Hearts of Iron II Doomsday review

I suspect Hearts of Iron II was the source of lots of divorces. Its immense depth combined with accessibility and sheer endless playability made the game one of the best strategy titles ever. Now Paradox Interactive is following up on its success with a standalone expansion that actually contains the original game as well. One word of advice: Buy some flowers for the girl in your life before you install Doomsday.

Basically it’s still the same game with a number of improvements and a huge post-1945 scenario that lets you explore how things would have turned out if the Western Allies and the Soviet Union had gone to war with each other after defeating Germany and Japan. Thus, if you need to know the basics of Hearts of Iron II, please read this review first.

Blue vs Red

Doomday explores the very likely scenario of World War III right after World War II ended. The situation can be boiled down to this: The Western Allies with the US as leading nation possess a few atomic bombs but are seriously outgunned when it comes to conventional forces. Can the relatively small, but technologically advanced Western armies keep the massive Soviet hordes at bay, hordes that have already advanced deep into Europe?

This leads to a very tricky scenario no matter which side you choose to control. But as in Hearts of Iron II you can pick pretty much any country in the world, so if you want to just play a minor role that’s fine. The timeline of Doomsday spans from 1945 to 1953, but like I said in the intro the full Hearts of Iron II game is included, too, so you can start in 1936 if you like and still take advantage of the new features that come with Doomsday.

I’m a spy, you see

Doomsday comes with a couple of welcome new features, with intelligence being the most prominent. You can now send spies to other countries, or carry out counter-espionage in your own country. The more spies you’ve managed to infiltrate into another country, the higher your rate of success will be as you plan your evil schemes such as stealing blueprints, ruin the country’s international reputation, fund partisans and much more. It’s does require plenty of micro-management, but it’s definitely a fun addition. Additionally the game now has a couple of extra production options that can make some of the less interesting tasks automatic.

The tech tree has always been a central part of Hearts of Iron games and with Doomsday it has been expanded so you can create post-WWII weapons – most importantly nukes, which can be fitted to bombers and ICBMs.

Another much improved central aspect are your generals. As in the core game they are central to your success and they can now gain new traits when they fight. Although the system could use a bit of fine-tuning, it’s nice to see a general gain the Hill Fighter trait, after fighting in the, well, hills. You can also see a list of all the battles that each general has participated in.

The old or the new?

To my best knowledge neither graphics nor sound have changed at all and the big portion of the game is still the same. If you don’t own the original, the decision is easy – go for Doomday, as you get the full Hearts of Iron II game and a huge post-World War II scenario as well as great new features on top.

However, if you already own Hearts of Iron II it gets a bit complicated. I found myself playing the 1936 scenario more than the 1945 scenario because Doomsday is a very complex scenario. There are tons of troops, tons of decisions to take and you haven’t had the chance to build anything up – you are thrown directly into WWIII. But the new features work in the old scenarios as well so by playing those I got the best of both worlds, so to speak.

Doomsday is still also a bit bug-ridden and while it doesn’t affect gameplay significantly hardcore fans will notice the problems. Meanwhile the original Hearts of Iron II is by now a very solid and well-balanced game. So you have to consider – do you want the new features and new scenario or do you want a bug-free experience (which is important not least in multiplayer)?

No matter what you decide, Hearts of Iron II and Doomsday represent some of the best turn-based strategy you’ll ever play. If you haven’t bought either game, yet, you’d better do so faster than a Blitzkrieg attack on Poland.