The mod support is gigantic. The game cannot die, it has basically unlimited content. You cannot experience every path, every focus, in the entire game in one human lifespan. From the giants like Kaiserredux, to lore heavy TNO and EaW, there is something new always. Not to mention tons of out of game content. Kaiserreich documentaries, radio plays, or fully voice acted TNO April fool stories, it really is unlimited content.
I think on the mod side, one of the biggest advantages is the launcher. Not having to fiddle around with different files, being able to click 3 buttons and go from base to KDX is really nice, especially for people like me.
@@theEWDSDS The accesibility of the modding scene is really good. It only requires some common sense like "some mods don't work together" "or once the game gets updated some mods will break" Although the latter one is hard for some in every community i've been in.
@thenademocist I think Paradox should further embrace mods. Add a creation club like system, and give the modders a sizeable cut to encourage development. Paradox is helping with getting the mods out there, like advertising on its RUclips channel and EaW updates on hoi4 official Twitter, but really good mods and such are hidden in the steam workshop where something like Radio station mods are next to gigantic multi developer Giga-Reworks. Maybe the Hoi4 Launcher should have mod showcases in a new button, where Mods could advertise themselves, show off gameplay, and list nations and recent updates added.
I agree. I'm playing HOI4 for almost 2 years and it's still amazing. It's about all the super deep details like designing Divisions, managing your industry, alliances, trade and so much more. And then, when all comes together creating a superpower. And the game is also your best history teacher.
At yes, it’s a great history and geography game! Started playing the game in like 8th grade - freshman of hs and I would get like 95% of the map quizzes right but the teacher never understood why I would put Czechoslovakia or Siam since I was born after they fell 😅😂
@@lthydra1988 hahaha for real! When taking an Africa quiz I just put from Cape Town to Alexandria “English colonies” and everything to the west “French” and Ethiopia “Italian attempts”. Good times know about 1930’s-1940’s history better than your history teacher at 15!
Being able to play mods without dlc makes it more godly. Mods like TNO and Kaissereich add new mechanics and more content which makes this game more fun
In my experience, Hoi4 is the perfect middle ground for me. Other RTS games are either too simple or too complex. I enjoy the control over most aspects the game gives me, and if I want to change something the incredibly mod friendly game will let me do so. It's almost hard to be bored playing Hoi4
@@j0404tIts a bit more complex in terms of politics and especially economics, but not as complex in terms of war-management. Victoria III's war system is...grossly oversimplified to say the least...
I really enjoy Paradox rts games. The strategy is deep, but in single player not timed. You have time to think deeply about what you are going to do. There are games like Airmech that are fast but not deep. There are games like Wargame that are fast and deep to the point of being overwhelming between all factors.
If I can learn it, then anybody can lol. It's like maths, you think you are not capable, but then your passion comes in, your love for history, battles, and desire to learn about tactics, strategy..etc and you start to seek out info videos about things such as supply, how does airforce work, how does research work, what are doctrines..etc I highly suggest to just take it easy and have a quick tutorial with Italy, the game explains well the main concepts. then you can actually start a playthrough with Italy. Dont start with Germany!!
3:32 actually I think it's the opposite that makes the game so repayable. I've been playing Hoi4 since 2018 wanna have around 2200 hours and the one thing that keeps me coming back (apart from mod support and updates) is that I know I can play a 2-3 hours playthrough and be done with WW2 and go again with a different country or different path
this is only if you really know what you are doing. for a new player, they will spend most of their time on the pause screen trying to figure things out, and figure out their next move.
@@craig7405 yes that might be true but what I mean is that hoi4 is more oriented towards one sitting playtroughs (for the most part) whereas other Paradox Games (CK2-3/EU4) are more oriented toward multiple sittings playtroughs
I think that is actually just one more point for its replayability - the game goes at your pace. You can spend every hour in detail micromanaging every single division into the perfect position, which will result in a very long game obviously - but you can also just choose a nation that is unlikely to get attacked, turn the speed to maximum and get to 1945 in a single afternoon. You can draw the games as long as you want - or make it as fast as you want - whatever you resonate with more at the moment. Just another thing that makes this game so amazing
I have 3,581 hours played and I still haven't mastered everything about the game (looking at you Naval system). You can play in different ways every single time. You could play just Germany for 1000 hours and still have new styles to play with.
How to beat everyone in Navy 2023 build naval bombers build converted heavy cruiser hulls with max amount of flight deck create fast heavy cruisers to fill the capital ship line expensive light cruisers with max spotting ( radar floatplanes and sonar in every possible slot) and the absolute cheapest destroyers possible (an engine and a lvl1 light battery)
The Multiplayer is another huge factor, can't remember if you mentioned but it can't be overstated how important the Multiplayer is to the games longevity.
Hoi4's mp is notorious for being toxic and near rapid with their various strats and metas. That's not to say you can't get a mp match with good level headed people without any of the toxicity, because you certainly can. It's just not the selling point of this game. At its core hoi4 is a map game, and our monkey brains like the "make my color on map bigger."
@@terryhiggins5077 just setting up MP games was a pain in the ass for years, and you still get host drops and game resets a lot. Like with most paradox games they get better with more DLC. Which add more mechanics and change how the game functionally works.
Hoi4 multiplayer took a massive dip during the discord purges now it’s just toxic heavily modded lobbies Edit:servers with 2k+ members were purged from discord for just being in the servers
Got over 2k hours since buying the game 4 years ago, you can always find a new build to try with new countries and since getting into multiplayer it can lead to very interesting games if you can find the right people to play with, which is probably the biggest challenge as the mp community as a whole can be very toxic
I understand where you are coming from with MP being toxic. I primarily play multiplayer. Even the time i spend in single player nowadays is for finding better stratagies in multiplayer. The reason you find multiplayer so toxic is partially because of the enormous skill mismatch between you and many knowlegable players. People lack the patience to teach, and sadly resort to insults when people cant play well.
I feel like something that has kept the game alive is its modding community. Like it has steam modding so you can just download it and play witch they have alot of replayability. Which is something I feel has kept it allive.
Fr, the fact it is so moddable makes it have such a massive increase in replayability, bored of playing your classic WW2 scenario? Play a alternate history mod, or Star Wars, or My Little Pony, or Minecraft, or GTA San Andreas, its nuts
@@gabrielreid4950 Or just make your own mod for fun and create a world where SpongeBob is the President of the USA, and Poland is ruled by snails or something. Modding itself is easy too, you just need to be careful and know how to edit things.
Great video. It surprised me to learn that HOI4 has the highest player base in Paradox’s panoply of grand strategy games, but it deserves it for all the reasons you listed. Personally, it’s my least favorite of them all, but I do still have fun, once I finally figured out how to play lol. IMO, Paradox’s biggest weakness is their abysmal tutorials (newer games have improved). I’d say their biggest strength is their dedication to the modding community. Paradox embraces and encourages modding more than any company I’ve seen in strategy games.
im suprised that you are suprised that hoi4 is the most played paradox game. It has huge advantages over EU4 when it comes to playability, mainly the fact that eu4 can be extremely overwhelming with the amount of DLCs which are needed to play the game at a reasonably modern level. Hoi4's dlcs are relatively few in number, and very transparent about what they add.
That would be, because the first mods that came out added things that improved QoL for the Player since a huge part of them either fixes bugs or balance the game like "Expert AI".
@@dreamypizza8458 Empire at War is 18 years old, and you’re correct that it’s very mod-friendly (it’s the game that got me into modding, actually). I’m a fan of Petroglyph for this reason too. But it’s just one game, versus Paradox’s long line of mod-friendly strategy titles, so in my opinion it doesn’t compare. I do wish Petroglyph would return to Star Wars strategy, though.
One of HOI4s biggest strengths is very clearly modding, letting players mod the game to the current degree allowed was such a smart move, by the time you can get bored with the vanilla game you have countless mods with years worth of updates there to play as well
Hoi4 was my very first grand strategy game. I bought it on release cause of the ww2 setting. But when I started playing it and kept getting capitulated and didn't know what I was doing wrong. I felt addicted with the thought that I had to learn what I was doing wrong and how to improve. I have almost 4k hours on steam. I love the mod community alot. And I hope that hoi4 keeps growing and getting better. Here's hope for more focus trees for countries that don't already have them.
HOI4 is also attracting members from other game communities who see that their favorite games have been turned into mods. One example is Old World Blues being a Fallout mod for HOI4 which attracted me to the game in the first place.
The mods definitely increased HoI4’s longevity massively. Like, I myself like to see new things as opposed to the same things, since I don’t get to play as often. But mods allow you to experience a whole new setting, whether it’s an alt-history where Germany won WW2, a mod that is based on the world of Fallout… or a mod set in… the My Little Pony mod (the one I play, it’s actually really really good you gotta believe me. Genocide go brrr).
for a second there, I thought you misspoke and meant "alt-history where Germany won WW1", but then I realized that I somehow forgot that TNO exists. I'd also toss the Mineccraft mod (least schizo HoI4 mod) as well as the Hololive vtuber mod that has some insane lore to it for some reason (yes, you did read that correctly) onto the pile. The modding community for this game is an absolute gem, but be careful of the mental illness. Also, greetings fellow EaW enjoyer, how do you do? Who might your favorite murder-happy autocrat be? Mine is Golden Morning (who is based and did nothing wrong).
I have 3200 hours (still don't know how navy works btw) and I totally agree. also, you should have mentioned the RUclips community of hoi4 which is very active and makes the game grow and grow, and when a youtuber has a new idea people start to do it too, which sparks innovation and makes even more replayability.
Nicely put. Good work! To reitirate it took me 7, yes SEVEN tries to beat just one game on the easiest setting! After that I quickly jumped up two diffculty levels
I think HoI‘s longevity is due to constant release of good DLC‘s that actually ad to the game mechanics and tend to change it up (changing mechanics and forcing players to adapt strategy). The devs also seem to listen to the community as many updates actually take into account players wishes. Not to mention that this game has great mods. So if you are bored of vanilla that‘s no problem.
Another thing that I personally love about the game is multiplayer. There are lots of communities where even the most experienced players can challenge themselves by going up against other experienced players or like me you can just play with or against your friends.
I picked up Stellaris and Hearts of Iron IV on release, and they were both my first dives into the Paradox Interactive world. It's amazing to remember how HOI4 used to be, it feels like an entirely different game, across many different points of its life. There were points I would clean house and others where I would (somehow) struggle against Belgium. Love this game. Only added more replayability when my friends and I started doing Grand Campaigns, spanning Imperator to Stellaris through each title.
I was waiting for mod support as reason. I have a bit of experience with HoI4 mod making myself (have never uploaded anything to steam though), and let me tell you that it really is insane how easy it is to start modding the game. You don't need even the smallest bit of programming understanding to know how to mod it (since there are many helpful RUclips tutorials and a pretty big modding Discord) and there are even official tools that help you with debugging. HoI4 is probably one of the few games that every player in the playerbase could manage to and should try to mod themselves at some point.
The thing with Paradox games is that they evolve, they get better overtime. I have played HOI4 since 2017 and I still am going strong, I play both vanilla and modded. I havent played multiplayer ever except private lobby with few friends.
Great review! I think games like that also gain more popularity the more things going on in the world (which we see couple of last years). More people getting into politics/history = more people playing paradox games.
Nice thing about HOI4 is that you don't need to know every mechanic to play it and have fun. This makes the game a long never ending fun tutorial as every time you play you learn something new.
True. It's not a, for example, RPG where you have to know every button and mechanic or else you get destroyed. You can win with trash divisions or bad micro, probably why it's the most popular intro for people into the Paradox world
I remember buying HOI4 almost 2 years ago and having basically no idea of what I was doing, but I stuck around and somehow managed to make it my 2nd most played game on Steam and it just keeps on going, why is it so fun? ...PARADOX, GIVE ME MY 1.5K HOURS OF LIFE BACK
HOI4 really pushing you to think and considering each decision and life with the consequences. I still remember losing almost all of my elite infantry divisions because i got too aggressive and then got surrounded and decimated. And also this games really makes you want to learn the history. I also still remember when playing as GB, after King George V passed away i don't know which decision is historical between letting King Edward VIII stayed as a king or letting him abdicate. After quick search I finally knew the history and reason behind it.
I tried Hoi3 and couldnt really get into it. I got into CK2 and loved it so when Hoi4 came out I gave it another try and loved it. (fallout mod is the best) You mentioned playing every nation would take hundreds of hours. May I introduce you to the channel iSorrowproductions who did a series called Hoi4 A to Z where he did every single starting nation. He's a good time.
Despite all the positives you mentioned, I think a major reason this and other Paradox games remain relevant is because of lack of competition. As far as Grand Strategy goes, there are no other games or companies that come even close to what Paradox offers this market. But despite producing a very complex game, it suffers a lot of bugs, stability issues, and to be honest, very greedy practices when it comes to DLCs, because the content and expansions they offer for a price, are really stuff they should just be updating into the standard game for free. We can see evidence of this being the case with Victoria 3, because like most paradox games, it started out extremely buggy and lacking in content. It won’t be for another year or two until the game starts seeing proper development under the form or DLC expansions and bug fixes, that we will start seeing that game gain traction as well.
As a player w/thousands of hours I laughed like a nervous moron when you said people WANT to play it lol. That stupid starting bell has ruined friendships
I've started playing the HOI games ever since I was 10 in 2014 two years before HOI IV. Ever since then I have been playing the game on and off, always coming back to it whenever an interesting dlc drops, or whenever a mod that I played decides to update.
Say what you want about Paradox, but if there is one thing they succeded in (basically cracked the code) is the ability to support their games for a long ass time, still have a playerbase (that even increases over time) years later and still make money $$$.
Been playing since a little after release (so probably late 2016 early 2017) and there's still so much I haven't done because of the superb modding community and the number of different paths
Unfortunately it's too addicting, as a player I can confirm. Another reason is its interesting community, some a little to addicted, maybe needing to touch grass.
My one objection to the game is the cost. If you were to buy the base game (ALONE), it would cost you £35. However, if you were planning to try out the DLC’s, 1 MONTH costs you £5. And if you plan on taking the game to a whole new level (I’m talking mastering navy, airforce and even doing disaster saves), it would cost you about £110 EXTRA. I know this game’s great an all, but the sheer cost of the game is limiting the player count drastically, as most wouldn’t bother to spend £140 for the full game.
@@Xictlii no but I mean that sure if you’re gonna play a month then stop then do so but I mean that if you really wanna play for long and not worry much about the pricing then the only other way is through this mega amount
I have played the HOI series since it first came out in 2001 putting in 1000s of hours over the past 2 decades. I love this game (obviously). It somehow has never gotten stale to me. It is the one game I can always come back to.
Been playing for a year (a bit longer when you include the time it took to understand the game) and I am completely addicted, even when I get burnt out I will always be able to come back in a bit less then a month, I’ve done countless runs as Germany and even more as other nations. Also I feel one thing he forgot to mention is even if you’ve done all the alt history stuff and played as every nation (somehow) there’s still a non historical mode for the ai, multiplayer, and over a hundred unique badges
One thing that alwasy brought me back were the achievments, after hundreds of hours of playing and figuring it out your reasononing to start again dulls, but with achievmentrs you have a definative gold, as Y do X. and my god am I a sucker for these, after 1.8k hours and now having them all I know when the next dlc comes out I'll be on that game for weeks again, never upset about that.
Simple, there is no other game like it, it has tremendous replay value (even having 3k-5k hours isn't outlandish), and it's constantly being updated. Paradox games tend to last forever, EU4 is another legendary example of a unique 10-year-old game that won't die.
It is a great game and completely not for me and that's fine. I respect your game guys. It is your community. Protect your game from casuals that want to change everything. Keep your standards high. Recently my friend streamed the game for me. He went Poland into Poland- Romania Kingdom and bro was it a lot of fun :D
I got hoi4 last year around the time the bba dlc came out and I still play it almost daily and with soon to be 1000 hours in the game I still learn some things and I love it
Also alot of communities wanted their nations to be added in the game. We have Middle Easterners, Southeast Asians, Latin Americans, and hodgepodge of a few nations like Belgian-Irish-Austrian group or Mongolia-Tibet-Tuva group
@@sejozwak, the game's community isn't dead and instead grows because with more and more nations given content in the vanilla game, more and more crowds from the region which hasn't given any unique content has flocked and demanded the devs to give their region a DLC. Oooor, because there are many good mods that the community can play. I think this 2nd reason is more plausible, anyway....
As a player of about 2 years now I can agree that this game is very complex and I still don’t know many mechanics. Not knowing everything about the game and gradually learning more over long periods of time is better than mastering it quickly like any other game
Another very good example for the same genre is Empire At War. The Game came out in *2006* and it's playerbase is still growing. That's because the developer, Petroglyph, opened up pretty much its entire code for modding. It has a rich and collaberative modding community, that is well supported by Petroglyph who still provide updates to help improve the game for modders and fix issues that have arisen. Most recently they switched the game from 32-bit to 64-bit. This opened up a massive amount of new processing power for modders to use. The game has been kept alive for nearly two decades thanks to this philosophy, and its still one of the most popular rts games in the Star Wars IP. More developers need to take the attitude to modding that Petroglyph and Paradox do, because it provides so much more and long lasting vitality to their games.
Good video, subscribed :) An example for another game that refuses to die and just gets better every year is Star Wars: Empire at War. And it is for the same reason: Mods. The mods make it so much greater than the base game, they allmost feel like a sequel. Also, this 17 year old game just got another offical patch, adding 64-Bit support.
For me, having +1000h of HOI2, +100h of HOI3 and +2000h of HOI4, the answer is simple, HOI4 is the best WW2 strategy game that has been ever made. After a failing HOI3, everyone was asking for change, and they gave us HOI4, they improved the division design, way better province administration, less complex battle system and proper air system, and cherry to the cake, production of arms, and no production of whole divisions. They hear what people say, and change, for ex: 1. Unique ships become a mod, they made ship design by player possible, so every one can havy their unique design. Same happen with tanks and airplanes. They included in the game what modders were making for fun, and were succesful. Last patch is one of my best thing I loved from HOI2, research by manifacturers or institutions, and they even expanded to production by manifactures. Moding comunity in HOI4 is huge, they have more game mechanics that you can incorporate in the game, so patching HOI4 could be going for a long time.
It took me about a solid 500 hours to learn the basics of the game. That was also including playing different mods. I’ve had the game for 6 years and I’ve gathered close to 3k hours and there’s still stuff I’m learning, don’t know, or mods I still haven’t even touched with their infinite replay ability
Had it for just under a year, gotten about 600-650 hours so far. Without the youtubers I probably wouldn't still be playing or might not have ever started. The support for mods, not having to move files from folder to folder, just click and play.
So I found this game after seeing an Austria Hungary run and I was hooked. I then spent the next year learning every aspect of hoi4 on RUclips, and at the start of last year I got the game and all dlcs and a full year later I have 1057 hours on it. I plan on playing every path there is even on mods like old world blues or road to 56
I agree 100% with everything said in this video. I’m close to 1800+ hrs In the game, I’m sill discovering new things and ways to approach things. One part not mentioned in the video which is absolutely incredible on the developers part is (unless it’s been changed) If you are playing a friend in multiplayer and you personally own all the DLC’s your friends will be able to use your DLC’s if you are hosting the game. Which is amazing.
Was my first game years ago on steam and always been coming back to it regularly other games I have periods in but this game offers a vast variety of ways to play. And it’s awesome
I bought the game specifically to play an overhaul mod. So really, with every major modpack release, the game essentially experiences a mini re-release, like it's a sequel. For a somewhat niche audience, but still, it has an effect.
This game can offers up some of the most difficult challenges I've seen in a game. Trying to survive and create a world power as Luxembourg or trying to survive the onslaught playing as Poland is a Dark Souls difficulty like experience in the grandscale RTS genre.
I remember first time playing hoi. I had no idea what I was doing, but I keept playing anyway. Events, decision, descriptions, music. 12h passed and I felt like playing max 2h :)
One thing not mentioned in here is that multiplayers limit is whatever you can handle, and players can co-op a nation. This is super cool and fun for more casual players to duo or trio vs the AI as a single nation, and for "competitive" multiplayer players allowing them to 3-4 man stack on nations like russia/germany that tend to have alot of aspects and complexity allowing you to play the games without pausing and on higher speeds. Also if you commit to not pausing outside of breaks a full multiplayer game even with like 30 players is very easy to complete in under 8 hours, and that's normally if the game is dragging till 1946, if a game ends early in 1943 for instance it could be over in as few as like 4 hours.
i think the most important factor is the paradox financing system which is by far my favourite of any videogame. where they support their games for years and years completely overhauling and improving the game over time. i think the fact games like eu4 and hoi4 are still being supported and get dlcs regularly after almost a decade or over a decade is also an important thing for why so many people still play it
PAradox is a literally genius! Their games like HOI4, CK3, Stellaris are immensley modable. People can mod anything in it, so they can play what they want. Frequent updates and patches, paradox is like a gardener allways working on their product.
A wonderful element of HOI4 is that, over the years the game just gets better. There are more decisions to be done, the supply system got improved, navy, airforce and tanks got updated, national goals get more advanced and better overall. This makes the DLCs actually worth their price (on sale). Subscribtion actually just makes sense in this case as well, as there is too many elements to buy at once, so they just give you a different approach to gettin the content. So yeah, Paradox makes many mistakes (for example - the amount of micro is way too much nowadays), but they handle their game really well
I agree. I play this game for almost 2 years now. I had so much fun playing it with friends and getting to master all the mechanichs and tactics. Still wish the navy was more simple tho😅
i love this game. and this video made me very happy. I like that you brought up mods because that is a big thing that keeps me playing in between releases of new DLC content
i play like 4-6 nations and do the exact same thing every time but somehow this just doesn't get boring for me, played for like over 5years not weekly but still probably my most often played game
Day 1 HOI player, way back then, as I rack up well over 10 000 hours total, yet I do not feel like mastering anything. Got several total world conquest, and got wrecked several time more, yet I go back to it all the time.
It's just so goddamn addictive. I have to make conscious decision when to start a new game because I know very well that I'll spend the next 6-8 hours of my life painting a world map.
as someone who has played basically all of the paradox games, hoi is the most fun because you can still see major successes while deviating heavily from what’s “meta” (only in single player)
There is also another reason. It's the combined effort of its content creators. TommyKay and Bokoen1 in particular who to this day create content about it.
I taught myself the game by playing as a minor (Nicaragua iirc) in my first game and heavily abusing console commands to have a taste of all the techs and learn the mechanics then jumped in with both feet on ironman as GB for my second game, this was waaaay back before any of the dlc had come but that play through has stuck with me to this day. By the end if the war i gelt genuinely exhausted, just like the nation i was playing. I had steered my people through trial and error, every strategic gain felt like it was followed by a massive blunder but as time went on the gap in my knowledge closed just as steadily as my gap in the Atlantic. I remember finding my south American naval squad, two years in, just chilling down in the Falklands, no idea they even existed and overwhelmed with joy about having a couple of cruisers without damage. If the DLC had all been there from the start it'd have been too much, and we love to complain about the cost but take this outlook perhaps: most hobbies require constant financial input, the £100 odd quid ive spent on DLC over the years is nothing compared to if i was a golfer, ir a gambler, or a car enthusiast. Combine that with the perfectly sane mantra if "wait for a steam sale" and id be happy to get DLC fir this game for many more years It all came full circle in the end, I met guy doing seasonal work for music festivals who also worked for paradox, he took his summers off to come home to England and work the festival circuit. We were talking about the game as he'd worked on it and id been into it for a few years by this point. He asked me if there was anything I thought was missing and I mentioned that all sides in the war conducted commando raids on soft coastline to disrupt defences, industry etc and it kinda sucked that you always had to raid a heavily defended port just to harass the enemy, and that a single company of say, marines, should be a lot more if a threat than they are. I dunno if that's why they added marine commandos but if it was cos of that, it's pretty fucking cool that i might have had an influence there. I guess that's a flex, kinda but yeah. That's my (abridged) life story of HOI, if you read all that well done, I'm high af and just needed to ramble 😅
Two big reasons: Mods and DLC. There are so many new mechanics added by both DLCs and mods that explore all kinda of different scenarios. Need more complexity? Black Ice, Total war. Want a different scenario? OWB or Kaiserreich or Equestria at war. Or ... then there navy updates, planes tanks supply. Some mods change the economy massively. You can just always learn more
There are also some amazing multiplayer mods out there that make the gameplay even more historical such as hearts of oak 2. The mod allows you to larp and still do well enough
3300 hours played over 4-5 years. It is the only game I've played since 2019. Completely agree with the replayability. Only war I think would need a good sim/strat game is the Civil War. Another reason for it's success is the great RUclips community.
Even though I've already quit the game it will always has a special place in my heart. In Hoi4 veteran mesures my 500+ hours is not much, but I enjoyed all of it, even if I was frustrated because of one mistake that messed up the whole game. I really loved to do achievements. Every of it was a different challange with different difficulties. Unfortunately I couldn't manage to get every of them, but I have a little more than 100 achievements, and I am proud of it. I will also remember with nostalgia those games that were played by me and my friends. Those games created memories, that I will never forget. Thank you so much Hearts Of Iron IV for the good times that you caused
I have thousands of hours into HOI 4. I have loved this series since HOI 2 came out and have loved the series. There is no other WW 2 game that is as deep as this one in terms of what it allows you the player to do. And there are tons of mods for the game that can change it up to give a completely different gameplay experience with new strategies and gameplay, HOI 4 is not a perfect game, but they are advancing the genre. In a modern setting we have different technologies that are tough to replicate using the HOI 4 game engine but the modding community has done their best to make some amazing mods for the game. Highly recommend anyone to check it out. But it is complex and it will take a few games to learn all the basics of the mechanics and the scope of what this game allows you to do as a nation.
Hoi4 always feels so at home, you command and conquer, and in between that, you appreciate the process and game progression, it just felt so gratifying conquering nations and at the end of your game, you can look back and what you had created, but truly, it never gets bored especially when you try challenging yourself to new things like playing minor nations, and trying out goofy strategies, the sky is the only limit
I have more than 800 hours put in, so far, no knowledge of the navy except how to move naval units, not much advanced airforce knowledge, no organized template, and no campaign reaching farther than 1943.
I remember back in very early 2017, I saw iSorrowProductions’ and Drew Durnil’s videos on it. I bought the game because of them. I love it and can’t stop playing it because of the mods specifically.
after 4k hours, i still dont know how the navy works
Build big ship
I still run the mega death fleet with a fuck loads of subs.. it works pretty well
what is navy? is it that thing what i am stealing from uk and forget (tbh ignore it) for the rest?
after 1200 hours i now slightly know how to play
That's actually sad
i never wouldve gotten into the game without all the amazing creators doing videos on it
Your doing great dankus and seeing you play makes me wish I was that good
dankus x bokoen1
@@Smacu92Brother Dankus is in most bo games
100%
not u lol
The mod support is gigantic. The game cannot die, it has basically unlimited content. You cannot experience every path, every focus, in the entire game in one human lifespan. From the giants like Kaiserredux, to lore heavy TNO and EaW, there is something new always.
Not to mention tons of out of game content. Kaiserreich documentaries, radio plays, or fully voice acted TNO April fool stories, it really is unlimited content.
Yeah it’s like having hundreds of different games in one. It can never get boring
I think on the mod side, one of the biggest advantages is the launcher. Not having to fiddle around with different files, being able to click 3 buttons and go from base to KDX is really nice, especially for people like me.
@@theEWDSDS The accesibility of the modding scene is really good. It only requires some common sense like "some mods don't work together" "or once the game gets updated some mods will break" Although the latter one is hard for some in every community i've been in.
I agree, as someone who played with the chaos mod once i never had more fun suddely seing Barbados declare War against Irak.
@thenademocist I think Paradox should further embrace mods. Add a creation club like system, and give the modders a sizeable cut to encourage development. Paradox is helping with getting the mods out there, like advertising on its RUclips channel and EaW updates on hoi4 official Twitter, but really good mods and such are hidden in the steam workshop where something like Radio station mods are next to gigantic multi developer Giga-Reworks. Maybe the Hoi4 Launcher should have mod showcases in a new button, where Mods could advertise themselves, show off gameplay, and list nations and recent updates added.
I agree. I'm playing HOI4 for almost 2 years and it's still amazing. It's about all the super deep details like designing Divisions, managing your industry, alliances, trade and so much more. And then, when all comes together creating a superpower. And the game is also your best history teacher.
At yes, it’s a great history and geography game! Started playing the game in like 8th grade - freshman of hs and I would get like 95% of the map quizzes right but the teacher never understood why I would put Czechoslovakia or Siam since I was born after they fell 😅😂
@@bros1183
The Chinese Warlords and Yugoslavia 😅🤣
@@lthydra1988 hahaha for real! When taking an Africa quiz I just put from Cape Town to Alexandria “English colonies” and everything to the west “French” and Ethiopia “Italian attempts”. Good times know about 1930’s-1940’s history better than your history teacher at 15!
Approved
No do not learn history from HOI4 Greatest mistake you could make
Being able to play mods without dlc makes it more godly. Mods like TNO and Kaissereich add new mechanics and more content which makes this game more fun
Or Old World Blues and some others adds new maps.
Im not surprised when a German Reich pfp plays TNO
I love EAW
@@Cheesburger1009 WerBell for me.
*_STRENGTH AND MUSCLE AND JUNGLE WORK!_*
Holy Russian Empire: 🕙🕛
In my experience, Hoi4 is the perfect middle ground for me.
Other RTS games are either too simple or too complex.
I enjoy the control over most aspects the game gives me, and if I want to change something the incredibly mod friendly game will let me do so. It's almost hard to be bored playing Hoi4
Do you think Victoria 3 is more or less complex than this?
@@j0404tIts a bit more complex in terms of politics and especially economics, but not as complex in terms of war-management. Victoria III's war system is...grossly oversimplified to say the least...
Hoi4 is boring and fun at the same time
It's very samey once you figure out how to beat the ai@@AlapakiLee
I really enjoy Paradox rts games. The strategy is deep, but in single player not timed. You have time to think deeply about what you are going to do.
There are games like Airmech that are fast but not deep. There are games like Wargame that are fast and deep to the point of being overwhelming between all factors.
Unfortunately, the game is probably one of the hardest for players unfamiliar with Grand Strategy games to just pick up and play imo.
Hell yeah, but did that stop me? No!
It's the easiest among Paradox games for me.
Try eu4
Hoi4 is a walk in the park compared to that
*laughs in Victoria 2*
If I can learn it, then anybody can lol.
It's like maths, you think you are not capable, but then your passion comes in, your love for history, battles, and desire to learn about tactics, strategy..etc and you start to seek out info videos about things such as supply, how does airforce work, how does research work, what are doctrines..etc
I highly suggest to just take it easy and have a quick tutorial with Italy, the game explains well the main concepts. then you can actually start a playthrough with Italy. Dont start with Germany!!
3:32 actually I think it's the opposite that makes the game so repayable. I've been playing Hoi4 since 2018 wanna have around 2200 hours and the one thing that keeps me coming back (apart from mod support and updates) is that I know I can play a 2-3 hours playthrough and be done with WW2 and go again with a different country or different path
this is only if you really know what you are doing. for a new player, they will spend most of their time on the pause screen trying to figure things out, and figure out their next move.
@@craig7405 yes that might be true but what I mean is that hoi4 is more oriented towards one sitting playtroughs (for the most part) whereas other Paradox Games (CK2-3/EU4) are more oriented toward multiple sittings playtroughs
I think that is actually just one more point for its replayability - the game goes at your pace. You can spend every hour in detail micromanaging every single division into the perfect position, which will result in a very long game obviously - but you can also just choose a nation that is unlikely to get attacked, turn the speed to maximum and get to 1945 in a single afternoon. You can draw the games as long as you want - or make it as fast as you want - whatever you resonate with more at the moment. Just another thing that makes this game so amazing
I tend to kind of turn my brain off and play it in the background while listening to audiobooks and so on.
@@whitehawk4099 yeah same here. It's the game I go to when I want to play something while watching a show or listening to a audiobook/podcast
I have 3,581 hours played and I still haven't mastered everything about the game (looking at you Naval system). You can play in different ways every single time. You could play just Germany for 1000 hours and still have new styles to play with.
How to beat everyone in Navy 2023 build naval bombers build converted heavy cruiser hulls with max amount of flight deck create fast heavy cruisers to fill the capital ship line expensive light cruisers with max spotting ( radar floatplanes and sonar in every possible slot) and the absolute cheapest destroyers possible (an engine and a lvl1 light battery)
@@miguelgameiro8063what about sub 3s
I don't understand a lot of the mechanics of the game even after 2 years and 2,300 plus hours of game play.
nobody knows how navy works, im pretty sure that the developers don't know either
^tru
The Multiplayer is another huge factor, can't remember if you mentioned but it can't be overstated how important the Multiplayer is to the games longevity.
Pretty sure most players never play MP
Hoi4's mp is notorious for being toxic and near rapid with their various strats and metas. That's not to say you can't get a mp match with good level headed people without any of the toxicity, because you certainly can.
It's just not the selling point of this game. At its core hoi4 is a map game, and our monkey brains like the "make my color on map bigger."
@@terryhiggins5077 just setting up MP games was a pain in the ass for years, and you still get host drops and game resets a lot. Like with most paradox games they get better with more DLC. Which add more mechanics and change how the game functionally works.
@@TopShot501st Devs said it before, most players, never even touch mp.
Hoi4 multiplayer took a massive dip during the discord purges now it’s just toxic heavily modded lobbies
Edit:servers with 2k+ members were purged from discord for just being in the servers
Got over 2k hours since buying the game 4 years ago, you can always find a new build to try with new countries and since getting into multiplayer it can lead to very interesting games if you can find the right people to play with, which is probably the biggest challenge as the mp community as a whole can be very toxic
I understand where you are coming from with MP being toxic. I primarily play multiplayer. Even the time i spend in single player nowadays is for finding better stratagies in multiplayer. The reason you find multiplayer so toxic is partially because of the enormous skill mismatch between you and many knowlegable players. People lack the patience to teach, and sadly resort to insults when people cant play well.
I feel like something that has kept the game alive is its modding community. Like it has steam modding so you can just download it and play witch they have alot of replayability. Which is something I feel has kept it allive.
Fr, the fact it is so moddable makes it have such a massive increase in replayability, bored of playing your classic WW2 scenario? Play a alternate history mod, or Star Wars, or My Little Pony, or Minecraft, or GTA San Andreas, its nuts
@@gabrielreid4950FUCKING OTTOMAN RUN I WANT TO SUFFER YESSS
@@gabrielreid4950 Or just make your own mod for fun and create a world where SpongeBob is the President of the USA, and Poland is ruled by snails or something. Modding itself is easy too, you just need to be careful and know how to edit things.
Great video. It surprised me to learn that HOI4 has the highest player base in Paradox’s panoply of grand strategy games, but it deserves it for all the reasons you listed. Personally, it’s my least favorite of them all, but I do still have fun, once I finally figured out how to play lol.
IMO, Paradox’s biggest weakness is their abysmal tutorials (newer games have improved). I’d say their biggest strength is their dedication to the modding community. Paradox embraces and encourages modding more than any company I’ve seen in strategy games.
im suprised that you are suprised that hoi4 is the most played paradox game. It has huge advantages over EU4 when it comes to playability, mainly the fact that eu4 can be extremely overwhelming with the amount of DLCs which are needed to play the game at a reasonably modern level. Hoi4's dlcs are relatively few in number, and very transparent about what they add.
That would be, because the first mods that came out added things that improved QoL for the Player since a huge part of them either fixes bugs or balance the game like "Expert AI".
I mean, petroglyphs empire at war is like 10 years old and is still getting updated to make modders lives easier
@@dreamypizza8458 Empire at War is 18 years old, and you’re correct that it’s very mod-friendly (it’s the game that got me into modding, actually). I’m a fan of Petroglyph for this reason too. But it’s just one game, versus Paradox’s long line of mod-friendly strategy titles, so in my opinion it doesn’t compare. I do wish Petroglyph would return to Star Wars strategy, though.
One of HOI4s biggest strengths is very clearly modding, letting players mod the game to the current degree allowed was such a smart move, by the time you can get bored with the vanilla game you have countless mods with years worth of updates there to play as well
Hoi4 was my very first grand strategy game. I bought it on release cause of the ww2 setting. But when I started playing it and kept getting capitulated and didn't know what I was doing wrong. I felt addicted with the thought that I had to learn what I was doing wrong and how to improve. I have almost 4k hours on steam. I love the mod community alot. And I hope that hoi4 keeps growing and getting better. Here's hope for more focus trees for countries that don't already have them.
HOI4 is also attracting members from other game communities who see that their favorite games have been turned into mods. One example is Old World Blues being a Fallout mod for HOI4 which attracted me to the game in the first place.
The mods definitely increased HoI4’s longevity massively. Like, I myself like to see new things as opposed to the same things, since I don’t get to play as often. But mods allow you to experience a whole new setting, whether it’s an alt-history where Germany won WW2, a mod that is based on the world of Fallout… or a mod set in… the My Little Pony mod (the one I play, it’s actually really really good you gotta believe me. Genocide go brrr).
for a second there, I thought you misspoke and meant "alt-history where Germany won WW1", but then I realized that I somehow forgot that TNO exists. I'd also toss the Mineccraft mod (least schizo HoI4 mod) as well as the Hololive vtuber mod that has some insane lore to it for some reason (yes, you did read that correctly) onto the pile. The modding community for this game is an absolute gem, but be careful of the mental illness.
Also, greetings fellow EaW enjoyer, how do you do? Who might your favorite murder-happy autocrat be? Mine is Golden Morning (who is based and did nothing wrong).
@@dandarr5035 Ironically, griffon Golden Morning (Ferdinand Dawnclaw).
The uh.. the what? EoW? Lol any human factions?
I have 3200 hours (still don't know how navy works btw) and I totally agree. also, you should have mentioned the RUclips community of hoi4 which is very active and makes the game grow and grow, and when a youtuber has a new idea people start to do it too, which sparks innovation and makes even more replayability.
Continued support, a LOT of big mods (Kaiserreich, Great War, Millenium Dawn, TNO, Old World Blues), well every playthrough is a new experience.
Nicely put. Good work!
To reitirate it took me 7, yes SEVEN tries to beat just one game on the easiest setting! After that I quickly jumped up two diffculty levels
I think HoI‘s longevity is due to constant release of good DLC‘s that actually ad to the game mechanics and tend to change it up (changing mechanics and forcing players to adapt strategy).
The devs also seem to listen to the community as many updates actually take into account players wishes.
Not to mention that this game has great mods. So if you are bored of vanilla that‘s no problem.
even when two of these dlc's are just Sabaton songs
Another thing that I personally love about the game is multiplayer. There are lots of communities where even the most experienced players can challenge themselves by going up against other experienced players or like me you can just play with or against your friends.
I picked up Stellaris and Hearts of Iron IV on release, and they were both my first dives into the Paradox Interactive world. It's amazing to remember how HOI4 used to be, it feels like an entirely different game, across many different points of its life. There were points I would clean house and others where I would (somehow) struggle against Belgium. Love this game. Only added more replayability when my friends and I started doing Grand Campaigns, spanning Imperator to Stellaris through each title.
I was waiting for mod support as reason. I have a bit of experience with HoI4 mod making myself (have never uploaded anything to steam though), and let me tell you that it really is insane how easy it is to start modding the game. You don't need even the smallest bit of programming understanding to know how to mod it (since there are many helpful RUclips tutorials and a pretty big modding Discord) and there are even official tools that help you with debugging.
HoI4 is probably one of the few games that every player in the playerbase could manage to and should try to mod themselves at some point.
The thing with Paradox games is that they evolve, they get better overtime.
I have played HOI4 since 2017 and I still am going strong, I play both vanilla and modded. I havent played multiplayer ever except private lobby with few friends.
One of my favorite games ever. Paradox has put a lot of effort into nurturing a growing and loyal community and has done so well
I just bought this game and kinda sad I didn't get it earlier. It's been on my wishlist for years lol
Welcome aboard general! We will watch your career with great interest!
I have 3000 hours in Hoi4 . It’s the most addictive game i have ever played
History is real and not a fantasy which makes it feel like your part of the history that defined the generations before us. Makes you feel included.
I’ve been playing hoi4 since 2018 with my total time spent on the game being 10,014.2 hours, how I have not lost interest in this game is beyond me.
But do u alr know how to use navy?
@@shukshinite navy and paratroopers are impossible for me and I have 1,500 hours on it
@@warsawpactmapping83paratroopers are just transpott planes and right click province
5 hours a day for 5 years is crazy. do you know the navy yet?
@@shukshiniteguns, lots of guns
Great review! I think games like that also gain more popularity the more things going on in the world (which we see couple of last years). More people getting into politics/history = more people playing paradox games.
Nice thing about HOI4 is that you don't need to know every mechanic to play it and have fun. This makes the game a long never ending fun tutorial as every time you play you learn something new.
True. It's not a, for example, RPG where you have to know every button and mechanic or else you get destroyed. You can win with trash divisions or bad micro, probably why it's the most popular intro for people into the Paradox world
I remember buying HOI4 almost 2 years ago and having basically no idea of what I was doing, but I stuck around and somehow managed to make it my 2nd most played game on Steam and it just keeps on going, why is it so fun?
...PARADOX, GIVE ME MY 1.5K HOURS OF LIFE BACK
It’s probably because of its modding scene, which is so diverse that it’s practically multiple games in one. TNO, Kaiserreich, Millenium Dawn, etc
Listening to community feedback, in game support for modding, and consistent updates.
HOI4 really pushing you to think and considering each decision and life with the consequences. I still remember losing almost all of my elite infantry divisions because i got too aggressive and then got surrounded and decimated.
And also this games really makes you want to learn the history. I also still remember when playing as GB, after King George V passed away i don't know which decision is historical between letting King Edward VIII stayed as a king or letting him abdicate. After quick search I finally knew the history and reason behind it.
I tried Hoi3 and couldnt really get into it. I got into CK2 and loved it so when Hoi4 came out I gave it another try and loved it. (fallout mod is the best) You mentioned playing every nation would take hundreds of hours. May I introduce you to the channel iSorrowproductions who did a series called Hoi4 A to Z where he did every single starting nation. He's a good time.
Despite all the positives you mentioned, I think a major reason this and other Paradox games remain relevant is because of lack of competition. As far as Grand Strategy goes, there are no other games or companies that come even close to what Paradox offers this market. But despite producing a very complex game, it suffers a lot of bugs, stability issues, and to be honest, very greedy practices when it comes to DLCs, because the content and expansions they offer for a price, are really stuff they should just be updating into the standard game for free. We can see evidence of this being the case with Victoria 3, because like most paradox games, it started out extremely buggy and lacking in content. It won’t be for another year or two until the game starts seeing proper development under the form or DLC expansions and bug fixes, that we will start seeing that game gain traction as well.
It took me so long to learn some parts of the game but now that I know enough to win campaigns, 3 years and 2000 hours aren't enough for me.
An active Multiplayer community with local hosting + An Incredible modding scene = greatness
As a player w/thousands of hours I laughed like a nervous moron when you said people WANT to play it lol. That stupid starting bell has ruined friendships
I've started playing the HOI games ever since I was 10 in 2014 two years before HOI IV. Ever since then I have been playing the game on and off, always coming back to it whenever an interesting dlc drops, or whenever a mod that I played decides to update.
Say what you want about Paradox, but if there is one thing they succeded in (basically cracked the code) is the ability to support their games for a long ass time, still have a playerbase (that even increases over time) years later and still make money $$$.
Been playing since a little after release (so probably late 2016 early 2017) and there's still so much I haven't done because of the superb modding community and the number of different paths
I have 2,000 hours on HOI. You are certainly right about the complexity. I still fant comprehend some things in the game
_"I still cant comprehend some things in the game"_
let me guess...
it starts with "n" and ends with "avy"?
@@scifidino5022 2000 hours on soviets.
What is the navy?
Unfortunately it's too addicting, as a player I can confirm. Another reason is its interesting community, some a little to addicted, maybe needing to touch grass.
My one objection to the game is the cost. If you were to buy the base game (ALONE), it would cost you £35. However, if you were planning to try out the DLC’s, 1 MONTH costs you £5. And if you plan on taking the game to a whole new level (I’m talking mastering navy, airforce and even doing disaster saves), it would cost you about £110 EXTRA. I know this game’s great an all, but the sheer cost of the game is limiting the player count drastically, as most wouldn’t bother to spend £140 for the full game.
ya, its pathetic
fax
brother is saying 730 hours of potential gameplay is not worth 5 dollars
@@Xictlii no but I mean that sure if you’re gonna play a month then stop then do so but I mean that if you really wanna play for long and not worry much about the pricing then the only other way is through this mega amount
@@CatfoodChronicles6737 still, it’s 5 bucks a month.
I have played the HOI series since it first came out in 2001 putting in 1000s of hours over the past 2 decades. I love this game (obviously). It somehow has never gotten stale to me. It is the one game I can always come back to.
Hoi4:
"We're done... When I say we're done."
Been playing for a year (a bit longer when you include the time it took to understand the game) and I am completely addicted, even when I get burnt out I will always be able to come back in a bit less then a month, I’ve done countless runs as Germany and even more as other nations. Also I feel one thing he forgot to mention is even if you’ve done all the alt history stuff and played as every nation (somehow) there’s still a non historical mode for the ai, multiplayer, and over a hundred unique badges
incredibly healthy community? LMAO
I didn't say kind and welcoming didn't I 😂😂😂
@@Nyxson yea im pretty sure u didnt xdd
One thing that alwasy brought me back were the achievments, after hundreds of hours of playing and figuring it out your reasononing to start again dulls, but with achievmentrs you have a definative gold, as Y do X. and my god am I a sucker for these, after 1.8k hours and now having them all I know when the next dlc comes out I'll be on that game for weeks again, never upset about that.
Healthy is the last word i would use to describe hoi4 community
Btw I have 710h in hoi. Wanna see my sealion? ^^
Simple, there is no other game like it, it has tremendous replay value (even having 3k-5k hours isn't outlandish), and it's constantly being updated. Paradox games tend to last forever, EU4 is another legendary example of a unique 10-year-old game that won't die.
Great vid keep it up
❤️❤️❤️
One of my absolute favorite games! Going for weird strategies and see it work never gets old!
It is a great game and completely not for me and that's fine. I respect your game guys. It is your community. Protect your game from casuals that want to change everything. Keep your standards high. Recently my friend streamed the game for me. He went Poland into Poland- Romania Kingdom and bro was it a lot of fun :D
I got hoi4 last year around the time the bba dlc came out and I still play it almost daily and with soon to be 1000 hours in the game I still learn some things and I love it
Why? Addiction
Also alot of communities wanted their nations to be added in the game.
We have Middle Easterners, Southeast Asians, Latin Americans, and hodgepodge of a few nations like Belgian-Irish-Austrian group or Mongolia-Tibet-Tuva group
@@krasnamerah1926 what are you even rambling on about?
@@sejozwak, the game's community isn't dead and instead grows because with more and more nations given content in the vanilla game, more and more crowds from the region which hasn't given any unique content has flocked and demanded the devs to give their region a DLC.
Oooor, because there are many good mods that the community can play. I think this 2nd reason is more plausible, anyway....
@@sejozwak, just a post-nap rambling anyway. I didn't quite thinking about the 2nd possibility at that time.
As a player of about 2 years now I can agree that this game is very complex and I still don’t know many mechanics. Not knowing everything about the game and gradually learning more over long periods of time is better than mastering it quickly like any other game
Another very good example for the same genre is Empire At War. The Game came out in *2006* and it's playerbase is still growing. That's because the developer, Petroglyph, opened up pretty much its entire code for modding. It has a rich and collaberative modding community, that is well supported by Petroglyph who still provide updates to help improve the game for modders and fix issues that have arisen. Most recently they switched the game from 32-bit to 64-bit. This opened up a massive amount of new processing power for modders to use. The game has been kept alive for nearly two decades thanks to this philosophy, and its still one of the most popular rts games in the Star Wars IP. More developers need to take the attitude to modding that Petroglyph and Paradox do, because it provides so much more and long lasting vitality to their games.
Good video, subscribed :)
An example for another game that refuses to die and just gets better every year is Star Wars: Empire at War. And it is for the same reason: Mods. The mods make it so much greater than the base game, they allmost feel like a sequel. Also, this 17 year old game just got another offical patch, adding 64-Bit support.
Glad I've found your video, with over 2.8k hours in HOI4, I'm never disappointed by it!
For me, having +1000h of HOI2, +100h of HOI3 and +2000h of HOI4, the answer is simple, HOI4 is the best WW2 strategy game that has been ever made. After a failing HOI3, everyone was asking for change, and they gave us HOI4, they improved the division design, way better province administration, less complex battle system and proper air system, and cherry to the cake, production of arms, and no production of whole divisions. They hear what people say, and change, for ex:
1. Unique ships become a mod, they made ship design by player possible, so every one can havy their unique design. Same happen with tanks and airplanes.
They included in the game what modders were making for fun, and were succesful.
Last patch is one of my best thing I loved from HOI2, research by manifacturers or institutions, and they even expanded to production by manifactures.
Moding comunity in HOI4 is huge, they have more game mechanics that you can incorporate in the game, so patching HOI4 could be going for a long time.
It took me about a solid 500 hours to learn the basics of the game. That was also including playing different mods. I’ve had the game for 6 years and I’ve gathered close to 3k hours and there’s still stuff I’m learning, don’t know, or mods I still haven’t even touched with their infinite replay ability
Had it for just under a year, gotten about 600-650 hours so far. Without the youtubers I probably wouldn't still be playing or might not have ever started.
The support for mods, not having to move files from folder to folder, just click and play.
So I found this game after seeing an Austria Hungary run and I was hooked. I then spent the next year learning every aspect of hoi4 on RUclips, and at the start of last year I got the game and all dlcs and a full year later I have 1057 hours on it. I plan on playing every path there is even on mods like old world blues or road to 56
I agree 100% with everything said in this video. I’m close to 1800+ hrs In the game, I’m sill discovering new things and ways to approach things. One part not mentioned in the video which is absolutely incredible on the developers part is (unless it’s been changed) If you are playing a friend in multiplayer and you personally own all the DLC’s your friends will be able to use your DLC’s if you are hosting the game. Which is amazing.
Was my first game years ago on steam and always been coming back to it regularly other games I have periods in but this game offers a vast variety of ways to play. And it’s awesome
I bought the game specifically to play an overhaul mod.
So really, with every major modpack release, the game essentially experiences a mini re-release, like it's a sequel. For a somewhat niche audience, but still, it has an effect.
This game can offers up some of the most difficult challenges I've seen in a game. Trying to survive and create a world power as Luxembourg or trying to survive the onslaught playing as Poland is a Dark Souls difficulty like experience in the grandscale RTS genre.
I remember first time playing hoi. I had no idea what I was doing, but I keept playing anyway. Events, decision, descriptions, music. 12h passed and I felt like playing max 2h :)
One thing not mentioned in here is that multiplayers limit is whatever you can handle, and players can co-op a nation.
This is super cool and fun for more casual players to duo or trio vs the AI as a single nation, and for "competitive" multiplayer players allowing them to 3-4 man stack on nations like russia/germany that tend to have alot of aspects and complexity allowing you to play the games without pausing and on higher speeds.
Also if you commit to not pausing outside of breaks a full multiplayer game even with like 30 players is very easy to complete in under 8 hours, and that's normally if the game is dragging till 1946, if a game ends early in 1943 for instance it could be over in as few as like 4 hours.
i think the most important factor is the paradox financing system which is by far my favourite of any videogame. where they support their games for years and years completely overhauling and improving the game over time. i think the fact games like eu4 and hoi4 are still being supported and get dlcs regularly after almost a decade or over a decade is also an important thing for why so many people still play it
PAradox is a literally genius! Their games like HOI4, CK3, Stellaris are immensley modable. People can mod anything in it, so they can play what they want. Frequent updates and patches, paradox is like a gardener allways working on their product.
Spot on man. Been playing this game for over 6 year and have over 8000 hours logged.
A wonderful element of HOI4 is that, over the years the game just gets better. There are more decisions to be done, the supply system got improved, navy, airforce and tanks got updated, national goals get more advanced and better overall. This makes the DLCs actually worth their price (on sale). Subscribtion actually just makes sense in this case as well, as there is too many elements to buy at once, so they just give you a different approach to gettin the content. So yeah, Paradox makes many mistakes (for example - the amount of micro is way too much nowadays), but they handle their game really well
I agree. I play this game for almost 2 years now. I had so much fun playing it with friends and getting to master all the mechanichs and tactics. Still wish the navy was more simple tho😅
I never realized how true this is, i have been playing this game all 4 years of highschool and STILL playing it into college
i love this game. and this video made me very happy. I like that you brought up mods because that is a big thing that keeps me playing in between releases of new DLC content
Man, I've been playing HoI4 since august 2016, and I still end up coming back to it and craving more, year after year. It's just amazing.
i play like 4-6 nations and do the exact same thing every time but somehow this just doesn't get boring for me, played for like over 5years not weekly but still probably my most often played game
Day 1 HOI player, way back then, as I rack up well over 10 000 hours total, yet I do not feel like mastering anything.
Got several total world conquest, and got wrecked several time more, yet I go back to it all the time.
I think it has 2 things going for it, it was okay on release and got better with every major update, which are coming pretty regularly.
It's just so goddamn addictive. I have to make conscious decision when to start a new game because I know very well that I'll spend the next 6-8 hours of my life painting a world map.
as someone who has played basically all of the paradox games, hoi is the most fun because you can still see major successes while deviating heavily from what’s “meta” (only in single player)
The game just satisfies the every needs of men, it's to conquer the world.
There is also another reason. It's the combined effort of its content creators. TommyKay and Bokoen1 in particular who to this day create content about it.
RUclipsrs/ Twitch streamers have built the support for this game so successfully
I taught myself the game by playing as a minor (Nicaragua iirc) in my first game and heavily abusing console commands to have a taste of all the techs and learn the mechanics then jumped in with both feet on ironman as GB for my second game, this was waaaay back before any of the dlc had come but that play through has stuck with me to this day. By the end if the war i gelt genuinely exhausted, just like the nation i was playing. I had steered my people through trial and error, every strategic gain felt like it was followed by a massive blunder but as time went on the gap in my knowledge closed just as steadily as my gap in the Atlantic. I remember finding my south American naval squad, two years in, just chilling down in the Falklands, no idea they even existed and overwhelmed with joy about having a couple of cruisers without damage.
If the DLC had all been there from the start it'd have been too much, and we love to complain about the cost but take this outlook perhaps: most hobbies require constant financial input, the £100 odd quid ive spent on DLC over the years is nothing compared to if i was a golfer, ir a gambler, or a car enthusiast. Combine that with the perfectly sane mantra if "wait for a steam sale" and id be happy to get DLC fir this game for many more years
It all came full circle in the end, I met guy doing seasonal work for music festivals who also worked for paradox, he took his summers off to come home to England and work the festival circuit. We were talking about the game as he'd worked on it and id been into it for a few years by this point. He asked me if there was anything I thought was missing and I mentioned that all sides in the war conducted commando raids on soft coastline to disrupt defences, industry etc and it kinda sucked that you always had to raid a heavily defended port just to harass the enemy, and that a single company of say, marines, should be a lot more if a threat than they are. I dunno if that's why they added marine commandos but if it was cos of that, it's pretty fucking cool that i might have had an influence there. I guess that's a flex, kinda but yeah.
That's my (abridged) life story of HOI, if you read all that well done, I'm high af and just needed to ramble 😅
Two big reasons: Mods and DLC. There are so many new mechanics added by both DLCs and mods that explore all kinda of different scenarios.
Need more complexity? Black Ice, Total war. Want a different scenario? OWB or Kaiserreich or Equestria at war. Or ... then there navy updates, planes tanks supply. Some mods change the economy massively. You can just always learn more
There are also some amazing multiplayer mods out there that make the gameplay even more historical such as hearts of oak 2. The mod allows you to larp and still do well enough
3300 hours played over 4-5 years. It is the only game I've played since 2019. Completely agree with the replayability. Only war I think would need a good sim/strat game is the Civil War. Another reason for it's success is the great RUclips community.
One of the best startegy games i have ever played, very good video
Even though I've already quit the game it will always has a special place in my heart. In Hoi4 veteran mesures my 500+ hours is not much, but I enjoyed all of it, even if I was frustrated because of one mistake that messed up the whole game. I really loved to do achievements. Every of it was a different challange with different difficulties. Unfortunately I couldn't manage to get every of them, but I have a little more than 100 achievements, and I am proud of it. I will also remember with nostalgia those games that were played by me and my friends. Those games created memories, that I will never forget. Thank you so much Hearts Of Iron IV for the good times that you caused
I have thousands of hours into HOI 4. I have loved this series since HOI 2 came out and have loved the series. There is no other WW 2 game that is as deep as this one in terms of what it allows you the player to do. And there are tons of mods for the game that can change it up to give a completely different gameplay experience with new strategies and gameplay,
HOI 4 is not a perfect game, but they are advancing the genre.
In a modern setting we have different technologies that are tough to replicate using the HOI 4 game engine but the modding community has done their best to make some amazing mods for the game.
Highly recommend anyone to check it out. But it is complex and it will take a few games to learn all the basics of the mechanics and the scope of what this game allows you to do as a nation.
Hoi4 always feels so at home, you command and conquer, and in between that, you appreciate the process and game progression, it just felt so gratifying conquering nations and at the end of your game, you can look back and what you had created, but truly, it never gets bored especially when you try challenging yourself to new things like playing minor nations, and trying out goofy strategies, the sky is the only limit
bro, we just gettin' started!
I have more than 800 hours put in, so far, no knowledge of the navy except how to move naval units, not much advanced airforce knowledge, no organized template, and no campaign reaching farther than 1943.
The soundtrack alone makes me want to play again, Andreas Waldetoft is a big part of the success equation
I remember back in very early 2017, I saw iSorrowProductions’ and Drew Durnil’s videos on it. I bought the game because of them. I love it and can’t stop playing it because of the mods specifically.