Having just finished my first successful HOI2 game as Germany, defeating the Brits with 3 paratroopers, war deccing everything in site out of boredom, encountering a 90 ship UK fleet hiding out in Nova Scotia, 1 militia unit defending NYC, and 50 US Infantry divisions playing cards on Wake Island, I was very ready for a better AI. From reading other users experiences, it looks like this game will deliver! Great job guys!!!! One suggestion:

Add some page numbers to the manual!

This game is basically Hearts of Iron II with additional features and some fixes.

If you loved HOI II and can not stop playing it OR you don't even have HOI II, I would recommend getting AoD. On the other hand, if you have HOI II but are not a huge fan of it, then you will probably be disappointed.

There are also not very many mods released for AoD but they are already working on the 4th patch.

I have always been a fan of the HOI series but AoD really takes it on a new level. This is what HOI 3 should have been.

Well this standalone addon brings some features here and there in that community cannot mod(+); another point is increased gamespeed(++); bigger game resolutions are rather not optimal(0). 20€ for content are bit to much for me.
4 of 5 stars from me

To date HOI series ranks as the best strategic RTS game for me. I enjoyed HOI2 Arma for quite a time. As the start of HOI3 was very disappointing i turned to Arsenal of Dem. and found it a vast improvement over HOI2Arma ( especially after the very timely and dedicated patches of BI-Logic). It will certainly keep me busy until i consider Semper Fi and dust of my HOI3....

Great game, good fun if you don't have HoI 2 and all the expansions already. I wouldn't advise paying full price for it though. I'd just up $10 more and get HoI 3.

This is a must to all HOI fans. This adds so much reality and depth to the game. In addition, the AI is now a bit more challenging which offers a lot more fun for the player.

While reading many reviews I did not get a clear cut convincing to buy this game over Hearts of Iron 2.
But here it is for you people who do not want to wait for HoI 3 to finally get patch love. Buy this game !

If you have played HoI2 there isnt much new to this game. They add some interesting twists that make it aittle more involved and perhaps abit more detail oriented on the production side of things. When I purchased it and played through one entire game with patch 1.03 the AI still seemed pretty glitched, and honestly I havent went back to the game due to this. I noticed a patch 1.04 has been released and I have downloaded it, but to use a day or two of my time just to find out it wasnt a decent game because the AI does totally off the wall things was annoying.


The example from my game in 1.03 was the AI stacking tons of troops in some off the wall not important location, and in the Case of American and England not even using their navy to fight the war at all. Supposedly these issues were fixed in 1.03 but obviously not as that is the edition I was playing.

Overall its still a good game and I would guess if you played one of the naval powers against Germany it would be still be playable, or against other players online. However I dont have the time for online play of that nature.

Was a good distraction of time, but the AI issues really need to be addressed before its truly a good game imo.

Indeed they've done it this time. Lots of things that could be improved, were. They took the best and made it into something even better. I still have not played any improved version of HoI3, only the first release, and as far as I am concerned 'arsenal of democracy' is more complex and balanced. Really, if you take away the 'EU3' looks of HoI3, what is left is a worse game than AoD. If you are not sure which one to buy, go with this one.

This is in my opinion the best development of the Hearts of Iron series to date. It has additional automation of otherwise tedious micromanagement and allows the player to focus on grand strategy in the military/diplomatic/economic field rather than allocating every command/spy/resource manually. Having said that players who like micromanagement can reduce automisation in most regards.

The game has a moderate to high learning curve, even for strategy gamers, but do not let this put you off as it is highly rewarding to win the game or just play as a minor country watching the heavyweights slug it out and then picking a side to fight for.

Lastly the game is reletively bug free, compared with other HOI games, and is easily modded by an active modding community.

A must have for fans of the original Hearts of Iron series.
Arsenal of Democracy implements a new and more detailed economical system, where the player have to manage the allocation of money in budgets, in addition to the old system of IC distribution.
Military Units were rebalanced and battles now last long and have more detailed bonus and penalties.
The technology tree has been expanded as well, and the new Intelligence system is a power to be reckoned with.
Some small details help a lot the gameplay as well, like the multiple deploy system, saving a lot of time for players with lots of units to put in field, and the generals can be sorted by skills, saving the periodic visits in the ledger to consult available commanders for the armies.
Sea convoys are now detectable by the player through the use of spies to gather naval intelligence, giving a whole new depth to submarine warfare as you can hunt enemies transport ships in the sea with little trouble to find them.
For those who enjoyed the Hearts of Iron games of the past, will find a renewed version in Arsenal of Democracy, with plenty of things to relearn and new strategies to develop and adapt. Money well spend for Grand Strategy fans.

I'm also an owner of Hearts of Iron II (HoI2) with its expansion packs Doomsday and Armageddon (DD/Arma), but am delighted with Arsenal of Democracy, credit to Paradox for the base game, and to Bi-Logic for the further development.

Highlights for me over and above what Hearts of Iron DD/Arma offered are the:

# Ability to direct air and naval forces to specific provinces, rather than regions made up of several provinces
# New supply system feature, which has forces carrying with them supplies and fuel rather than needing to draw them each day from a supply-dump
# Reworked land combat model which, with larger forces, prolongs battles considerably
# Industrial capacity "concentration" effect and positive impact of infrastructure upon resource extraction
# Loss statistics, both in the ledger and in the pop-up box that appears following combat

I'm encouraged to see that development and refinement continue (patch 1.04 at time of writing) and just as good, that the excellent CORE modification team intend to develop their mod for Arsenal of Democracy.

Summary: The purchase decision was not a challenging one. The longevity and value are outstanding.

AoD is what HoI2 should have been like. It has really interesting features, such as upgradable units in the building queue, an expanded tech tree and the ability to generate more resources through infrastructure upgrades. Also much improved is the ability to run the game in high resolution formats, such as 1920x1200. All in all much user friendlier than HoI2 was, so definately a must-have for HoI2 fans.

Big fan of HOI series, but this title blows them away. Arsenal of Democracy is by far the best games out there based on HOI2 engine.

Even if you never played any game in the hearts of iron series, this is the place to start!

well for me is now better than HOI3, until HOI3 make real patch and fix all bugs. This game is all that HOI2 need to be great hardcore strategic game.

I have many hours of fun with AoD and it is for me SUPERB GAME!

Arsenal of Democracy is the game of Hearts of Iron saga in which one you can play more years (1936-1964). The game is bassed on Hearts of Iron II Doomsday (same graphics) but change almost everything. We have a new political system with national ideas, new combat system, and several changes in technologies and espionage system. I recommend you this game, 9,2 of 10.

Awesome game, mods on the way, what could be better than combining HOI2 with the strategic bonuses from HOI3 + even more extra features.

If graphics arn't a must upgrade for you Hearts of Iron 2 players then this game is perfect.

This is a good upgrade for HOI2. It's like it's a new game again. Well worth the money.

I loved HoI2. You're going to read a bunch of "If you liked HoI2 then you'll love this" reviews. But, honestly, if you loved HoI2 then you've already got this game sans some mods. For the price and what you get it isn't bad, but don't expect the second coming here. I'd still recommend it as a nice change of pace game in between HoI 2 and 3.

This is the perfect update to HOI 2, quite the game. The lack of fancy graphics allows it to run on older machines like my 2gig Core Duo processor laptop which is almost four years old. If you like HOI you should give this one a chance.

this game should have been called Hearts of Iron 3 well done to all who made it please give us a europa game using this game engine. Big fan of Hearts of Iron format.

This game has a simple goal: Improve on HoI2. Sounds easy, but it is surely more difficult than it sounds. This fixes many annoying problems (unable to use space to pause -- essential for playing on a laptop) and now the scroll wheel works! Game play wise, the game adds a very effective espionage system and a much more manageable trade system. The tech tree has been slightly refined, but most importantly there are now up to 10 tech teams. Politically, a number of ideas are added to the mix. The majority of modifications I have tried worked quite well. A very useful feature has also been added: statistics of manpower losses. I now learn much faster what strategies are effective.

All-in-all Arsenal of Democracy breathes new life into the classic HOI2 formula.

From the short demo it looks like a vast interface improvement on Hearts of Iron 3 - I wonder whether it runs on Macintosh as well as PC as the mouse looks very Mac like in the You tube demo - I would seriously consider getting the PC adapter for Mac to play this either VMware or the other one. I have found the HOI 3 on Mac to be complicated and baffling even at the most basic level with regard to troop movement and combined arms interaction, and restrictive in terms of politics/economics/trade/intelligence compare to HOI 2 - eg there seems to be no way to match historical inventions pace even with a huge education emphasis in HOI 3 or to shift a country like Russia from Stalinism to Leninism to left wing radical which can be done in HOI 2. Also tech trading seems to be unavailable even amongst allies in HOI 3 unlike HOI 2, just to mention a couple of areas. Diplomacy seems also restricted ie JAPAN and US alliance not possible and JAPAN Russia alliance not possible. You can get weird scenarios where you are allied in one are and not in another in HOI 3.

So if Arsenal of Democracy allows the player to what if in those areas and greater flexibility with regard to troop dispositions and command structures I am seriously interested in getting it and letting HOI 3 Mac fade into a been there done that not again ....

I've played with all HOI versions; I think Arsenal of Democracy is by far the best trade-off between game depth and accuracy.

Naval units can be upgraded to some extent, there's a much longer game period respect to vanilla (i.e. without no-time-limit patch, mod or expansion), a greater tech-tree, more brigades to choose from.

But there's also greater variety in war outcome: Republican Spain has a chance, Japan annex (and later puppet) Nationalist China, USA enter war or not and so on.

Finally, a huge work has been done with land battles, with greater realism (12 tank units always win aginst not-brigaded infantry!).

Twenty euros worth even if you have bought HOI2 with all of its expansions.

Arsenal of Democracy is a good game, maybe not "HoI2 on Steroids", but definitely on vitamin supplements. The new features and improvements are nice. The auto-trade and auto-sliders are still best left managed on your own, but everything is has been improved. I liked the advanced sliders which allows you to set the min/max of IC spending. I also liked the domestic policies, the ability to force policy changes at dissent cost, the new logistics system, and the higher resolution. It may not be worth it if you have played HoI2 to death and moved on, but otherwise it's worth it. Think Hearts of Iron 2, fully patched w/ new scenarios and features from other paradox games. New players, buy it. HoI fans, wait for it to become 10-15$.

Greatest game I have ever played.It's that simple.I love this game so much I play it ever day for sometimes 5 hours a day.Now, there are some problems only on one of the campaigns(well my snd Napoleonic Wars what was me as France conquering Europe) it freezes and it crashes.Now, it happened on my German one to ,but only once other wise my France one always does so now I cant continue my game.I dont know if its the game or my computer ,but still a great game!!!!!!!

This is a really fine historical game. It offers the most balanced gameplay of the HoI2 serie. The engine is a bit dated. But, if you need one World War II game, and are a fan of detailed strategy plans, this is the one to have, at least until Hearts of Iron III has got its numerous flaws ironed out.

I really liked the game, many small improvements but which are very good! And of course AoD is much mod-friendly then HoI2, that's a big plus!
But I think that the game could look a little better, I mean improve the GFX part but hopefully there will be mods and patches that does that.
The game is a bit laggy when having high speed but that not a big problem, it's surely just my computer.

This is what HOI2 should have been. The battles are longer and it actually takes a bit of skill to beat the AI. Superstacks, ninja-like encirclements, and unstoppable blitzes are things of the past. Highly recommended to any HOI player.

I enjoyed HOI2 and played it many times, and it had to be one of the best games ever in terms of grand strategy. AoD doesn't really add a lot to HOI2 but it does make it a bit better - easier to play and not requiring mods. However, I think I beat HOI2 to death playing it so much and I don't have the desire to play it these days.

I'll get right to the point: the new supply/logistics system and support for any screen resolution are worth the price of this new version of HoI2. I was worried that the logistics system and the changes to production (retooling time) would make the game overly complicated, but I've been having a blast.

This is a great update to the HoI series and should give anyone dissapointed with HoI3 something to do until HoI4 comes along. The only downside is that you might end up losing track of time and play all night like I do...

Superb game. Keeps the same HoI2:DD feeling I had played before. A good of an investment.
The new features such as controlled automated trade, province buildings are just great. And the improvements are amazing, the air combat is very exciting and extremely import to survive, land and naval combats are just great... The supply system now is easy to comprehend and extremely important for a successful campaign.
Even being a know and old engine they manage to make the game up to a good challenge.

HOI 2 should have being evolved to the status as AoD is now,and only then ,maybee in 2011, true Hearts of Iron 3 should have being released(after more concise developement).

AoD is great game,true historical ww2 simulation,and in that part fulfills expectations of many who awaited from HOI III to be that.

If you liked HoI2, your gonna love this game. More off everything, especially the economic & production parts behind your war machine.

Don't expect any fancy graphics though, mostly the same as HoI2 (Not that its bad, just a bit old).