Hearts of Iron

by MacPlay

Product Details

• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B0000C4E3P
• Media: CD-ROM
• Release Date: September 15, 2003
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #46,134 in Video Games (See Top 100 in Video Games)
• Discontinued by manufacturer: Yes

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Not for the casual gamer., January 21, 2004

By 

Taras R. Hnatyshyn (New York, NY USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Hearts of Iron (CD-ROM)

Hearts of Iron takes the Europa Universalis system and brings it to the World War II era. The game's scope is strategic, but there are too many interface elements that require you to handle the minute details. The manual is sometimes of little help. There is actually a group of people on the internet rewriting the manual for the PC version, it is that poor. Certain interface elements are counter-intuitive, for example, to load troops onto a fleet, you need to move the fleet out of the port. Huh??? Wouldn't it make sense to click on the port symbol where the fleet is in port? Many times I found myself going to the web to find out how to do things that should be in the manual. For example, how to the use atomic weapons, that I spent the whole game gearing my tech development towards...

That aside, the game's technological advancement and economic models are pretty complex and detailed. As you develop certain tecnologies, your troops become more efficient. Troop supply issues get to be important when you have troops far from home. Internal dissent causes your troops on the battlefield to perform more poorly.

This game takes a sizable investment in time to get ones arms around and feel comfortable. But for those who take the time, it can give a good idea for what strategic decisions were faced by the governments and military commanders of the era.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Outstanding!, October 18, 2003

By 

Thomas Herring (Chattanooga, TN USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Hearts of Iron (CD-ROM)

Personally, in regards to game-play, HOI is a fantastic "RTS" game. You may choose to play any number of countries between 1936-1948. There are three ideologies at odds: Axis, Allies, and Comintern (communists). You may also maintain neutrality if you wish, but it can be a challenge not getting dragged into the conflict.

Like EU2, HOI has a complex, but easily understandable w/ experience, economic system to manage. In addition, one needs to consider resource supplies, industrial capacity, military readiness (tech and production), and diplomacy. I won't even try to go into the units, but every aspect of warfare is considered (e.g. anti-air, artillery, engineering, mtn elite, anti-tank, etc.).

The 1936 scenario, "The Road to War," is missing from the released version; however, its an easy download from Virtual Programming's web page for HOI. If you can go online and register w/ Amazon.com, you've got all the skill necessary to find "The Road to War." Don't give this one a try because of the missing scenario. If so, you'll be the one missing, missing out that is.

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Loved it!, October 28, 2003

By 

"wedergast" (Jamaica, NY United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Hearts of Iron (CD-ROM)

I just got this game last week, and have been totally hooked on it from day one. I first started off doing the tutorial (playing the 1936 scenario-after downloading the missing scenario from the web-site), and got bored very quickly, and didn't learn all that much. So I restarted the game, as a small country, Portugal, and played that country for a few days. I learned a bit about the economics of the game, and about supporting your external colonies. But Portugal had too weak an econonmy to go to war with. So I restarted as Spain, took over Portugal right after I won the Spanish-Civil War, and attempted to invade Brazil in 1942. Brazil kicked my armies ass... badly. So, I restarted the game, this time as Turkey. Turkey has a fairly decent economy, and is in the middle of all three different alliances... with the russians right next door. So I played this for a few days, and learned a lot more about picking technologies to research, and building up my armies. Now I have switched over to playing Germany for a while. This game is great, it is so deep, to understand how everything works... and how much variation there is too each scenario. I would suggest that anyone playing this game for the first time, should try a small country to learn about the economics to maintaining a country and forget about the tutorial. Nothing is worse then trying to build up your tanks for an assault... and all of the sudden having your production level drop rapidly because you ran out of oil or rubber... and having your economy stall out. Anyway, this is a great game that I would highly recommend to anyone.