Haha, I love it when trailers are just menus and maps. I mean all due respect to the intricate work of strategic cleverness that is Hearts of Iron III, obviously, but that image up there is their parting shot in the trailer. Really. Of all the menus or maps they could leave lingering in their mind at the end of the trailer, that’s the one for their latest expansion, Their Finest Hour.

Beautiful. Beautiful. I mean that. (more…)

World War II-themed grand strategy game as digital collectible card game? It’s both a deeply weird idea and rather an ingenious one, seeing as it encourages thinking extremely tactically about the all-too-slim military resources you have in a bitter battle against an enemy general. I suspect I’d be rubbish at it, as my only considered tactic would be “play the tank card! And again! And again! The tank card! Again!” Fortunately, Paradox have put out some tutorial videos, so you can hear from far wiser minds than mine.

The free-to-play (funded by booster pack transactions, of course), browser-based game is now open to any and all players, but unfortunately the site seems to be having a bit of a wobble at the moment, so you may need to remember what patience is. What is patience? It’s a virtue. It’s also FOR THE WEAK. F5, F5, F5, F5, F5, F5, F5, F5, F5, F5, F5, F5, F5, F5…

Update: site now working fine, I’m told.> (more…)

Hearts Of Iron III: For The Motherland is the second expansion for all-encompassing wargame, Hearts Of Iron III, and it’s “coming soon”. What it does is basically fill out an already complex wargame with even more details. There are now new strategic resources in the game, as well as partisan factions, internal politics and coups. But you need not take my word for it, because lead designer Chris King totally explains it up in a new video diary, which you can see below.
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Details on Paradox’s second expansion for historical heavyweight Hearts of Iron III (the first being Semper Fi) are starting to emerge, like flares fired high over the endless battlefield that is everyday life. Entitled For The Motherland, the expansion will focus on the Soviet Union and the Eastern front of the war. You can watch a 7 minute interview with game designer Chris King after the jump. Because I am a lovely, I’ve also summarised what he’s promising from the expansion in easily digestible bullet points. (more…)

Paul Mason, Economics editor for BBC’s Newsnight, has only gone and written one of the most interesting pieces of games journalism I’ve read in a while. In a blog post entitled “I re-fight World War Two and lose“, Mason takes a shot at playing hardcore World War 2 strategy game Hearts of Iron III using tactics that some WW2 historians believe could have brought Hitler’s Germany to its knees in a fraction of the time. As you may have deduced by now, it doesn’t go so hot.

Firing up the “Politics” interface I was at first amused to find my president, Albert Lebrun, classified as “barking buffoon”, prime minister Albert Sarraut as a “happy amateur” and my intel boss as a “dismal enigma” – but not amused to find that I could not change any of this before the scheduled election in 1940. My finger itched over the military coup button, and I immediately resorted to installing a far-right French police chief to quell dissent and abolish strikes.>

Go read! Thanks to Fred Wester, CEO of Paradox for the tip-off. No, really.