The supply map mode also makes it very easy to track which directions it’s safe to march in based on things like terrain, weather, and the availability of transport infrastructure, whether a particular unit behind enemy lines is able to get food and ammunition, and whether a naval invasion or a quick blitz to the enemy capital would be viable under the current circumstances. From one easy-to-read screen, it’s straightforward to determine exactly how many rifles, jeeps, and aircraft I’m producing, whether I’m meeting the demand to equip new divisions and resupply those already in the field, and how many outdated models I still have in my stockpile for a rainy day. The excellent logistics interface, by contrast, shows how feedback should be done. HoI4 thoroughly obliterates the idea that any conflict can be won by throwing enough men and technology at it. I often felt like a supreme commander with a mute general staff, lacking the answers to basic questions I needed to fight the war to the best of my ability. It may seem odd to ask for more spreadsheets and statistics in an already numbers-heavy game, but I would kill for some sort of report I can pull up detailing how many of my fighters were getting shot out of the air and by what, where and why my tanks were breaking down and what I could do about it, or how much extra punch those new truck-mounted rockets were adding to my motorized infantry divisions. But without a way to track the effect these small, granular changes were having once deployed, it kind of felt like I was just putting little “+1 to Fighting” stickers on my men and vehicles and hoping it helped in some kind of non-specific way. I could increase the number of guns on an Iowa-class battleship or create a P-51 fighter variant with bigger engines and better reliability. I was able to customize each of my divisions down to the number of infantry companies and tanks, and which types of support equipment they carried. This has the unfortunate effect of minimizing some of Hearts of Iron 4’s other strengths. I never felt like I was getting a lot of help in judging the success of these decisions in any way more complex than “You won” or “You lost.”
This often led me to one of two options: a policy of throwing army templates at a wall made of the enemy and sticking to the ones that made the biggest hole without ever fully comprehending the underlying mechanics, or simply building my armies based on what seemed to make sense based on my real-world, common-sense understanding of what tanks, bombs, and towed anti-aircraft guns do. I never felt like I was getting a lot of help in judging the success of decisions.Īll these things are happening under the hood, but remain largely invisible, especially with so much going on simultaneously. By the same token, feedback about the performance of individual companies is a rare luxury, and Hearts of Iron 4’s interface makes it hard to track specific data after the fact about your new rocket artillery’s contribution to the battle, if the sandstorm severely affected your tanks, or when and how your crafty general outmaneuvered the enemy commander.
Tales of individual heroism go unheard in the blandness of statistically calculated warfare. When you’re expected to manage potentially millions of men and hundreds of factories all around the globe, the tactically brilliant actions of Able Company or the Desert Rats get lost in the mix. The high-level focus became a double-edged sword the more I played, however.