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[Jopax]

Why should that be an option?

The game is sold as a WW2 grand strategy title. With historical events and enabling the player to play out their own version of history if they so desire. Expecting more than that is silly, because the game never promised anything more than that.

[Teneb]

Besides, Victoria covers WW1, so you might as well start there and convert.

[Sergarr]

Victoria doesn't cover WW1.

Well, it technically does cover the supposed time period during which WW1 happened, but it does so in an extremely non-WW1 way. It's not WW1 when a typical battle has ~50 people dying per day of "intense" combat.

[Urist McScoopbeard]

Why should that be an option?

The game is sold as a WW2 grand strategy title. With historical events and enabling the player to play out their own version of history if they so desire. Expecting more than that is silly, because the game never promised anything more than that.

Because every Paradox game lets you take you country from rags to riches if you so desire, and I don't see why that can't continue in a HOI setting. There's ample room...

Besides, Victoria covers WW1, so you might as well start there and convert.

It really doesn't. Not in a meaningful way anyways.

Victoria doesn't cover WW1.

Well, it technically does cover the supposed time period during which WW1 happened, but it does so in an extremely non-WW1 way. It's not WW1 when a typical battle has ~50 people dying per day of "intense" combat.

So I say why not expand HOI's timeframe to include both WWI and the Cold War. There's a great opportunity to play things out as historically or as fictitiously as one can desire. Again, considering it's a staple of essentially every other Paradox grand strategy title I don't see why it's too much to ask for. All the fun of grand strategy is to outwit and outmaneuver the more powerful players. I mean as it stands, while there are a number of different ways you can get WWII to play out, you'll never really be able to shake up history in a crazy way. Which I believe is all the fun of it.

EDIT: Although converting is a REAL option for crazier scenarios. It's just not as optimized as what COULD be, lot's of stuff is just poorly balanced that way.

[Sergarr]

So I say why not expand HOI's timeframe to include both WWI and the Cold War.

That is a pretty popular idea. I've seen mods for HoI 2 that were doing that. Darkest Hour, I think?

[Jopax]

Well for one it's really fucking hard to do for a number of reasons. And why should all of their games offer the same thing, just repackaged in a different timeframe?

I mean, the 20th century has seen enough tech advancement to put research from the other games combined to shame. The tech tree is large enough as it is, do you really want to bloat it further with less and more advanced techs?

And consider combat too, how radically it changed in what amounts to some fifty years, how do you go about modeling that in a proper and balanced way, while still making it fun and interesting?

There's a reason why HoI is generally so much more detailed and developed on the combat, tech and production side than the other titles, it can afford to do that because it's focusing on a short timeframe. If you want to have a big sandbox to play in, you'll need to sacrifice a bunch of details to make it doable in a sensible matter.

[Kot]

So I say why not expand HOI's timeframe to include both WWI and the Cold War.

That is a pretty popular idea. I've seen mods for HoI 2 that were doing that. Darkest Hour, I think?

Hearts of Iron II: Doomsday & Hearts of Iron 2: Doomsday - Armageddon are regular expansion packs (well, the second one is a DLC), not only mods. Basically Cold War Hearts of Iron.

[Sergarr]

So I say why not expand HOI's timeframe to include both WWI and the Cold War.

That is a pretty popular idea. I've seen mods for HoI 2 that were doing that. Darkest Hour, I think?

Hearts of Iron II: Doomsday & Hearts of Iron 2: Doomsday - Armageddon are regular expansion packs (well, the second one is a DLC), not only mods. Basically Cold War Hearts of Iron.

These aren't really Cold War in any realistic sense, either. They're as Cold War as Victoria is a WW1 simulator.

[Kot]

Well, it's Hot War but eh...

[Urist McScoopbeard]

Well for one it's really fucking hard to do for a number of reasons. And why should all of their games offer the same thing, just repackaged in a different timeframe?

I'm literally asking for no changes other than a longer timespan with which to play so you can more drastically alter the course of things. The gameplay is fine, all I ask is that there be more room for a-historical play.

[Mini]

The problem with that is that HoI is about WW2, and there are so many things that could have gone differently that would have caused WW2 to not happen (or happen in a completely different way, such that it's not the same). Also if they're spending time adding WW1 to the game they aren't spending time making the WW2 part better. I imagine Paradox have thought/are thinking about a cold war DLC though, and there'll probably be WW1 mods, but the core gameplay of HoI has always been WW2.

[Jopax]

And like I said earlier, you can't have that without having to take into consideration the drastic changes that happened in those extra years. And if you want to implement them then that would feel like railroading players, and if you want to account for EVERYTHING that could happen then it would be a lot of extra work, thinking of every single thing, because the longer it goes the bigger the changes and the harder it gets to predict what could've happened realistically.

Besides, I'm fairly sure you can just mod the base game with an extra few years if you want to, won't be a complete and proper expirience imho but to each his own I guess.

E: And I get ninjaed in the last trhee minutes of writing this :V

[Zazmio]

A big part of the fun of HoI is taking control of a country in '36 and customizing your OOB from the start.  This wouldn't translate to WW1 that well, since technology was very limited compared to WW2.  Warfare is also static and strategically uninteresting in WW1... at least compared to WW2.

And I disagree with the notion that Vicky II doesn't simulate WW1 in a meaningful way.  Warfare was more abstracted in that game, and rightfully so; more interesting about the period was the colonialism that led to the tensions that caused WW1.

[Sergarr]

A big part of the fun of HoI is taking control of a country in '36 and customizing your OOB from the start.

That's a part of HoI 3 fun. OOB didn't exist in HoI 2, which seems to be the direction where HoI 4 is going, too, so you can forget about that already.

This wouldn't translate to WW1 that well, since technology was very limited compared to WW2.  Warfare is also static and strategically uninteresting in WW1... at least compared to WW2.

That's just because you haven't played through any good game that covered that period. WW1 was full of new revolutionary technology. Tanks, practical combat aviation, gas attacks, storm troopers.... and don't forget that by covering WW1, you would also cover the interwar period, which had saw a lot of military development.

As for static warfare, it has practically ended by the end of WW1, due to advances in military technology.

And I disagree with the notion that Vicky II doesn't simulate WW1 in a meaningful way.  Warfare was more abstracted in that game, and rightfully so; more interesting about the period was the colonialism that led to the tensions that caused WW1.

You may disagree, but you're still wrong. Victoria's mechanics produce extremely ahistorical results for WW1 and this means it doesn't meaningfully simulate it.

And colonialism is not interesting at all in Vicky II, due to the way economy works in that game. Warfare is always the most interesting part in all Paradox games. All AARs that I've seen were all focusing not on "colonialism" or any such bullshit, no. They were all focusing on warfare. No exceptions. Warfare is always the most interesting part of the game in all Paradox games.

[Zazmio]

1 & 2 technically didn't have a command structure like 3, but you can organize your forces, having certain lower ranking generals always under certain higher ranking generals, and call that a command structure, if you want.

When I say "customizing your OOB," I really mean customizing the makeup of your armed forces, from the ground up.  This was very much a thing in 1 & 2, too.

Armies were quite a bit different in WW1.  Tanks came along late in the war, if I remember right, and aircraft didn't have near the impact that they did in WW2.  I'm not sure that it would be as interesting to do HoI-style army customization in a WW1 setting.  Perhaps a good game can be made that focuses on the conflict, but it seems like it would have to have a different system than HoI 3's.

Victoria's mechanics produce ahistorical results?  Ahistorical is how these games roll; that's Paradox Interactive, baby.  Using that logic, none of these games are meaningful simulations.  So are you saying that a game has to stick strictly to historical timelines, and must go into HoI-style detail of armed forces makeup and combat mechanics, in order to be a meaningful simulation of a conflict?

Colonialism is not interesting in Vicky II?  Well, that's just, like, your opinion, man.

Warfare is not always the most interesting part of these games.  Not at all.  Certainly HoI 3 is all about the warfare, but in games like CK II, EU IV, and Vicky II, warfare is nicely abstracted and just a tool you use to achieve your goals; you don't even necessarily need to know every detail of how combat works to be reasonably successful in those games.