'...if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years

[undercovergeek]

I'm being lazy - is it stand alone?

doesnt look like it

[sandman2575]

Definitely not stand-alone -- add on.

The battle plans editor is kind of killing me -- it looks fantastic, but like ArizonaTank says, it's essentially just for looks.  If it dictated how your AI controlled armies would try to carry out the operation, I would buy this is a second.  But just eye candy, unfortunately.

The AI control feature for me is what sets HoI3 apart from its predecessors (that and the more detailed OOBs).  It has enormous potential, but definitely remains a work in progress.  If they could get the AI to function more or less rationally, rather than do constantly unrealistic things like railroading your divisions all over the front to cover perceived gaps, it would be revolutionary -- but maybe that's too much to ask, in the near term anyway.  Which is why the battle plans is both so enticing and disappointing -- if it directed AI, it would just be fantastic, but no.

My two cents, but Their Finest Hour does seem to add considerably more than the previous expansion, For the Motherland, which really seemed very trivial and I never wound up buying.  Semper Fi was a must have improvement on vanilla though. 

Anyway, I'll leave up to the modders - ICE particularly -- to sell me on TFH.  When they get the mod up to date with the expansion, I'll probably take the plunge.  Can't really play vanilla anymore --