A glance at HoI3

[Ed Anger]

It's worth buying then?

10 or 15 dollars? Sure.

I wouldn't pay 40 bucks for it.

[frunk]

I think they decided to take on some seriously complicated simulation aspects like weather and supply movement, and that chewed up time that would have otherwise been used to polish the game and make it ready for release.  Now I think the game is at the fun but sucky stage that Wag talks about, but I'd be surprised if it moved to great anytime soon.  I get the feeling Paradox will still be releasing patches but will direct most of their effort at the next project.

The one bright spot is that the mod community is working pretty hard at some nice improvements, and I think they'll be the ones that will save the title.

[Darth Wagtaros]

Is the next project CK2? Because that is what I really, really, want.  After Alpha Centauri 2 of course. 

[Josephus]

I think Vickie 2 is next up, no?

[Darth Wagtaros]

Blerg.

[MadBurgerMaker]

I just fired this up again yesterday for a marathon session with the new patch.  It's reasonably fun (the patch makes things better), but still not really a must have unless, like Monkeybutt says, you can grab it for 10 or 15 bucks. 

I do continue to be pleasantly surprised with how stable it is for me though.  Still no crashes in this latest session, and it's been running pretty much all day (in the background, at least).  Hell...it's running right now.    It's pretty outstanding for a Paradox release in that regard.

[Darth Wagtaros]

I've had the odd crash with Paradox, but they were mostly stable.  The issues I had with HOI2 were a result of ancient video drivers, so it was my fault. 

Its the glaring bugs, the ones that should never have gotten to release, that piss me off.

[Ed Anger]

One thing that is better, is assigning air units to HQ's. I haven't had to fiddle with one air unit in 1 year of war.

I assigned interceptor groups to the Berlin HQ, and it started running air defense. Give Tac and CAS to Armies and Army groups, and they give ground support.

[sbr]

One thing that is better, is assigning air units to HQ's. I haven't had to fiddle with one air unit in 1 year of war.

I assigned interceptor groups to the Berlin HQ, and it started running air defense. Give Tac and CAS to Armies and Army groups, and they give ground support.

Are they doing a decent job, relatively?  I tried that with one of the early patches and the HQ sent oll of the airgroups everywhere together causing bad stacking penalties, I had to control them my self or only allow one or two airgroups per HQ, which limited things.

[Darth Wagtaros]

That is neat.

[MadBurgerMaker]

I've had the odd crash with Paradox, but they were mostly stable.  The issues I had with HOI2 were a result of ancient video drivers, so it was my fault. 

Maybe I was just unlucky or there was some common compatibility issue somewhere across the multiple systems (couple of different laptops and desktops) and games (HoI1/2, 2 different copies of Victoria heh, CK, EU2).  I never played EU3 enough to see if it continued with that one.  Bleh.  Whatever it was, it's not happening now, so I'm happy. 

[ulmont]

Is the next project CK2? Because that is what I really, really, want.

I used to want that.  Now I'm worried they'll fuck it up if they try.

[Ed Anger]

One thing that is better, is assigning air units to HQ's. I haven't had to fiddle with one air unit in 1 year of war.

I assigned interceptor groups to the Berlin HQ, and it started running air defense. Give Tac and CAS to Armies and Army groups, and they give ground support.

Are they doing a decent job, relatively?  I tried that with one of the early patches and the HQ sent oll of the airgroups everywhere together causing bad stacking penalties, I had to control them my self or only allow one or two airgroups per HQ, which limited things.

They seem to be. Thing was, in Hoi2 I tended to forget about the airplanes, so I got used to fighting without them. In this one, I see the air groups roaming ahead of the Panzers. So any improvement is better to me.

Hell, in my test game, I'm letting List's army attack Sweden, and after setting the objectives, I'm letting it run it and I'm not even looking there. I just get the popups telling they are taking provinces and smashing IKEA factories.

The naval part of the game is still wonky though.

[Neil]

The naval part of the game is still wonky though.

The irony being that the naval part is the most important part.  By far.

[dps]

It never took this long before.  I'd buy a Paradox product on the day of release, it would suck, but in a fun way, and then be fixed relatively quickly and be great. 

It's kinda strange.  It used to be that with Paradox games, there were major issues with stability and the like, plus a bunch of other bugs, but as you said, the games would still be a lot of fun when not crashing, and they would release a lot of patches.  But then, the situation changed, and their games were a lot more stable, though there were still bugs to varying degrees, but the gameplay wasn't as fun.  Rome was probably the ultimate example--I never had it crash, but it was just dull.

Also, it bothers me how they have gotten away from having so many patches and are releasing multiple expansions now.  Now, just so that I'm not misunderstood, I know that expansions have added a lot of new content and features, and I don't mind having to pay for that.  It's just that it seems to have taken away a lot of the emphasis Paradox used to put into bug fixes.  First of all, a new expansion means no more official patches for the older versions.  If you have EUIII, and don't want to pay for NA, or you got NA but don't want to get IN also, well, no more bug fixes for you.  Also, there's more time and effort tied up in an expansion than in a patch.  In the old days, if a bug that really bothered you didn't get fixed in a patch, there was a good chance that it would be fixed in another patch in a couple months (on occasion, more like a couple weeks).   Now, you can wait 2 or 3 months for the next patch, but instead of a patch, they announce a new expansion that is still going to be a few months away.  Well, I'm just kind of running on here, so I'll stop.

Oh, one more thing--I totally agree with ulmont about CK2.  It's what I've really wanted from Paradox for a long time, but now I'm afraid it'll be crap.