Hearts of Iron IV is the game that I have played the most in my life, and am a few hours away from reaching 1000 hours play-time on Steam. This was accrued over the course of five years, having owned the game since it came out in June 2016. Having played a game for over a thousand hours, you’d assume I was an expert right, a master with nothing left to learn? Well, you’d be wrong.
I think everyone that games, has a comfort game. The kind of game they can relax into when they are feeling a bit anxious or stressed, and just play without thinking. Games like The Sims and Animal Crossing tend to fit into this category for a lot of people, but for me it’s always been Hearts of Iron IV. I can easily turn it on and spend a few hours playing it without thinking, and do the same thing again and again. For those that have never heard of the game, I’ll explain a little now.
Hearts of Iron IV is a grand strategy game set during World War 2, made by Paradox Interactive. In the game, you pick any country in the world that existed in 1936, and take control of its political and military affairs, seeing it through to the mid 40’s. In doing so, you can wage war, maintain peace, follow a historical or non-historical path, and really the game lets you pick your own objectives. It’s up to you what you want the destiny of your country to be.
The game takes place on a world map, and everything is controlled through various menus, buttons and boxes. You can build armies, factories, equipment, RADAR and more. I’m simplifying this part, but essentially, you get to control what you do with your resources and industrial capacity. Then there are focus trees. These allow you to spend time and political power making decisions which affect the course of your country. This ranges from simple things, such as investing in infrastructure, such as bigger decisions, like launching a communist coup.
Over time, Paradox has added a lot of DLC to the game, mainly in the form of expanding those focus trees for various countries, and improving on the core mechanics, to the point where the game now is very different to when it first released. That is perhaps one of the reasons that it remains so engaging. Whilst not everyone is a fan of DLC, and some of it is on the more pricey side, it does genuinely increase the longevity of the title, and each time one is released, I’m back playing for a full weekend. Additionally, there are mods. So many mods.
One mod in particular, Kaissereich, recreates the world as it may have been if Germany won World War 1, creating entirely brand new factions, countries and political systems, and the depth they have gone too is truly mind boggling. There’s also mods in which people have recreated the world from Fallout, or extended the games timeline to 1956. Truly, the community is so engaged in this game.
So now you know a bit about the game, let me explain why I find it so endlessly engaging. I’m a history buff, it’s what I went to University to study. I’ve always loved historical fiction, and this game essentially just lets you create your own alternate historical scenarios. Want to turn Britain fascist? That’s fine. Want to embrace the anarchists in the Spanish Civil War? Easy. Bring back Napoleon and carve back Napoleonic Europe? If you want. There’s so many different things to do, and because the AI will make different decisions each game, every run is just completely different.
I often find myself setting up my own objectives. The first one, that took me quite a long time to do, was reform the Roman Empire. Italy is not a particularly great country to play as, being the weakest of the great powers. This means that strategy is key, and I found it so much fun to come up with my own big strategies to try and do this feat. Of course there are guides online, but why read a guide when I can spend multiple weeks trying to do it my way?
Eventually, I managed to complete this task with my ‘France First’ strategy. It involved declaring war on France as early as possible, and then putting all my navy and planes over the channel, and blitzing Britain. Doing this gives enough industrial might to sweep across the rest of Britain, and utilising all their former colonies as puppet states gives the relevant manpower to do the job. It was so much fun reaching that achievement, and its one of my all time favourite gaming memories. And it’s a memory I made myself, not something that came from a games narrative.
I think that’s why I love this game so much. You just get to create your own stories, fill in the gaps. The title of this article, about me not knowing a thing, refers to a lot of the games more intricate details. There are rolls for combat, certain meta things to do, optimised strategies, all sorts of things. I’ve just always ignored them and done what I thought was best. I like to play strategy games in a sort of sneaky way, using diplomacy rather than brute force to complete my goals. If there are two big powers fighting each other, I’ll wait it out and stab one of them in the back. It’s a lot easier than micro-management!
I suppose whether or not you get into a games meta depends on how much you like to win. For me, I’m not too bothered. I like to play on Ironman mode, which removes cheats and only autosaves on an exit, and I end up losing a lot. I overreach, or don’t prepare properly, or get caught up in a war I didn’t want. When that happens though, it’s still fun. It’s still seeing a new alternate history scenario, and seeing how it all plays out. Empires rise and fall, and seeing both parts of that is just as fun. You can play by setting yourself little objectives, or by following the games official achievements, which are just as fun and hard to do. There is also multiplayer, which I admit I have never tried. Got to finish single player first!
Ultimately, this was sort of a rambling article. I just wanted to talk about Hearts of Iron IV for a bit. Is it a game I would recommend to anyone? Probably not. The systems can be obtuse, and if you’re not interested in the subject matter, I can see it being boring. If clicking on a green tick that changes your country name to the Holy Roman Empire doesn’t excite you, then you can probably give this one a miss. But if that sounds at least a little bit enticing, I heartily suggest you play it.
You can purchase Hearts of Iron IV on Steam here.
