Interface that is clunky. After my war in Europe ended, I, as Britian, decided to move my fleet to the Pacific. That was long and cumbersome.

I am having fun though. So far, late 1941, Czechoslovakia ate up most of Nazi Germany as Democratic Germany won the civil war. Goebells is now running the remnants of Nazi Germany is Siam or something. Europe is peaceful after Italy fell. Canada and france did most of the heavy lifting as I figured out how to actually invade Anzio. The AI defensively was tough. I had a divison on conquer Milan orders (from France) and it took a good 18 months to win that. Now that Italy capitualted we're on to fighting Japan who are at the gates of India. The USSR is quiet, though it just recently invaded the Baltic states.

[Josephus]

When rebasing you have to wait for the planes to arrive before issuing them a new order.  It is cumbersome.  It would be a lot better if you can issue an order for when they do arrive.  The airbase interface is very cumbersome but I eventually got the hand of it.

If the new area is within range of the old base you can still issue the new order, so it isn't always true.  Which is part of the annoyance, it'll work sometimes but not all the time.  I'd prefer if it would let you issue an order for anywhere, and if the current base isn't in range of the order it would be a popup warning and turn into a no-op.

Yeah, it's a bit confusing. There's a lot of confusing shit. Like for instance in my England game, we captured Torino but I'm still unable to use the airfield there. Yet when we captured Rome, I was able to use the airfield in Rome. Not sure what the rules are. The Torino one is in my ally France territory, whereas Rome is occupied by CAnada, my puppet.

I think HOI IV has the making of a fun game, but there's little shit they're gonna have to balance/fix.

[DGuller]

One thing I haven't figured out is how to "paint" a front along the borders with multiple countries (say, France, Luxembourg, Belgium, and the Netherlands). It won't let me keep drawing when I get to the end of the border.  I can do it with the fallback lines though, but with those, it doesn't seem to distribute units very evenly along the line.  It's nbd for France and such, you can just make separate armies, but something like Luxembourg, where it's just one province....it leaves a hole.  I've just been plugging it manually, but mer.

E:  Ah ha.  Hold shift and drag along the next border.

It's actually extremely confusing.  My first game as Soviets, I defended against Germany, but not Hungary or Romania, because of this.  Oops.  You just add fronts, one after another.  Now, the confusing part is, by default, 100% of the army guards the first front, and the rest are left unattended.  So you have to select some units from your army, assign them to other fronts.  Pure annoyance, especially with no easy way to have sub-armies within armies.

[DGuller]

What annoys me is that say you upgrade to fighter II, your production continues to produces fighter 1 unless you tell it too.

That actually should not be an automatic decision.  If you're woefully short of equipment as is, you may decide that producing outdated stuff at full clip is better than taking a productivity hit with the new stuff.  That's the dilemma Soviets were wrestling with throughout the war in real life.

[frunk]

What annoys me is that say you upgrade to fighter II, your production continues to produces fighter 1 unless you tell it too.

That actually should not be an automatic decision.  If you're woefully short of equipment as is, you may decide that producing outdated stuff at full clip is better than taking a productivity hit with the new stuff.  That's the dilemma Soviets were wrestling with throughout the war in real life.

What would be good is a popup when a new equipment tech is finished asking if you want to migrate current lines to the latest one.

[MadBurgerMaker]

It's actually extremely confusing.  My first game as Soviets, I defended against Germany, but not Hungary or Romania, because of this.  Oops.  You just add fronts, one after another.  Now, the confusing part is, by default, 100% of the army guards the first front, and the rest are left unattended.  So you have to select some units from your army, assign them to other fronts.  Pure annoyance, especially with no easy way to have sub-armies within armies.

  Yeah I did that just now with freaking Luxembourg.  That damn place is getting the harshest treatment when it's conquered.  I really don't get why they included the "assign to fronts" button.  Why doesn't the AI general I have in charge of those divisions just send them where they need to go?

E:  Dammit, and Poland now just gave up Danzig without a fight.  I had a pretty slick battle plan that probably wasn't going to work all ready to go.  Guderian from the North, Rommel from the southwest, von Manstein from the West all meeting for a party in the Warsaw area, with whatshisname with the monocle set to crush Latvia and Estonia.  Oh and von Bock was coming from the South. Big arrows all over the place.

ermahgerd now the Russians invaded before I could justify my attack

[DGuller]

I decided to play as Mexico on easy difficulty, just for kicks.  The ultimate goal was to avenge the Mexican-American war.

I started by going fascist, and then gobbling all the Central American states down to Panama.  That was easy.  The next step, invading Cuba, put paid to my plans to fight US.  Most of able-bodied Mexicans laid down their lives in the ill-fated naval invasion of Cuba.  Apparently naval invasions without marines are a very bad idea.  Finally I fixed that error and annexed Cuba as well, just as a learning exercise.

By that point, US massed a huge army on my border, so I just worked on my economy as much as I could, and put up whatever force my manpower could muster against them.  At that point my goal is just to see how long I could survive. 

Then US for some reason moved out most their forces from their border.  Maybe they sent them to Japan, maybe they just garrisoned.  I said fuck it, joined the Axis, and decided to go out in a blaze of glory.  Less that two years later, US capitulated.     I actually lost less men conquering all of US than I lost in my ill-fated Cuban invasion. 

I'm still trying to figure out WTF happened.

[Liep]

Sounds like a fun game.

[The Brain]

I decided to play as Mexico on easy difficulty, just for kicks.  The ultimate goal was to avenge the Mexican-American war.

I started by going fascist, and then gobbling all the Central American states down to Panama.  That was easy.  The next step, invading Cuba, put paid to my plans to fight US.  Most of able-bodied Mexicans laid down their lives in the ill-fated naval invasion of Cuba.  Apparently naval invasions without marines are a very bad idea.  Finally I fixed that error and annexed Cuba as well, just as a learning exercise.

By that point, US massed a huge army on my border, so I just worked on my economy as much as I could, and put up whatever force my manpower could muster against them.  At that point my goal is just to see how long I could survive. 

Then US for some reason moved out most their forces from their border.  Maybe they sent them to Japan, maybe they just garrisoned.  I said fuck it, joined the Axis, and decided to go out in a blaze of glory.  Less that two years later, US capitulated.     I actually lost less men conquering all of US than I lost in my ill-fated Cuban invasion. 

I'm still trying to figure out WTF happened.

Hillary happened.

[Zanza]

They should have built a wall.