[HoI2] Starter

[BURNY26]

Hey all ,ive bought myself a copy of HoI II and i was wondering if you might have some good starter scenarios and nations to familiarise with the game?

[Kamos]

Italy, it's kind of a do whatever you want faction.

[BURNY26]

in every scenario?

[Battletoads]

You should have got Arsenal of democracy. I'm assuming you are doing the 36' scenario.

USA is the cant go wrong faction
Soviet union is similar but goes to war sooner
Germany is quite easy and is very powerful when you get to grips.
United kingdom I dont know as the empire is to big for me to play.
Italy Not really sure about this but you will get action from the start (ethopia,albania)
Japan is probably good to learn about war and especially naval combat but be prepared you start war soon
France Never bothered as I know history's outcome

Finland is also a fun nation to play with but try it after you get the basics.

[BURNY26]

guess ill start as the usa than if it cant go wrong
italy will follow thx

maybe some pointers?

[Aonghus G. Friedhold]

With U.S.A., as stated, you can't go wrong. Stay neutral, conquer Mexico, do whatever. I've never played a long U.S.A. campaign, though, so I don't know any specific hints.

[BURNY26]

doesnt screw that your status with that ....dont remember the name anymore....america for the americans pact ?otherwise good proposal

[Tankfriend]

in every scenario?

No, Italy is only "do what you want" in the earlier scenarios when you're not yet bound to the Axis cause and/or at war with major powers. Later scenarios with Italy would still allow you to switch sides to the Allies or become neutral and do your own thing but that can be quite hard to pull off depending on the circumstances. Mid-late Italy is not what I would call a good starter scenario (as in fact is any mid-late scenario because you'd be more or less overwhelmed by all the things going on).

United kingdom I dont know as the empire is to big for me to play.

Despite the size of the UK, it is a very good nation for a starter as it throws more or less everything at you while still keeping you quite safe on your "little island". A British game has a noticeable focus on naval and airforce gameplay as well as war all over the globe. You need to secure your homeland against invasion, secure your ressource shipments against the enemy (UK is extremely dependent on overseas ressources) and try to protect your colonial territories, mainly against Italy and Japan. Apart from that, you can use your position to intervene in just about any theatre of the war.

Italy Not really sure about this but you will get action from the start (ethopia,albania)

As was said, early Italy is a "do whatever you want" position. Join the Axis, join the Allies, stay independent... your call. The only downside to them is that they're only mediocre at everything - and that only if they're at their best. So you have to take some care in planning your next steps. Their main advantage is their easy access to the Mediterranean - if you gain control of the Suez Canal and Gibraltar, you've essentially gained a major advantage and a very powerful position to work with.

Japan is probably good to learn about war and especially naval combat but be prepared you start war soon

Yes, Japan has to be played extremely aggressively in most cases - they have a good general position but they seriously lack ressources which more or less enforces a military expansion into China, for example. Naval and airforce gameplay is naturally very important for them, all the more so if you go up against the US.

France Never bothered as I know history's outcome

France is not a good choice for a starter nation, for the obvious reason of the invasion soon to come. You don't have too much room for mistakes when playing France but if you know what you are doing, you can easily stall the invasion near indefinitely and then start working on plans to take the war back to Germany. If you're very lucky, you might even be able to start an invasion of your own very early in the war, effectively crushing Germany before it even turns to the west.

Btw, for whatever questions might come up, the wiki for Paradox games is a very good address to start out at.
http://www.paradoxian.org/hoi2wiki/index.php/Main_Page
Here's the page for the US for example:
http://www.paradoxian.org/hoi2wiki/i...hp/US_Strategy

[Aonghus G. Friedhold]

No, Italy is only "do what you want" in the earlier scenarios when you're not yet bound to the Axis cause and/or at war with major powers. Later scenarios with Italy would still allow you to switch sides to the Allies or become neutral and do your own thing but that can be quite hard to pull off depending on the circumstances. Mid-late Italy is not what I would call a good starter scenario (as in fact is any mid-late scenario because you'd be more or less overwhelmed by all the things going on).

Despite the size of the UK, it is a very good nation for a starter as it throws more or less everything at you while still keeping you quite safe on your "little island". A British game has a noticeable focus on naval and airforce gameplay as well as war all over the globe. You need to secure your homeland against invasion, secure your ressource shipments against the enemy (UK is extremely dependent on overseas ressources) and try to protect your colonial territories, mainly against Italy and Japan. Apart from that, you can use your position to intervene in just about any theatre of the war.
As was said, early Italy is a "do whatever you want" position. Join the Axis, join the Allies, stay independent... your call. The only downside to them is that they're only mediocre at everything - and that only if they're at their best. So you have to take some care in planning your next steps. Their main advantage is their easy access to the Mediterranean - if you gain control of the Suez Canal and Gibraltar, you've essentially gained a major advantage and a very powerful position to work with.
Yes, Japan has to be played extremely aggressively in most cases - they have a good general position but they seriously lack ressources which more or less enforces a military expansion into China, for example. Naval and airforce gameplay is naturally very important for them, all the more so if you go up against the US.
France is not a good choice for a starter nation, for the obvious reason of the invasion soon to come. You don't have too much room for mistakes when playing France but if you know what you are doing, you can easily stall the invasion near indefinitely and then start working on plans to take the war back to Germany. If you're very lucky, you might even be able to start an invasion of your own very early in the war, effectively crushing Germany before it even turns to the west.

Btw, for whatever questions might come up, the wiki for Paradox games is a very good address to start out at.
http://www.paradoxian.org/hoi2wiki/index.php/Main_Page
Here's the page for the US for example:
http://www.paradoxian.org/hoi2wiki/i...hp/US_Strategy

All true, but I would disagree with the France statement. You just have to start the war with Germany early. Very early. It also helps if you can find someone to be the U.K. in a multiplayer match. For example, I once played France with my cousin as the U.K., we declared war on Germany within a year after the start, and by 1938, the war was over, with half of Germany being French and half Soviet, and the only work being done was mopping up Austria. The thing is, Germany 1936 is actually relatively weak.

[Ojf]

When I first got the game, this walkthrough AAR taught me everything I needed to know
http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/...d.php?t=378841

[Tankfriend]

All true, but I would disagree with the France statement. You just have to start the war with Germany early. Very early. It also helps if you can find someone to be the U.K. in a multiplayer match. For example, I once played France with my cousin as the U.K., we declared war on Germany within a year after the start, and by 1938, the war was over, with half of Germany being French and half Soviet, and the only work being done was mopping up Austria. The thing is, Germany 1936 is actually relatively weak.

That's the great thing about the Paradox games: That you can in theory do whatever you want and come out on top with it - unless of course you are trying hard to fail.
I've done that "quick road to victory" myself once, playing as France but I've never done it after that because the game was over so quickly that it could hardly develop into anything at all.
I'm more into letting the game develop into difficult situations and stalemates to then break them with interesting war plans as it is so much more satisfying to see a carefully considered plan working out to the last bit. Pulling off a UK invasion into German mainland (at the height of its power) via Denmark was one of them, for example. Even if that might not beat an enemy outright, it certainly causes a lot of problems that can decide the entire rest of the war.

[BURNY26]

That's the great thing about the Paradox games: That you can in theory do whatever you want and come out on top with it - unless of course you are trying hard to fail.
I've done that "quick road to victory" myself once, playing as France but I've never done it after that because the game was over so quickly that it could hardly develop into anything at all.
I'm more into letting the game develop into difficult situations and stalemates to then break them with interesting war plans as it is so much more satisfying to see a carefully considered plan working out to the last bit. Pulling off a UK invasion into German mainland (at the height of its power) via Denmark was one of them, for example. Even if that might not beat an enemy outright, it certainly causes a lot of problems that can decide the entire rest of the war.

Sounds cool enough but have the AI ever done something remarkable like that ? I mean ,is it as dynamic as for example the XAI in TW? Not that im going to start a hellhole of eternal damnation about comparing TW to HoI. Im not that stupid . But has the AI ever done something that didnt happen during WWII?
Like France ,Belguim and the Netherlands holding the blitzkrieg? Or the US of A going to conquer the entire American continent?

[Tankfriend]

As far as I can tell the AI is programmed to adhere to the general course of events as they were in history so the historical outcome of the war usually is the actual outcome in the game as well (in theory at least - there still are some random deviations that can change the game quite a bit).

The main influential factor of the game lies with the player, though.
Say, for example, that I am playing the US and want to intervene in the Spanish Civil War without sending in troops: I could cut all ressource trade to one side and spam the other side with loads of ressources. While that alone is not necessarily going to turn the war, it certainly is going to have a huge impact. Whatever the outcome of the war, however, the Spanish AI will keep out of WW2 entirely - unless you manipulate them further. One great aspect of the game is that you can load savegames and change the nation you're playing with - that way, you could save, change to Spain and force them into WW2, then change back to the US again and watch how that plays out, for example. There are near-limitless possibilities to manipulate the game in this way if you have or want to.

Apart from that, there are also a lot of "events" you will be getting throughout the game that will force you to make a decision on how to cope with them. Many decisions will be quite small and hardly noticeable, but others can have a very large impact on how the game plays out.

[BURNY26]

Is the AI scripted in EU III?

[Kamos]

For the most part the AI in HoI are driven by the events which I believe give them a percent based chance of choosing either option, when left to their own they do nothing that makes sense for the time period. And of course there are a lot of points for it to deviate so getting an accurate game is next to impossible.

That doesn't mean strange things don't happen, France can blitz Germany, Poland can maul the USSR, Japan can pummel the USA with limited to no interference. Stuff like that is just more uncommon than in other games of the kind.

I doubt the EU AI is scripted since there's just to much random stuff that happens.

[Pious Agnost]

Is the AI scripted in EU III?

Only in that scripts give them specific goals and objectives. The AI does the rest

[Heinz Guderian]

Once you've played vanilla for a while and got used to it, try the C.O.R.E mod.

[hellheaven1987]

AI in HoI2 is pretty much scripted, and when the player tries to mess up the events AI generally cannot respond well. Hence Paradox promise a more flexible AI in HoI3, which they did and the result is Finland crusade Italy.

[BURNY26]

AI in HoI2 is pretty much scripted, and when the player tries to mess up the events AI generally cannot respond well. Hence Paradox promise a more flexible AI in HoI3, which they did and the result is Finland crusade Italy.

But still. HoI III is worse than II?

[Kamos]

That's because of the abundance of bugs. HoI2 was the same way just like every other Paradox games for a long period of time after their release.