VIDEO GAMES

This ain't your grandaddy's Axis And Allies.

Tuesday, August 4th, Hearts of Iron III will be released in the US and Europe (SORRY AUSTRALIA, YOU’LL HAVE TO WAIT ANOTHER MONTH) and several more days worth of my life will be devoured by the need to conquer (parts of) the world.

In the Hearts of Iron series, you control any country (ANY GODDAMN COUNTRY) from 1936 to whenever the version you’re playing stops at. The final expansion of the second installment let you take a bite into the Cold War period (somewhere in the early-to-mid 60s). You control technology, production, democracy, troop movements (though not actual combat), supply routes, et cetera. It’s a lot to take in at first, but I still wanted more when I got used to it.
As a World War 2 simulator you would think the main draw is to play as the Allies or the Axis powers, and maybe for most people it is, but I find the most entertaining games come from medium-sized countries with enough inustrial capacity to allow for a viable gameplay experience while not having quite enough to contend with a “first world” country. It also helps when I can come up with an enjoyable long-term goal to achieve along the way, the best of which have been:

• As Brazil, conquered South America.
• As Canada, attempted to nuke America. (Can’t drop out of the Allies to nuke them; revised plan must take this into account.)
• As Mexico, prepared to invade America. (Might have actually worked, but forgot to get back to the game the next day. A vast majority of their energy is in the east, a swift blitzkrieg could have crippled them.)
• As Sweden, help the AI conquer Russia as Germany.

So what are we paying forty US dollars for in Hearts of Iron 3? Most notably, approximately four times as many provinces — the “tiles” your units traverse — which not only means more tactics and strategery, but also that it will no longer take three goddamn months to move that unit across a massive, unrefined province of Africa. Unless, of course, Africa’s provinces are generally untouched and I am about to get trolled into the stratosphere.

The technology trees have been expanded, governmental types have been sorted into a tri-direction system based on the three central factions (Allies, Axis, Comintern), a blessing of a units table has been incorporated into the production screen, and what else? I can’t possibly recite all of the advancements to you, nor will I bother to: here are two halves of a Q&A session hosted on GameTrailers, and hosted by the producer Johan Andersson who just, honestly, has a fantastic accent.

AND THAT’S ALL I HAVE TO SAY ABOUT THAT
KRONOTROSS OUT
PS
BUILD -> INDUSTRY