Hearts of Iron 2: Doomsday Expansion Pack

List Price: $19.99 Discount Price: $21.89

Features:

• Real-time WWII strategy game spanning 5 campaigns from 1936 to 1953
• Play as one of 175 countries rather than just one of the classic "big boys"
• New technology and diplomatic features increase your options for game resolution
• Intelligence system lets you steal and sabotage equipment, control mass media, start riots, and even assassinate ministers
• Explore intriguing "what if" questions both during and beyond the classic WWII context

Accessories:
PC Gamer (1-year)	Games for Windows: The Official Magazine

Customer Reviews:

HOT [Posted on 2007-05-02]
Best WWII game I have ever played. This is not an expansion pack, but the whole game with extra years and other good suprises.

If you don't own it, buy it.

Thinking Mans WW2 Game! [Posted on 2007-06-30]
If you want to just shot up men and tanks look elswere.But if you want to fight the war using political and economic planing this is it..

I have been playing this game now for about 2 weeks and there is so much to this for the player willing to put time into it.The reason

I only gave it 4 stars is because you really have to sit down and think before you fight and its is not for everyone.But the games forum is a lot of help.

So if you like this sort of game be prepared the game will outlive your PC.

The Best Strategy Game Ever [Posted on 2008-01-12]
So may want to debate the title of this review but in terms of requiring you to consider EVERY aspect of running a nation in war, there is no other game even close to this one. Scroll down to the bottom if you just want a brief summary.

In Hearts of Iron, which came out back in 2002 or 2003, there was a game that was excellent but still lacked alot of things and the technology development was just so clustered. HOI 2 improved upon that. HOI Doomsday adds even more. I have not played HOI Apocalypse but I am sure that adds even more to this.

In this WWII strategy simulator, you get to pick which nation you control and at what point in time. You can pick pretty much any nation in the world but you'll have more fun as one of the major powers. You are required to do a balancing act between the economy, technology, the military and trading. You can manipulate the direction of your nation based on historical and random events that occur, such as as Germany, you can choose not to demand the Sudetenland or as America, you can cave in to Japan's demand for oil. You will occasionally have the ability to directly change your government in the diplomacy screen with sliders such as "Left/Right, Authoritarian/Democratic, Hawk/Dove," and so forth.

Each nation starts with their specific technology level and military strength. It will be up to you which direction you take in this area. Do you want a highly advanced Navy? You can research it but your ground and air forces might be a bit obsolete and vice versa. As some nations you will be forced to compromise on this but as others, you won't need to. For instance, as Germany, you don't really need a navy at first so you can focus on ground and air forces whereas the British need their navy to stay alive. The game is real-time though you can slow down/speed up the time. Building units takes as long as it historically would have. For instance, an Iowa Class Battleship will take a year or two depending on your economy/industrial technology level.

You can also research doctrines and strategy such as Blitzkrieg or Carpet Bombing which will improve the effectiveness, morale, and speed of units. Each nation will have a set number of research teams and these cost money. So does building units and having units. You'll also have to devote resources to the civilian economy.

When war breaks out, the strategy will be up to you. And unlike other strategy games, it is also up to you to ensure that your units are supplied. Should you invade and take some islands in the Pacific, you better create a supply route or else those units will dissolve over time. The map is divided up into regions with some regions having value points. Some of these are obvious such as national capitals or major cities. Areas with alot of resource values also have value points. It will be up to you to take your enemy's territories and gain his value points. For instance, as Germany if you invade Poland, you must take Warsaw and a few other regions in order to annex it. When the war starts and it could take any shape depending on your decisions or the random decisions of the computer, some historical decisions can be made such as whether or not to create Vichy France or to assassinate Admiral Yamamoto. The point of the game is to have more victory points than the other factions. The factions are divided up between Commintern, Axis and Allies. But again, you can drastically change the scope of the war if for instance you were to play as America, you could make it a Fascist state or a communist state and you would then have the option of joining with Nazi Germany or the USSR.

The game is a lot of fun to play and you'll find yourself playing longer than you would think as it is addictive. Researching the higher levels of technology is fun to do to see what new units are opened up. You also have the ability to send spies to other nations and can attempt to conduct various missions such as delay tech team or fund partisans though the success of this depends on your own intelligence forces and the target's intelligence forces. The game is challenging in that you must focus on all aspects. Luckily, the economic side is simple and you won't get bored with this. There are no stunning graphics but they are not really needed. This IS a game in which you'll want to play again and again, especially as different nations. Doomsday also has different scenarios in which you can play, such as the Winter War between Finland and the USSR or a fictional war in South America. As I mentioned earlier, you can play as any nation at any of the given years. This is fun to do to see if you can do better than what the historical leaders did. Will you play as America in 1936 and begin preparing for the coming war earlier? Will you play as France in 1939 and not make the mistake of relying on the Maginot Line? Will you play as Germany in 1944 and successfully repel the D-Day invasion?
Added in this game are a longer timeframe; in previous versions, the game ended on December 31st 1947. This game will end in 1953. Also added is the new "Doomsday Scenario" where in the last days of WWII, the USSR invades the West and Truman uses the A-bomb on Moscow. This is a tough scenario but very interesting in a "what-if" sense.

The game isn't perfect though and the supply system might get a little frustrating as there is seemingly little you can do to improve the supply chain to a certain area or units. Your enemies may sometimes attack one of your areas where you left it open but they seem to give little thought to overall strategy and are intent on just getting regions with victory points. Also the skill of historically great commanders such as Manstein and Eisenhower are hurt because when you promote them to a level where they can command more than one division, they lose skill levels and sometimes never earn it back unless they are in combat alot. Kind of annoying but a minor point.

Overall, this is a great game. It forces you to think about all aspects of a nation and unlike other strategy games, there is no easy "cheat" bug to take advantage of to quickly win. You may find yourself restarting the game when you realize that you completely neglected some aspect of the strategy and are now doomed to destruction. Each nation has it's strengths and weaknesses. Play this game if you like strategy games or if you like studying WWII. Think you can conquer Russia as Germany? Give it your best shot. Do you want to invade Canada and Mexico as the US, go for it! You can do whatever you want in this game but just keep in mind, your population might not agree with you, nor will other nations just stand by. Your actions will have consequences. Play this game and be prepared to spend alot of time on it!

Best Strategy game ever [Posted on 2008-02-12]
All they could do to improve this game is even more details. They also improved it from HOI to HOI II to Doomsday, I did em all. It takes a little while to learn the interface, but it's very ez after that. I was dissapointed at not being able to play my gaming buddy online, then I would have still been playing this game every day after 3 years, as is I still play it. If they could make this game go into squad level if u select a battle each game month and then fight it out personally if both side "select" the battle area, that would be great! Still, this is the closest to perfection I've ever had the pleasure to play, only MOO II could give HOI Doomsday any compettition only beause MOO II was ez to play onlne with many friends.

Long [Posted on 2008-07-10]
This game is extremely long. I have owned it for a couple of years and never completed an entire game. Also it is a rather poor simulation. That said it is fairly fun, and does try harder at historical accuracy than other games. I would like to see a more realistic version of this game with even more options.

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