Following is a quote from the developers:
We also added two new scenarios. These were two nice dates we felt would be good to have.
Scenario points are always an interesting challenge for us. Firstly I
suppose before we dive in we should give a nice full answer to the
question why not have start on any day like EU3. Well this was
something we did discuss initially during early design. We began to
think about this early on. EU3 showed us that it would perfectly
feasible to have province changing hands on a daily basis. Now
admittedly Hearts of Iron 3 has a lot more provinces, but on the other
hand there is a lot more data out there meaning it could actually be
easier.
However the problem began when we thought about units. EU3 used
situation generated unit placement. Basically it would look at the
situation and start placing units as required, at war you get more
troops, troops would be placed close to the borders of current
combatants. However just imagine trying to do something like this the
day before the Battle of the Bulge, by all logic Germany should be
concentrating its units on the Eastern Front were the biggest danger
is, not in front of the best defensible terrain in the Western Front,
it just makes no sense. In addition you really want to see those famous
units where they were, you do not want to see generic armoured division
number 3 in the western desert. No you want to see the 7th armoured
division, the Desert Rats out there. So we realised that essentially we
would not just need a province history, we would actually need
individual unit history tracking its movements and strength over
whichever time frame we picked.
Then there was the other problem. Let’s say you start the day before
Pearl Harbour, the Japanese combined fleet is out in the Pacific
steaming toward its Day of Infamy. Then the Japanese AI decides that
the USA has a huge IC, massive manpower and to be honest this war in
China is taking a lot of our resources we would be mad to fight them
and calls the fleet home. Now for those of you who are fans of a ‘good’
AI this would be an eminently sensible decision for the Japanese AI to
make, but let’s be honest it isn’t going to give you the full on World
War II experience. So we would also have had to give direction to the
AI as well, start in August 1939 the German AI would need to know that
Poland is next or it would be building up against France. Who let’s
face it does have the biggest army of all it’s neighbours and is thus
the biggest threat. So to cut a long story short we realised that if we
wanted to do daily (in fact even monthly) history it would of needed so
much time we wouldn’t have had any time left to make an actual game.
So having reached that conclusion we decided to focus our attention on 7 specific starting dates.
1936 ‘The Road to War’ – The original and best grand campaign spanning the whole Hearts of Iron 3 time frame.
1938 ‘The Gathering Storm’ – Set just a year before the historical
outbreak of World War II, it gives most of the combatants time to
prepare themselves for war, but with a shorter build up time
1939 ‘Blitzkrieg’ – With the German invasion of Poland just beginning
World War II has just begun. For those of you who want to get right
into the action.
1941 ‘Barbarossa’ – Dortmund! Dortmund! The great clash has begun, with
the Germans assault on the Soviet Union. Perfect for those of you who
want the truly epic Hearts of Iron 3 experience.
1941 ‘Day of Infamy’ – With Pearl Harbour about to begin we have all
combatants in place, World War II is now spanning the globe.
1943 ‘The Tide has Turned’ – The German 6th Army has just surrendered
at Stalingrad and Japanese have been defeated at Midway, the initiative
has switched, but the Axis are still powerful.
1944 ‘Götterdämmering’ – The allies are ashore at Normandy and the Axis
are being pushed back on all fronts, last one to Berlin gets the
smallest post war alliance, or is it?
Now Hearts of Iron 2 fans will notice that some of these scenarios are
pretty familiar, that’s because they are. We promised you more in
Hearts of Iron 3 and having done that we could hardly start cutting
scenarios now could we? That’s not to say that converting the scenarios
over to Hearts of Iron 3 was easy. Yes the nice thing was that the base
historical research was done, but there was still a lot of work to be
done. Firstly the units needed to be spread out more to create proper
front lines. The divisions needed to be structured historically, which
Japanese Divisions were square divisions and which were triangular? The
command hierarchies had to be set up, all this took time and effort.
Although not pressing with the 1936 scenario but with the later ones
this became important, the last thing we wanted was for players not to
be able to hit the ground running.
We also added two new scenarios. These were two nice dates we felt
would be good to have. The Pearl Harbour was one we wanted for those
who liked to play either the US or Japan, with it set just as the war
in the Pacific begins, it is the perfect place to start. Can you hold
the Japanese further forward, or can you catch the US carrier fleet and
sweep all before you before the industrial might of the US is brought
fully to bear. With the Tide has turned we felt we had given a nice
starting point for Allied or Soviet Union players. The Initiative is
yours now, but the Axis aren’t so beaten down that is simply a question
of time. Making an interesting blend of fun and challenge.
Well that’s our scenario starting points, hope you find one that suits you.
And then.. cause the screenshot showing the relevent information for
the development diary has nothing really new and cool, you get another
screenshot this time..
The area southwest of Moscow.. in the winter.
