Hearts of Iron II

Hearts of Iron II is a grand strategy game. The player can build land divisions, aircraft squadrons, and naval ships/fleets, and combine these into corps and armies. The player also has the ability to control the appointment of commanders of forces under their nation's flag or that of controlled nations as well as to control the appointment of individual government ministers and military commanders in key General Staff positions. The player also has a broader ability to control the heads of state and government; however, this option is only available to democracies and only then through elections, in which the player chooses the winner. Technological research is controlled by the player. All this is on a global scale, with the player simultaneously dealing and interacting with nations across the world. The game can be paused at any point.

In the game, a player assumes direct control of a nation at the start of a scenario through 1948. The following scenarios are available:

• The Road to War, beginning on New Year's Day, 1936;
• The Gathering Storm, beginning in September 1938, just before the Munich Agreement; added in the v1.2 patch.
• Blitzkrieg, beginning with Hitler's declaration of war upon Poland (the invasion of Poland) on 1 September 1939;
• Awakening the Giant, beginning on 22 June 1941, at the beginning of Operation Barbarossa.
• Götterdämmerung, beginning on 20 June 1944, two weeks after the Western Allies landed at Normandy.

Added in Iron Cross:

• 1933, beginning on 30 January 1933, when Hitler takes power in Germany.
• 1934, beginning on 1 October 1934, at the start of the October revolution.[9]

Playable operations are:

• Fall Gelb, the German invasion of France in 1940.
• Operation Barbarossa, the German invasion of the Soviet Union in Summer of 1941.
• The Ardennes Offensive, centered around the Battle of the Bulge, on the Franco-Belgian-German frontier the winter of 1944, which was also playable in the game's demo.
• Southern Conquests, revolving around the Japanese centrifugal offensive into the southern resource area in South-East Asia, following the attack on Pearl Harbor.
• Operation Watchtower, the battle for Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands.
• Fall Weiss, the German invasion of Poland
• Fall Grün, the planned German attack on Czechoslovakia
• Platinean War, a fantasy scenario where German-backed Argentina and American-backed Brazil clash in a conflict that would involve most of South America.
• Winter War, the Soviet-Finnish War of 1939–1940.
• Desert Fox, the African campaign that culminated in the Battle of El Alamein.
• Operation Husky, the Allied landings in Sicily and the subsequent Italian Campaign.
• Operation Overlord, the Allied landings in Normandy.
• Operation Downfall, the planned Allied invasion of the Japanese Home Islands.
• Spanish Civil War, the conflict between the Spanish republicans and nationalists in 1936–1939.
• Battle of the Coral Sea, the Japanese plan to capture Port Moresby on New Guinea by sea and the following carrier battle.
• Fall Blau, the German 1942 summer offensive against the Soviet Union, eventually culminating in the Battle of Stalingrad; added in the v1.2 patch.

Hearts of Iron II is a grand strategy game. The smallest independent land unit is the division, although brigades such as engineers, artillery, or armoured cars can be attached to these. On sea, units are either single capital ships or flotillas of small ships such as destroyers. For the air force, the unit is a Wing or Group, depending on nationality. Land divisions include infantry, cavalry, and tanks. Land brigades include anti-tank guns, anti-aircraft artillery and military police.

On the map the player can direct divisions or groups of divisions. Fighting starts when an army starts moving into a defended enemy territory. The invading units do not have to be inside enemy territory to attack. A province is immediately occupied when the invaders arrive there with no opposition left. Because of this, a player can blitz through large swaths of enemy lands with minimal micromanagement. In addition, units who move constantly lose organization and risk losing supply, so poorly executed attempts to blitzkrieg can be stopped. Provinces can be fortified and infrastructure increased to improve combat performance. Structures include radar, and static AA. Many fortifications are pre-built, such as the Maginot Line along the French-German border.

Air units include bombers, fighters and transports. These divisions can, depending on type, engage in tactical or strategic missions. Sea units include transports, aircraft carriers, battleships, cruisers, destroyers, and submarines. Each unit has a strength, speed, and effective engagement range. Naval combats simulate the range between fleets, allowing only units in range to fire. This can make naval combats tactically complex.

Like its predecessor Hearts of Iron, the game is banned in the People's Republic of China. The main point of contention seems to be that the game portrays the various Chinese warlords as independent entities, while according to the PRC government they were nominally part of the Republic of China governed by the Chinese Nationalist government, represented in-game as 'Nationalist China'. Also, the Tibetan flag used in-game is banned in China. Paradox has stated that it will not reduce the level of historical accuracy in order to appease the PRC censors.[10]

Anachronistically, Germany is represented with the flag of the German Empire as used by Germany until 1935, and not the Swastika flag, as was also done in the earlier board game Axis & Allies. Laws in Germany prohibit the use of the swastika. Additionally, in the German version of the game, pictures of leading Nazi leaders, such as Hitler, Göring, and Himmler were removed and their names subsequently altered, though this is not required under German censorship laws, and is not the case in non-German versions of the game. The game can be easily modified by users to include such graphics, but Paradox disallows discussion of this particular type of modification on their message boards.[11]

Several free community game modifications were developed after the releases of Heart Of Iron II, Doomsday and Armageddon; and with the same as a baseline. A popular alternate history mod called Kaiserreich, depicting a world in which the Central Powers have won World War I, was released with positive reviews.

Hearts of Iron II was commercially successful for Paradox; Hanza Aziz of Destructoid called it the company's "first major hit". In the United States alone, it sold 80,000 copies on a marketing budget of $75,000.[17]

On Metacritic the following reception was achieved by Paradox Development Studio:

• Heart of Iron II: 83/100 from the professional critics and 8.6/10 from the users.
• Doomsday: 80/100 from the professional critics and 8.8/10 from the users.[12]

GameSpot gave it 8.3/10, writing that "this is what the original game should have been".[15] At IGN, it received a score of 8.7/10.[14]

Hearts of Iron II was a finalist for PC Gamer US's "Best Real-Time Strategy Game 2005" award, which ultimately went to Age of Empires III.[18] It was also nominated for the 2004 Charles S. Roberts Award for "Best 20th Century Era Computer Wargame", but lost to Battles in Normandy.[19]

• List of grand strategy video games
• List of Paradox Interactive games
• List of World War II video games

• Hearts of Iron II Complete at Paradox (archived)
• Hearts of Iron II at MobyGames
• Hearts of Iron II at GameSpot