Dear Readers,
Thank you for coming here!
I have been playing "Hearts of Iron IV" a lot lately. And I find that there are lots of similarities between this game and life.
They are both hard, fun, and addictive.
1. Like life, the game can have low or high starting points (Unlike life, you can choose...)
Apparently, choosing super powers as your country will make your playing easier, like Germany, the US, Soviet etc.
You start with solid industry and technology, a formidable military and probably a bunch of "little brothers" following you already.
Personally, I like to pick a country that connects with me and is relatively weak to start with, for the fun. Therefore, I play Communist China a lot (Unfortunately, Singapore is not playable).
Communist China is one of the weakest starting point in the game.
You only have one province, with basically non-existent industry and technology. The few divisions you have lack the most basic equipment.
What's worse, you are suffering from various debuffs that affects badly pretty much all aspects of a country, from factory output to construction speed, from stability to war support, from political power struggle to army training and fighting effectiveness.
The only thing you do not lack is manpower. However, the only possible use for them in the beginning is to turn them into unarmed and untrained militia.
Luckily, you are surrounded by equally weak and in-trouble neighbors. Otherwise, any human player will just swallow you as a starter.
Like life, there are high and low starting points in the game.
Like life, it might be more fun having a low starting point.
Maybe doing what connects with you matters more.
2. Like life, the game is complicated
The game is vastly complicated.
There are so many aspects you need to consider.
To make your country great, you have to take care of all factors, from national focus to government, from diplomacy to research, from military to construction etc etc
There are so many factors, modifiers and formula involved.
Taking land combat for example, you need to consider the terrain, the whether, your division's attack (soft and hard), defense, armor, supply, general, preparation status etc and the same factors of the enemy division. Each one of the outcome involves complicated formula.
I just could not see how any player can remember all those formula and do the calculation in time in order to optimize their actions, like you can in some other games.
I remember reading a "research paper" that involves tons of calculation and using of professional tools like Matlab, just to demonstrate that the "7 infantry, 2 artillery" division is a good all-around division template.
What's worse, the game keeps changing.
Every time a patch comes out, you have to go back and re-look at the factors and formula etc to digest and adjust your play-style.
Life life, you have to give up the idea of taking the single best action at every step in the game.
Maybe finding the best answer requires too much knowledge and resources, or maybe there is no single best answers at all.
Instead, embrace the possibilities and take decisive actions to pursue what you want, knowing clearly that you are mostly likely NOT on the most optimal path but believing firmly that efforts will take you there nevertheless.
3. Like life, the game is fun, no matter whether you have extra help or play alone
Due to the complication, it is hard to play the game well.
Too often, I do not see the consequence of a decision until much later in the game, which will completely ruin my plan.
Too often, I forgot to do something amidst of all the other things going on, like declaring war with a country at the earliest time, or checking my inventory and adjusting production before my troops have to fight with their bare hands.
Too often, ...
Right then, how I wish I could have an assistant who can remind me and guild me along the way.
Compared to the game, life can only be more complicated and the impact of such an assistant will be even more significant.
No doubt, there are people who have this kind of "extra help" both in the game and in life. This could be their parents, relatives, friends, paid coaches etc. Those are the lucky ones!
What if you do not have that?
It is OK. It is still fun to play!
True, you will need more time and you will face more frustrations.
You will also learn the game in a deeper manner, through research, failure, reflections etc. You will ultimately be able to develop your own play style, where you know the rationale behind every decision and action.
Who says that cannot be more fun?
Like life, the game will be much easier if you have "extra help" who can guild you along the way.
Life life, if you do not have the "extra help", you are exposed to the opportunity to make it more fun by taking the tougher path.
After all, nothing is more boring than beating a game using cheats.
4. Like life, the game requires more and more strategy and planning as you go on
If you play Communist China (or any other weak country I guess), in the beginning, you do not have many choices and time is critical, which means you needs to be decisive and every move needs to be at the earliest point.
You have to leverage your only advantage, the manpower, to conquer your neighbors to seize the land, factories and equipment.
This requires you not to pick a national focus to save Political Points to be able to declare war as soon as possible and you have to declare at the moment you have enough Political Points to do so to save time.
Once your neighbors have enough division to fill the line, your chance is lost because your militia with no weapons and training simply cannot fight.
Therefore, in the beginning, there is not much room for strategy and planning.
However, once you conquer Japan, the "time-critical" requirements are mostly eased.
And you need to slow down and think about the strategy.
Should you stand with Germany and destroy the Soviets? Should you stand with Soviets to repel Germany attack? Or Should you join the Allies?
Should you attack your neighbors first or should you attack your enemy on the other side of the sea?
Should you focus on infantry divisions all along? When should you switch to armor divisions? How much production and resources to devote to air force and navy?
How should you plan your defenses? Where to build fort? Where to build anti-air?
This all requires tons of strategy and planning to ensure you pick the right strategy and your country is run in a way that supports it.
Like life, more and more strategy and planning is required as we go on.
We need to invest more time and energy in thinking about the directions and planning.
We can no long afford to be only reflective. We need to take the initiative to make things happen for us.
5. Like life, it all comes down to the basics.
If you have survived and flourished and you want to conquer the world, you will realize that it all comes down to the basics - Stability, War Support, Manpower etc - which you may have been neglecting because they have not given you much trouble so far.
In one of my play-through, I took over the Soviet and then Germany. The whole world was basically my country and the Allies.
There was no way to divide and conquer. And there was simply not another super power that I could ally with or incite to fight with the Allies.
The only way was to fight the Allies, the other half of the world, directly.
It was not pretty. The war lasted a looong time without any clear indication who is going to win. In the end, it just became attrition warfare.
It all came down to who had more manpower, higher stability and war support. Even industry and technology mattered less.
Like life, if we want to conquer the world in the game, we have to have strong basics.
In the game, these are manpower, stability, war support
In life, these are health, family support, patience and not breaching any code of conduct.
In summary, I really enjoyed the game and I believe the game can teach us something about life as well.
The game is addictive, so is life.
"Arh..shit...it is morning again!"
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