Hearts of Iron III

I liked this game. But for a new player, I would recommend the "new" Hearts of Iron 4 instead. As far as Hearts of Iron 3, I just finished the game as Italy and won an "Operational Victory-- I wound up with most of Russia, all of Turkey and Yugoslavia and part of the UK, and all of Spain and much of the mideast and I nuked the UK--3 times. Pros--Its way of handling upgrading of your ships and units is elegant and just has you feed IC(industrial Capacity) to the units to ugrade them. I can see why many hardcore gamers liked it. It also gives you the feel that you are running the war and you can create a large variety of units depending on your strategy. For its time around 2009 it was a good game. Cons-- 1)You never get a peep of warning if the enemy alliance throws everything they have at your ally. I decided to invade the USSR to help the Germans finish off their unnecessary war. I slog my way through the Caucasus mountains and then scroll over to the other side of the map and France has been invaded by about at least 25 Allied divisions and I got no notification this happened maybe a week or two before I realized it. Every time a minor trade deal ends I get a notification--but nobody bothers to tell me about Operation Overlord? Really? 2) The computer inadvertently cheats when it comes to Gibraltar even though the rules state it can be closed if you control one side of it(see page 24 of manual). I lost 4 of Mussolini's beloved battleships because I needed to patrol the sea south of Spain because the fact that I controlled the Straits of Gibraltar on both sides was not enough to prevent about 3 major task forces from going through anyway! My first experience with this BEFORE I realized I had to patrol it was when the Brits landed 10 divisions about 150 miles EAST of Gibraltar and flanked my army in Spain. Also it lets neutral countries on your border allow the transit of enemy armies to attack you--with no notification that such a treaty was signed at all. 3) The Order of Battle will drive most people crazy. You need to put headquarters for Armies, Corps, and regions and select your leaders manually and most of the campaigns you have to order individual divisions to do what you want if you want it done right. 4) Micromanaging the air force is a bit of a task as well, and building airfields takes FOREVER. 5) There is a steep learning curve at first so if you want to play it, watch the videos of Robs's Red Hot Spot here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_21PRj57Qx8 . It will help a lot Still I liked the game and enjoyed my victory. While this game would be recommended by me if it was 5 years ago, now I say just buy Hearts of Iron 4 since it solved all of these problems and includes a lot more period speeches and eye candy and political decisions. If you like older games and want a challenge buy it when its on sale, otherwise, load up HOI4 and avoid a lot of the headaches!

before downloading you should know it is complicated like way way way more than hoi4

good

NEIN! NEIN! DO NOT LIKE COMPLEXITY!

i love the micro managing

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