Paradox Interactive’s “Hearts of Iron 4” used to be an exceptional game. Centered on grand strategy in World War II, the game offered history buffs a chance to take on the role of Winston Churchill or Franklin Roosevelt or even Adolf Hitler or Josef Stalin. Actually, the game lets you play as just about any world leader from the time.
Sadly, I now find the game unplayable. The problem? Changes made to the game’s naval system.
Paradox has made that most egregious of errors in this area: breaking something that was fixed. Where “Hearts of Iron 4” previously allowed players to deploy warships to fleet commands, home bases, and areas of operation, it now requires players to manage a tedious, confusing task force system. Want to send a massed fleet to contest Nazi U-Boat hunter groups in the mid-Atlantic? Forget it. The game will now split all your ships into random task forces. Want to send 200 warships into a Pacific Fleet under Adm. Chester Nimitz? Forget it. The ships now seem to inevitably dissipate into various naval bases and sit there. Also, reserve fleets: They seem to absorb the main battle force even when the ships are needed for the front line. I used to annihilate Adm. Isoroku Yamamoto’s navy by mid-1943 and corral Japan to the mainland by late 1943. Now, my navy is near defeat by early 1943.
To be fair, I recognize that there are probably ways to mitigate the aggravation of these new complexities. I get that some players may even enjoy the new changes. But the basic issue is that I do not. And reading reviews of the new naval system, I’m quite confident that many players share my frustration.
The great irony here is that this was so unnecessary. “Hearts of Iron 4” is a game of great detail, historical accuracy, and variability. Using industrial statistics from the 1936 period onward, it shows why America was always likely to win the World War II — even, for example, had the Soviet Union and Britain collapsed to Hitler and Australia to Japan.
But until the naval system goes back to that which wasn’t broken, like Ireland in the 1940s, I’m sitting out this war.
