Hearts of Iron 4, Paradox’s World War II grand strategy game, lets you play as any country from 1936 to whenever peace is declared. While certain checks are in place to encourage that countries typically follow closely to their goals in the actual war, the system also gives the freedom for things to play out very differently than they did in real life. However, the current system can often create unrealistic scenarios that hamper gameplay.
The newest Death or Dishonor DLC rebuilt the air warfare system from the ground up, probably saving players multiple hours of busywork in managing their fleet of thousands of planes. Most of the main game systems are functional to the point that I don’t feel I’m wasting too much time or too many clicks to run the war effort. However, the larger system of how wars and factions function in the game needs an update. The current system often leads to ahistorical moments and gameplay problems.
The major wars in the game are controlled by factions – the three main factions are the Allies representing the Democratic powers, the Axis representing the fascist powers, and the Comintern representing the Communist powers. If you declare war on any member of a faction, generally all members of said faction will declare war on you. This represents the official start of the War when the invasion of Poland sparked all the Allies to declare war on Germany.
Another quirk of the system is that you basically can’t negotiate peace until every country you are at war with is totally defeated. This represents the idea that even when an Allied country was completely occupied, the rest of the Allies fought on. E.g. when Poland fell, the government in exile still helped with the effort and the Allies fought on to the end. So while in other Paradox games such as Crusader Kings 2 and Europa Universalis 4, you can always offer concessions or make demands to end a war before either side is totally annihilated, in Hearts of Iron it is winner take all.
Both these systems are derived from historical precedent, but need an overhaul to achieve the goal of accurately representing the war and the world of the time.
For example, once War Tension rises, it is possible for any country to join any Faction at anytime. Even if they are at War, once they join, all members of the Faction will nearly invariably join that War. This becomes problematic when you are a relatively small, or regional power that has managed to stay out of the great wars and you invade your equally small neighbor that has no treaties with anyone. Suddenly that small neighbor joins the Allies and you have the combined might of the UK, France and the U.S.A. bearing down on you. That’s not to say that there isn’t precedent for their desire to protect any independent democracy from invasion, but this will happen every time, for any country, no matter what the war situation is. I have a hard time believing that with France fallen and the Axis bearing down on the UK the Allies would devote war resources to some minor unaffiliated regional war thousands of miles away. Yet this occurs in nearly every instance. Beyond being unrealistic, it severely limits the gameplay options for anyone that doesn’t want to join one of the three major factions.
Another issue is that there is no real system for multiple factions to designate a common enemy. In about half of my games, the Comintern and the Allies go to war with each other before the Axis makes a move. This typically occurs due to the above problem – if the Soviets start the Winter War a little early and invade Finland, Finland will immediately join the Allies and pull them into war with the Soviet Union. Since War is winner take all, the strongest opponents of the Axis will now be at war with each other for the rest of the game. This is highly ahistorical and the game systems allow it to occur in far too many playthroughs.
The Winter War is also a great example of how no all of the conflicts at the time ended in winner take all as the game forces. The USSR and Finland arrived at a treaty where Finland ceded 11% of their territory to the Soviets. This is the sort of treaty you find in other Paradox games, but is unavailable in Hearts of Iron. Beyond being severely limiting, it creates situations where gameplay excitement grinds to a halt. Often, when playing as a small nation, you do very well and achieve things that are nearly impossible, but have no way to end the conflict. Take my recent game as South Africa as an example. I broke with the UK and became Communist, I then went to war with both the Axis and the Allies to liberate the continent from the Colonial oppressors. Against all odds, a few years later I pushed both the Axis and the Allies out of Africa and controlled the entire continent. This was an extremely difficult feat. And with the Axis and Allies tearing each other apart, you would think they’d be willing to strike a deal with independent South Africa to make peace with them. I would have even given some territory back, but the option is impossible. While I could keep the the naval invasions at bay, it would be functionally impossible for South Africa to conquer the USA, the only way for me to end the war and feel any sense of closure. So even though I achieved what I thought was impossible, I have no way to bring the war to an end and feel good about what I’d accomplished.
Hearts of Iron is a fantastic game, but their current mechanics, beyond being ahistorical, severely limit the kinds of experiences open to the player. Once this system is updated, Paradox really will have the ultimate WWII simulator. What do you think Paradox should update next?
