There were times when I wanted help manage all the behind-the-scenes decisions required to play Hearts of Iron 4, but there was no one there to save me. Armies will form up along a front line, generals will follow orders to attack on the day and time of your choosing, but on the homefront, players are on their own. So while a new rifle might be more effective on the battlefield, will that increased killing power outweigh the benefits of a lesser weapon manufactured in greater numbers? The only way to find out is to make a decision, and live with the consequences.īut while all the buttons and levers are there for you to play with, what Hearts of Iron 4 lacks is any sort of artificial intelligence to support your economic and industrial decisions. Those factories will get better over time, creating rifles more quickly and cheaply. Take, for instance, the feature whereby individual factories must be dedicated to the production of discrete weapon systems. And, for the rivet-counters out there, Hearts of Iron 4 even allows you to pick and choose which model of tank you want to roll off the assembly line, and where you want to send them to support your units in the field.īut with all this flexibility comes an almost inconceivable amount of micromanagement. Want to find out what would happen if Germany discovered atomic weapons in 1944? There's a path for that. Given the right prerequisites, you can choose to strengthen your navy or air force at the expense of all other branches. You're in charge of diplomacy, economics and production on a monumental scale. In Hearts of Iron 4, you're not just the commander in chief of the armed forces. If you want to play as Eleazar López Contreras, a Venezuelan fascist with two army divisions and 12 fighter planes to his name, you can give it a go.
The second, beginning in 1939, picks up the story on the eve of war and is much more focused on action and conquest.īut Hearts of Iron 4 goes a step further, allowing players to take control of nearly every single nation-state in the world during the same time period. The first, beginning in 1936, allows players to take control of any of the major Allied or Axis powers and captain their economic and political development in the years leading up to the onset of hostilities. Starting a game of Hearts of Iron 4, players are able to choose from two distinct modes. If you want to play as a Venezuelan fascist with two army divisions and 12 fighter planes, you can give it a go With Hearts of Iron 4, Paradox has dared to allow players to feel stupid. Instead, Hearts of Iron 4 has challenged what I know about history, about military strategy and about mid-20th-century geopolitics. It's not hard like a roguelike is hard, and it's not difficult in the way that a flight simulation or a hardcore shooter is difficult. But I don't mean "challenged" in the traditional sense. Hearts of Iron 4 has challenged me at a foundational level. But unlike those other games, Hearts of Iron 4 isn't a sandbox it's a game deeply rooted in the real history of World War II. Hearts of Iron 4 is a grand strategy wargame from Paradox Interactive, makers of famously complex titles like Crusader Kings, Europa Universalis and, most recently, Stellaris. Hearts of Iron 4 is the single most challenging game I've played in the last decade.
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