Hearts of Iron III

Hearts of Iron III is a game made and released by Paradox Interactive, a company that mostly creates historical strategy games like Europa Universalis III and the Hearts of Iron series. Hearts of Iron III was released in August 2009.

In Hearts of Iron III you choose a nation you wish to control during the period of 1936-1948. You can take control of almost every nation that existed during that period. The gameplay itself is very complex and that's why you can let the AI control some decisions. But you are able to control everything yourself too. You have to control diplomacy, production, technology, politics and intelligence. I'll explain these categories later on.

The game centers around three factions: The Axis (Germany and allies), The Allies (United Kingdom, France and their allies) and The Comintern (the Soviet Union and their allies). When you've chosen another country than these you can align slowly to these factions. Nations are more likely to join a faction with a similar ideology. For example, the U.S.A is more likely to join The Allies than The Axis, but it isn't impossible that they join The Axis.

Another thing that's very important is your Industrial Capacity. With more IC you can construct more units, harbors, airfields and some defensive structures. In order to keep your IC at 100%, you'll need resources. The resources available in this game are: Energy, metal, rare materials (you need these for your IC), oil (you need this for fuel), supplies (you need this to supply your armies in order to keep their combat strength at 100%) and fuel (which you need in order to move your armies). Another thing that is important is the dissent in your nation. You have to keep your people satisfied, because otherwise they'll strike and thus you'll lose IC.

Diplomacy: At this screen you can align to a faction, trade with another nation, buy a production license from another nation, guarantee freedom to another nation (if a faction/nation declares war to the nation you guaranteed, the nation asks you to help them fight against that faction/nation) declare a limited war (only available when you're in a faction, if you choose this your faction members aren't forced to also declare war to that nation) or declare war. You can also influence other nations to join your faction.

Production: At this screen you can monitor trading convoys, construct brigades, such as infantry, cavalry, tanks, planes and more. You can also devide your IC into production factors. These production factors are: Supplies, reinforcements, upgrades, civilian goods and production. Personal I recommend you to let the AI control this, because the needs change every day and when the IC isn't devided at its best you'll waste IC.

Technology: This is the screen where you can research upgrades, control the training of officers (you need an certain amount of officers in your army in order to keep the organisation at 100%, when this number drops your armies will be forced to retreat because they're in lack of organization), the diplomacy points (which you need at the diplomacy screen to trade or form alliances with other nations) and espionage (you can monitor how many spies you want to train each day). However, you'll need leadership for these actions. The more leadership you have, the more leadership you can put in one of these options. I don't know how you get leadership, but I assume that it depends of how big your country is.

Politics: At this screen you can change your ministers, make a puppet state, liberate a country and change laws. Most of the time you can only change laws when your country is at war, or when your neutrality is very low. You aren't always able to change your ministers, that depends of which type of policy you have. Ministers will deliver bonus points or penalties to a certain sector. For example, some ministers will provide you with a bonus of 5% in IC while another is a backstabber and then you'll lose some IC. Most of the time you can't replace the backstabber. You can also see which party is the most favourite one, according to the civilians.

Intelligence: At this screen you can monitor your spies. You have domestic spies and spies in other countries. You can order your domestic spies to lower your neutrality, increase the unity of your civilians (the higher this is, the more provinces you can lose before your country surrenders to the enemy)or support the ruling party. The spies in other country have more options. Your spies can also support the opposition, support rebels, spy on the technology or armed forces, sabotage and increase the threat of the nation.

I found some glitches in this game while I was playing with the Netherlands. I was trying to get a war with Belgium by lowering my neutrality and increasing Belgium's threat. I succeeded and declared war to Belgium, but Belgium was already an Allies-member so I was at war with all the Allies. Suddenly, Germany declared war to me so then I automatically joined the Allies, but I was still at war with them. I was able to see all their units and they didn't attack me so I took some of their provinces for free. The second time I was again playing with the Netherlands, but now I had built a big fort at Amsterdam, so when the Germans invaded me I was able to hold Amsterdam because of the fort. The AI controlled my production and because I was at war he kept producing units even though my manpower was at zero. I think he brought the fallen men back to life or something, or maybe the AI recruited children, I don't know.

This game is different than other strategy games, it feels more like a simulation. But I think it's a very good one, definitely worth a purchase. But, when you like simple games where you just have to do as your told you better evade this game, because it's very complex and hard to master.