HOI2 over HOI3?

[Eliminatus]

Hey, I've read quite a bit of reviews out there and from my understanding HOI3 is buggy and extremely convoluted. I do enjoy strategy games but theres a point where micromanaging gets excessive. Some of the suggestion I've read said just to pick up HOI2 as that game is more streamlined and not nearly as buggy. Thoughts anyone?

[Eliminatus]

Actually disregard the purchasing opinions. Ima gonna get it. It's $4.49. If it turns into crap then whatever. It'll just be like a McDonalds BigMac. It's five bucks, leaves a sour feeling in your stomach and turns into crap. I can live with a $5 loss I guess. But still the original question stands. Is this still recommended over HOI3?

[Bugenhagen]

Actually disregard the purchasing opinions. Ima gonna get it. It's $4.49. If it turns into crap then whatever. It'll just be like a McDonalds BigMac. It's five bucks, leaves a sour feeling in your stomach and turns into crap. I can live with a $5 loss I guess. But still the original question stands. Is this still recommended over HOI3?

They're different games. I know this is an easy answer but it's true. I currently play both Semper Fi&Gotterdammerung and Darkest Hour (so 3 and 2), and I like them both.
The biggest difference I think is that in 3 you can create hierarchical army structures, and then give that structure a mission, for example: create a Westfront army, assign a bunch of units to it, and tell it to go and conquer France. If you wanted to, you'd never have to manually tell an army unit where to go and what to do, you could leave that all up to the AI.
In HoI2 you have to manually tell each unit what to do.

[Chad11491]

I don't know about HOI2, but Darkest Hour (which is based on HOI2 from what I can tell) had a really shoddy tutorial leaving me guessing what to do, it tried, but failed to explain how the game worked. I got HOI3 on sale and it's tutorial was great, I feel comfortable with the game right off the bat, and that made all the difference for me. I've thoroughly enjoyed it so far, and I'm not typically a grand strategy type player.

[Eliminatus]

Ok sounds good. I went ahead and picked up HOI2 but I might as well pick up HOI3 as well. I think this sell is great because it's letting a lot of players who don't typically play grand strategy games break into the genre, like me. I can't wait for Europa Universalis 3 to go on sale. I've heard glowing things about that game.

[The mouse]

Hey, I've read quite a bit of reviews out there and from my understanding HOI3 is buggy and extremely convoluted. I do enjoy strategy games but theres a point where micromanaging gets excessive. Some of the suggestion I've read said just to pick up HOI2 as that game is more streamlined and not nearly as buggy. Thoughts anyone? Everything you say is correct.

[ScratchyGato]

... It'll just be like a McDonalds BigMac. It's five bucks, leaves a sour feeling in your stomach and turns into crap. I can live with a $5 loss I guess.

The best analogy I've seen in quite a while. Well done, sir.

[kalinin]

Don't pick HOI2 it's badly outdated.
Get Darkest Hour for 10e (which includes all HOI2 + expansions features and a lot more) instead (or HOI3 if you like it).
But just don't waste your money on HOI2.

[Angre_Leperkan]

Yea, it always seems like a bad idea to buy vanilla Paradox games, cuz they're broken beyond all hell. It's kinda frustrating that paradox releases patches as "expansion packs", but what can ya do? I normally just wait for the sale anyways, so I get them super cheap :3 and it pays off.

[Eliminatus]

Wow....So I just read somewhere where people were referring to Arsenal of Democracy and Darkest hour as standalones? My understanding was that they were all exp. of the original HOI3 platform. Am I mistaken in this?

Also I picked up HOI2 complete and am now thinking about the HOI3 complete. Although Im a little more hesitant to pick that up as it's $18 which is a little harder to justify for me, as im a broke college dude. So in your opnion, what expansions are truly worth it and is all the sprite packs necessary for actual gameplay?

I guess to better phrase it if you had to streamline the Complete package, what parts would y'all leave out?

Also thanks for all the original suggestions.

[Angre_Leperkan]

Wow....So I just read somewhere where people were referring to Arsenal of Democracy and Darkest hour as standalones? My understanding was that they were all exp. of the original HOI3 platform. Am I mistaken in this?

Also I picked up HOI2 complete and am now thinking about the HOI3 complete. Although Im a little more hesitant to pick that up as it's $18 which is a little harder to justify for me, as im a broke college dude. So in your opnion, what expansions are truly worth it and is all the sprite packs necessary for actual gameplay?

I guess to better phrase it if you had to streamline the Complete package, what parts would y'all leave out?

Also thanks for all the original suggestions.

I think Darkest Hour is HOI2 except with improvements, so it's a standalone. As for Arsenal of Democracy, it's a community-created improvement to HOI3, but a standalone product as well. I've heard mixed results about Arsenal of Democracy, I've heard Darkest Hour is pretty good (it comes with the original games and all the improvements)

As for HOI3, the sprite packs are totally unecessary, but if you buy it at least buy HOI3 and Semper Fi. I haven't played the new mod yet, and frankly I regret buying it. So yea, if you get the essentials for HOI3, it'll be bout 10 bucks.

[kalinin]

DH is a stand alone indeed, which is why buying HOI2 instead is a waste of money.