FREE --> 3 DLCs for Hearts of Iron IV

[steve58]

Waking the Tiger
Together for Victory
Death or Dishonor

All three free to keep when you get them before Mar 21 @ 1:00pm.

Update:  https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/394360/view/7280704029852997850

Well maybe nevermind, looks like all 3 DLCs are going to become part of the base game by Mar 21 anyway.     

[Senex]

Probably a good idea to do it if you don't have them.  Paradox warns "failure to update your game could lead to disruptions, such as save game incompatibilities."

[Ian C]

Just to hijack this thread for thoughts on a mod. Bear with me...

I recently started playing the Black Ice mod and it is by far the best and most realistic experience I've had with any WW2 global strategy game, ever. This is a mod made by a team that know history and wargames.

If you like HOI4 and you can handle the extra depth, I highly recommend it. In my recent play through as the UK I went through experiences that matched the Battle of Britain, Blitz, the U-Boat war and now I'm up to 1942 and the Russo-German war and Japanese war is in full swing.

To give some idea of the scope: The Luftwaffe was hammering the RAF over the UK from the fall of France up to 1941 and I was hanging on by a thread. My production of Fighters wasn't enough to fill the losses and literally every single tech gain and percentage of help proved decisive (as it does elsewhere in the game). When the U.S. Sold me Fighters I literally breathed a sigh of relief.
My industry was being bombed away. Black Ice has separate factories for air production, tank production, etc. and strategic bombing can individually target these.

The AI does a great job. There are U-Boat attacks all over the historical routes and they are difficult to defend against so far. Air, Land and Sea combat behaves very realistically, both in means and pace. 

Too many things to list here about how much fun and how dramatic this mod is. The way units are composed is accurate. Combat and supply feels realistic. I found myself really using espionage and cryptography, air power and other factors as combat in North Africa was at a stalemate until I realised I was just playing casually like I do with the base game. Once I started taking small factors into account, using air supply, breaking cyphers, air recon, etc, the battle shifted in my favour. These are things that don't really impact too much in the base game, but they really count here.


There are some drawbacks. The mod is really deep. Research, production and other areas are massively expanded. If you find these areas boring or a struggle in the base game, you won't like the mod. It also requires some knowledge of the history of the time, in order to make appropriate choices. It requires more attention and it is definitely exhausting in places, but, as a simulation of world war two, for me at least, this is the realism and drama of it. I would highly recommend that the game is run at a maximum of speed 2 while at war, maybe 3 in the quiet moments. It is easy to miss something really important. Once again, this game takes a lot of concentration and planning. You can't go in lightly.

I took my eyes off the Far East while fixating in North Africa and Japan took Ceylon. From there they threatened East Africa and Southern Arabia. Again, the AI is very surprisingly good. I was blaming ahistorical AI on this before I released I'd let them have Ceylon through negligence and neglecting my naval presence there. The island is strategically important because from it, the Japanese can project naval power into the Indian Ocean and Arabian areas and I completely missed it because I was used the base game's AI. I've cowed the German Kriegsmarine and there is little chance of them launching any invasion as the Germans are bogged down in Russia, so I'm sending the majority of the Home Fleet over to the Indian Theatre to stop any more Japanese advances.

I'm tempted to restart, as it's my first proper game with Black Ice, but I think I'll stick with it and accept my mistake and recover from it.

In summary, this is the best HOI 4 experience I've had so far, but it's deep, difficult, historically realistic and unforgiving.

LINKS TO MOD:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1137372539
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=842834893

[smittyohio]

Which Black ICE mod are you using?   Doing a search on the workshop is returning a lot of mods with the same name in the title.

[Ian C]

These
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1137372539
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=842834893

[Tanaka]

Just to hijack this thread for thoughts on a mod. Bear with me...

I recently started playing the Black Ice mod and it is by far the best and most realistic experience I've had with any WW2 global strategy game, ever. This is a mod made by a team that know history and wargames.

If you like HOI4 and you can handle the extra depth, I highly recommend it. In my recent play through as the UK I went through experiences that matched the Battle of Britain, Blitz, the U-Boat war and now I'm up to 1942 and the Russo-German war and Japanese war is in full swing.

To give some idea of the scope: The Luftwaffe was hammering the RAF over the UK from the fall of France up to 1941 and I was hanging on by a thread. My production of Fighters wasn't enough to fill the losses and literally every single tech gain and percentage of help proved decisive (as it does elsewhere in the game). When the U.S. Sold me Fighters I literally breathed a sigh of relief.
My industry was being bombed away. Black Ice has separate factories for air production, tank production, etc. and strategic bombing can individually target these.

The AI does a great job. There are U-Boat attacks all over the historical routes and they are difficult to defend against so far. Air, Land and Sea combat behaves very realistically, both in means and pace. 

Too many things to list here about how much fun and how dramatic this mod is. The way units are composed is accurate. Combat and supply feels realistic. I found myself really using espionage and cryptography, air power and other factors as combat in North Africa was at a stalemate until I realised I was just playing casually like I do with the base game. Once I started taking small factors into account, using air supply, breaking cyphers, air recon, etc, the battle shifted in my favour. These are things that don't really impact too much in the base game, but they really count here.


There are some drawbacks. The mod is really deep. Research, production and other areas are massively expanded. If you find these areas boring or a struggle in the base game, you won't like the mod. It also requires some knowledge of the history of the time, in order to make appropriate choices. It requires more attention and it is definitely exhausting in places, but, as a simulation of world war two, for me at least, this is the realism and drama of it. I would highly recommend that the game is run at a maximum of speed 2 while at war, maybe 3 in the quiet moments. It is easy to miss something really important. Once again, this game takes a lot of concentration and planning. You can't go in lightly.

I took my eyes off the Far East while fixating in North Africa and Japan took Ceylon. From there they threatened East Africa and Southern Arabia. Again, the AI is very surprisingly good. I was blaming ahistorical AI on this before I released I'd let them have Ceylon through negligence and neglecting my naval presence there. The island is strategically important because from it, the Japanese can project naval power into the Indian Ocean and Arabian areas and I completely missed it because I was used the base game's AI. I've cowed the German Kriegsmarine and there is little chance of them launching any invasion as the Germans are bogged down in Russia, so I'm sending the majority of the Home Fleet over to the Indian Theatre to stop any more Japanese advances.

I'm tempted to restart, as it's my first proper game with Black Ice, but I think I'll stick with it and accept my mistake and recover from it.

In summary, this is the best HOI 4 experience I've had so far, but it's deep, difficult, historically realistic and unforgiving.

LINKS TO MOD:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1137372539
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=842834893

Wow great write up. I abandoned HOI4 a long time ago but you have now made me reconsider it. Just wondering have you played SCWAW and how do you compare?

[Ian C]

Just wondering have you played SCWAW and how do you compare?

Strategic Command World At War? There's really no comparison. It's more like HOI4 combined with Gary Grigsby's War in the East/West with even more depth in certain areas.
Some people will hate it, as there is a lot of stuff crammed into every available space on the GUI, but one of the neat things is that it's got user-definable GUI elements.

It's not a mod you can speed-play through. I guess it's kind of a slow-burn deep strategy/historical experience. I find it mentally tiring in places, in a good way.

[CJReich46]

Forgive this necro 

I wanted to mention, free weekend of HOI IV on Steam this weekend AND...

The game is 9.99 this includes the DLCS that were added into the base game! So it's 80% off.

That is all.

[Rayfer]

Just to hijack this thread for thoughts on a mod. Bear with me...

I recently started playing the Black Ice mod and it is by far the best and most realistic experience I've had with any WW2 global strategy game, ever. This is a mod made by a team that know history and wargames.

If you like HOI4 and you can handle the extra depth, I highly recommend it. In my recent play through as the UK I went through experiences that matched the Battle of Britain, Blitz, the U-Boat war and now I'm up to 1942 and the Russo-German war and Japanese war is in full swing.

To give some idea of the scope: The Luftwaffe was hammering the RAF over the UK from the fall of France up to 1941 and I was hanging on by a thread. My production of Fighters wasn't enough to fill the losses and literally every single tech gain and percentage of help proved decisive (as it does elsewhere in the game). When the U.S. Sold me Fighters I literally breathed a sigh of relief.
My industry was being bombed away. Black Ice has separate factories for air production, tank production, etc. and strategic bombing can individually target these.

The AI does a great job. There are U-Boat attacks all over the historical routes and they are difficult to defend against so far. Air, Land and Sea combat behaves very realistically, both in means and pace. 

Too many things to list here about how much fun and how dramatic this mod is. The way units are composed is accurate. Combat and supply feels realistic. I found myself really using espionage and cryptography, air power and other factors as combat in North Africa was at a stalemate until I realised I was just playing casually like I do with the base game. Once I started taking small factors into account, using air supply, breaking cyphers, air recon, etc, the battle shifted in my favour. These are things that don't really impact too much in the base game, but they really count here.


There are some drawbacks. The mod is really deep. Research, production and other areas are massively expanded. If you find these areas boring or a struggle in the base game, you won't like the mod. It also requires some knowledge of the history of the time, in order to make appropriate choices. It requires more attention and it is definitely exhausting in places, but, as a simulation of world war two, for me at least, this is the realism and drama of it. I would highly recommend that the game is run at a maximum of speed 2 while at war, maybe 3 in the quiet moments. It is easy to miss something really important. Once again, this game takes a lot of concentration and planning. You can't go in lightly.

I took my eyes off the Far East while fixating in North Africa and Japan took Ceylon. From there they threatened East Africa and Southern Arabia. Again, the AI is very surprisingly good. I was blaming ahistorical AI on this before I released I'd let them have Ceylon through negligence and neglecting my naval presence there. The island is strategically important because from it, the Japanese can project naval power into the Indian Ocean and Arabian areas and I completely missed it because I was used the base game's AI. I've cowed the German Kriegsmarine and there is little chance of them launching any invasion as the Germans are bogged down in Russia, so I'm sending the majority of the Home Fleet over to the Indian Theatre to stop any more Japanese advances.

I'm tempted to restart, as it's my first proper game with Black Ice, but I think I'll stick with it and accept my mistake and recover from it.

In summary, this is the best HOI 4 experience I've had so far, but it's deep, difficult, historically realistic and unforgiving.

LINKS TO MOD:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1137372539
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=842834893

Pay close attention to IC's comment: There are some drawbacks. The mod is really deep. Research, production and other areas are massively expanded. If you find these areas boring or a struggle in the base game, you won't like the mod.  This is what turned me off to this Mod...the depth of detail in research and production overwhelmed my 72 year old brain.

[Tanaka]

Just wondering have you played SCWAW and how do you compare?

Strategic Command World At War? There's really no comparison. It's more like HOI4 combined with Gary Grigsby's War in the East/West with even more depth in certain areas.
Some people will hate it, as there is a lot of stuff crammed into every available space on the GUI, but one of the neat things is that it's got user-definable GUI elements.

It's not a mod you can speed-play through. I guess it's kind of a slow-burn deep strategy/historical experience. I find it mentally tiring in places, in a good way.

Does Black Ice require any of the DLC's?

[bobarossa]

I don't believe it does.  I have only a couple of the early DLC (Waking the Tiger, Man the Guns) and it worked fine last time I tried (a year ago).  I just reloaded the latest version but haven't run more than a few days before some other shiny thing came along.