Hearts of Iron 4 is an incredibly complex World War II simulation that will require potentially hundreds of hours to master, both in-game and poring over wiki articles that read like an economics textbook. And as someone eager to invest that kind of time into a game as long as it continues to reward me with new layers of depth, I consider that a very good thing. Thanks to an unusually striking look and clean, easily navigable interface, the biggest challenges we Hearts of Iron 4 presents us with are the good kind: strategic planning, division composition, and fine-tuning economic and political policies. The payoff is brilliant for those willing to put in the time to learn.

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“ I only had eight divisions on the field, but they had kill-to-death ratios that would make a pro Counter-Strike player sweat.

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The amazingly large world map of Earth circa 1936 is made up of over 11,000 unique provinces, sea regions, and air zones. That’s roughly 250 times as many as a Risk board, and it really feels like a board gamer’s dream representation of Earth during the Second World War. Climates, terrain, the day/night cycle, weather patterns, and supply lines are simulated and animated down to the individual province, and all have noticeable effects on your units’ real-time movement and combat. At the highest level of play, you’ll be considering things like waiting for the weather to break before launching your armored offensive, and the dilemma of deploying your strategic bombers in the wee hours of the morning for better accuracy on vital targets or in the dead of night for a lower chance of being detected by enemy fighters and AA emplacements. It added up to make me feel like I was really there on those North African battlefields of ‘42, considering all possibilities both foreseeable and unforeseeable to eke out a victory.Any nation that existed between 1936 and 1939 is playable, and while great powers like Germany, the US, and the United Kingdom are a lot more detailed, the experience of playing a minor nation is the best it’s ever been at release in a Paradox game. In Europa Universalis 4, for example, you might need to wait months or years for the Aztecs or the Mali Empire to be fleshed out in a patch or expansion. But HoI4’s generic focus tree (used by all nations who aren’t great powers and thus, don’t get their own historically geared focuses) is powerful and open-ended enough that mid-tier and even backwater countries can pick a faction and ideology (Democracy, Communism, or Fascism), make a contribution to the war, and have a good time.These amusing and flexible ahistorical options exist for the majors, as well. By spending political power on national focuses and various, historically based government ministers, you can play as a Germany who pushes its luck as far as it can with political demands, but never actually fires a shot. You can oust Hirohito as Japan, put the workers of Tokyo in charge of a hardworking People’s Republic, and cast your lot in with Mao and the Soviets. You can foment support for a fascist referendum in the American heartland and decide Canada ought to be yours, and those tea-drinking Brits across the pond be damned for thinking otherwise. What’s astonishing is that Paradox foresaw and supported each of these alternate paths with a unique flag, country name, and quasi-historical leader to represent them. The amount of divergence that can take place in the relatively compact 1936-1948 timeline can’t match the centuries you have to play with in Europa Universalis or Crusader Kings, but there are plenty of alternate scenarios to uncover beyond the World War II we all know and love. I can’t get enough of alternate history, and the volume of crazy possibilities adds enormous replayability.Regardless of the path you choose, however, it’s likely as not to end with a stuttering stumble to the finish. Almost every campaign I played past 1944 or so bogged down my beefy Core i7 4770K with the complex AI orders being issued from Normandy to Nanjing, making the last push toward victory, or desperate defense against defeat, a slightly vexing affair. Watching armies putter around with a choppy frame rate takes some of the magic out of it.But the high-level competition between nations and ideologies in Hearts of Iron 4 is, somewhat unintuitively, not really about commandos or dive bombers or tank battalions. Its beating heart is its intricate simulation of the industry and logistics that allow warfare to take place at all. Even the most gifted commander with the best technology and most elite soldiers would do best to knock out larger, more populous opponents quickly, as wise resource management and industrial development will almost certainly prevail in the long run. That factories, production efficiency, and developing your civilian sector can win you the war is an engaging realization that made me operate outside my comfort zone and think about global conflict in new ways. In addition to considering which ships to build and how many marines I needed to take Iwo Jima, I had to contemplate how to weigh arms production versus expanding my infrastructure in Michigan. I had to strike a balance with my manpower reserves between the factory floors and the front lines. A prominent industrialist in my government cabinet ended up making a larger contribution to victory across the length of the war than any hot-shot fighter ace or brilliant general. This all lends a sense of nuance and so many new, interesting strategic layers to the whole campaign.