Imagine the situation: you are an entrepreneur and you decide to open a small cozy restaurant in the style of the 40s of the twentieth century with a themed design. Inside you have hung different flags, on the walls there are wartime photographs, samples of rifles, music is playing that the soldiers of those years listened to on both sides of the front, the menu contains exclusively dishes from that era. The number of visitors is gradually growing, your restaurant is becoming a cozy lamp place for connoisseurs. Regular guests give advice on how to improve, because everything cannot be perfect at once: the cook sometimes over-salts the food, the music is not varied enough, the chairs squeak, and the waiters sometimes spit in the soup. You vow to fix at least some of the problems and expand the range by winter, when you receive money from investors. Winter is coming, people come to the renovated restaurant and see that you… have built a new wing, where the walls are painted a different color and ringing music plays from a better player. Everything seems to be fine, but most of the old problems remain in place, and the prices on the menu have increased by an order of magnitude.
These are roughly the feelings I experienced yesterday when I launched the updated version after a three-week break Hearts of Iron 4 with new addition Together for victory. First, I suggest going through the main changes:
1.Added national focuses for 5 countries (India, Canada, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand)
2.New mechanics for interacting with puppets
3.New order in the battleplane menu and battle log
4.A couple of new countries
5.Skins for soldiers, music player and other cosmetic changes.
I have absolutely no complaints about the quantity and quality of new content, everything new is done perfectly. The problem is that neither patch 1.3, nor the addon solved any of the problems of the original Hearts of Iron 4. But let’s first talk about what has become good, and then what remains bad.
The new puppet control system is very convenient and intuitive. We have several levels of influence of the protector on the subject. The closer a dependent country is to autonomy, the more levers it has to control its foreign policy and the less assistance it receives from the “master”. This mechanic especially works well with British Commonwealth countries that have focuses on increasing or decreasing autonomy.
The new tricks themselves for 5 countries are also excellent, each of these countries now has 4 ways: to free themselves from the owner by taking the path of democracy, communism or fascism, and, conversely, to strengthen their connection with him.
The “breakthrough” order helps to https://24bettlecasino.co.uk/ carry out blitzkrieg more efficiently and create huge “cauldrons”. For example, the Reich can now very effectively split the Polish army into two parts in the early days of the war. I have not yet found a use for the battle log, but I think it will still be able to prove its usefulness later.
It’s just nice to look at the new countries; they have practically no influence, except perhaps Manjou-go, which, having received freedom from Japan, can cut it off from China.
As for the technical side, the interface has become a little more convenient, there is a little more music, the game as a whole is a little more optimized and smoother.
Slightly corrected the AI in wartime, and now (Attention!)he can finally disembark!
It would seem that the list of changes is not so long, but considering that they are all selling for 350 rubles, and some are even free with a patch, then the price-quality ratio is quite equal. Now let’s talk about what doesn’t work in the game.
It’s not for nothing that I gave the example of a restaurant at the beginning of the review. The problem with the new addition is that, while adding new mechanics, it not only does not solve the old pile of problems, but throws in several new ones.
The puppet control system has become another mechanic that ONLY the player uses. In 8 hours I played several short games until about 39-42. British Commonwealth countries do not take political focuses for the first 5 years of the game, as do most other countries with unique focuses. Until about the year 40, nothing happens in the game at all in any case, and then everything follows the same scenario, very close to historical. The check mark on “non-historical AI focus” does not appear from the word AT ALL. AI does not appoint advisors, does not change ideology, does not create new alliances, does not interfere in the affairs of other countries, does not justify the goals of war, does not drop atomic bombs and does not start revolutions. All the movement in a single-player game is created by the player.
The puppet system also has a huge problem. Let’s say you started as a puppet and decided to change through the civil war. You install an advisor, the ideology reaches a certain percentage of popularity, a civil war begins and… your protector does not interfere in it, he doesn’t care. You win the war, are completely freed from the owner and that’s it, he has no complaints against you. I think everyone understands that this is not normal and there is not an ounce of logic here.
Diplomacy remained scanty and superficial, they didn’t touch it at all (the opportunity to ask for Lend-Lease doesn’t count). There is no smell of its analogue from Europa Universalis here.
Artificial intelligence in battles, although it has become one gram better, is still completely inadequate. In one of the parties, I started a war with the USA for fascist Canada, and the French, the Belgians and the Dutch brought ALL their troops to the aid of the states, leaving the empty borders of Germany, which started the war with them before I did with America.
In the end,Together for victory is a nice, interesting, but unnecessary patch at this stage that does not solve the main problems. I really hoped that the game would hook me for another 10-20 hours, but now after 8 hours I have no desire to play any more, because I won’t see anything interesting or unusual there.
The final assessment, as in the case of the original game, I give with a large advance for the future. Someday the developers will make a cool game out of this construction set, at least I hope so. After all, formally there is nothing to complain about, the addition is good, but it’s like that new wing of the restaurant – it seems good, but why, when there are already problems?