User:Wally/ hoi2

Hearts of Iron 2 is a grand strategy computer war game based upon its predecessor, Hearts of Iron. It takes place in the period from 1 January 1936 through 31 December 1948, and allows the player to assume control of any one of almost two hundred nations of the time and guide its development through the years before, during and after the Second World War. It has been developed and produced by Paradox Entertainment.

Premise
The game involves placing the player in direct control of a particular nation at the start of a specific scenario and allowing that player to guide events - both that nation and its neighbors' - through the end date, uniformly the end of 1948. In the original game, the following scenarios were available:


 * The Road to War, beginning on New Year's Day, 1936;
 * Blitzkrieg, beginning with Hitler's declaration of war upon Poland on 1 September 1939;
 * Awakening the Giant, beginning on 12 December 1941, five days after the Pearl Harbor attacks.

In later patches, a fourth scenario was added:


 * Gotterdammerung, beginning on 20 June 1944, two weeks after the Western Allies landed at Normandy.

It is likely that the same scenarios, perhaps in modified form, will be present in the sequel. Additionally, a number of operational scenarios are being planned, the object of these being to allow the gamer to play out certain major campaigns of the war without having to also concern themselves with the overall strategic situation; this is something of a departure from the first game, which did not contain any such scenarios free of strategic concerns and only ever used a particular campaign as a starting point.

Certain of the operations that will be playable have been announced: among them are Fall Gelb, the German invasion of France in 1940, Operation Barbarossa along the Russian Front in spring of 1941, and the Battle of the Bulge, on the Franco-Belgian-German frontier in winter of 1944, which was available to play in the demo.

Features
The game features a number of elements which earn it the distinction of a grand strategy game. These include the ability to build new land divisions, aircraft squadrons, and naval warship, as well as the ability to combine individual units into larger units or break up large units into smaller parts. The player also has the ability to control the appointment of commanders of every force under their nation's flag (or that of controlled puppet nations) as well as controlling the appointment of individual government ministers and military commanders in key staff positions. The player also has a broader ability to control the leaders of the state and government; however, this option in the past has only been available to democracies and only then through elections, in which the player chooses the winner. The game also features an advanced AI, capable of analyzing enemy troop movements and predicting likely vectors of attack as well as vulnerable points in the enemy's own line which might be struck. In addition, the ability to control technological research allows the player to determine which branch of the military will receive the lion's share of not only advanced equipment but doctrinal development as well. All this is on a global scale, with the player simultaneously dealing and interacting with nations across the world in real time rather than traditional turn-based form.

Changes from the Original
Despite the popularity of the original game (albeit among a fanbase that is limited at best), the game was plagued by problems many gamers felt should have been more predictable. Notably, especially before subsequent patches addressed the issues, there were many problems with both glitches and balance, and research on the officials and generals of minor nations was bordering on the shoddy. At the time of this writing six patches have been released for the original game, repairing most, if not all, of these issues, but on a much broader level many felt that the game was too complex in some areas, too simple in others, and in general had too steep a learning curve, especially given the unhelpful manual and tutorials which were both glitch-prone and sketchy.

Significant changes made for HoI2 include altering the AI so that it would be less likely, as it had in the past, to foolishly-risky attacks, especially amphibiously, against well-entrenched forces (this occured especially often while playing as the British in control of Malta, as the Italians would frequently attack with units despite lack of both air and naval power and the island's own defensibility). The computer will also be more likely to mount large-scale offensives, whereas in the original attacks or counter-attacks would often be both limited and understrength, often for no satisfactory reason.

Many changes have been made to the combat system itself, which while almost breathtakingly-advanced when released is, compared to real warfare, needlessly simple. Originally, when a player moved to attack a neighboring territory it would need to set the time of the attack based on how fast the units could be moved there and then wait until they arrived, which left the starting territory vulnerable to counter-attack. Also, there were no advanced attack options save for planes, and these were also quite limited. Now, when an attack is ordered it proceeds immediately between the attacking forces in their current territory and the defending ones in their territory. Additionally, a unit can either attack directly (in which case they move into the defeated territory when the defenders are driven out, and this no longer happens immediately, thus accounting for move time) or support an attack, in which case it commits its forces against the defending forces but at the conclusion of the battle they remain in their initial positions. Defending forces can also support a defense by moving into the attacked territory as reinforcements, as before, or by moving against attacking forces in adjacent territories (either through a direct attack, which divides the firepower of the units therein or by supporting the defense, which does the same but with less risk).

Air and naval power is also controlled in a more detailed way. The utility of air power has also been extensively expanded (the original drew especial criticism at the uselessness of air units, which were often far more trouble than they were worth and were easily battered by non-AA-equipped land forces). Not only is air power far more durable and versatile and less vulnerable to attacks from the ground, but it is also capable of a wider variety of strikes, including strikes against specific resources or a territory's infrastructure rather than simply "strategic bombing", or strikes aimed against a unit's manpower, organization or supplies rather than only a general "tactical bombing". Aircraft can also be set to attack beginning as well as ending at a certain day and time, and including or excluding day or night periods; they can also be set to cease operations if organization is reduced below a certain level, addressing a frequent complaint that air forces enthusiastically annihalated themselves against a target while a player was otherwise occupied and unable to stop them. Aircraft also patrol in a more sensible manner, as do warships, retreating rather than engaging superior forces as in the past.

All units in general play far more realistically