Unrealistic scenarios and bug-rich game

With ftm rebasing flight units makes them to loose most of their organization.

French/RAF air force are reducing ground units organization to zero in two bombing runs, while trying to do the opposit with much more advanced technology achieves almost nothing.

It is impossible to completely destroy enemy air units on the ground (bombing for a year is not enough). Even when all their resources, infrastructure, airbase completely destroyed their air units keep recovering during constant bombardment.

Panthers or King Tigers with 150mm armour and with advanced mechanized infantry cannot beat a single french infantry unit on flat terrain.

Enemy submarines are almost completely immune to any kind of attempt to engage them (sortie, patrol, intercept).

Naval strike almost never results in engagement between bomber and surface units.

And so on, and so on ...

All in all I have never seen such a badly made product like the semper fi and the ftm.

I installed the first one for three times and I had to unistall it always because it rendered the game totally unenjoyable.

But the worst is the experience what Paradox calls 'Tech Support'. Everyone can decide it for himself whether he would like to get an answer for the above inquiry like I did as this:

Veklmaarschalk (moderator on the Paradox forum site - the only 'support' provided by them)

"Well to bad you don't like the game, but none of your issue's has anything to do with tech-support, so thread closed."

It is basically let's say complaining about a basketball that is not bouncing back from the floor and having a response from the maker or vendor that 'it's too bad, why do not you just play soccer with it or simply buy another one'.

This kind of arrogance is just over the top by my opinion. This clearly shows that selling crap for naive and basically helpless young kids makes no problem for many people for the profit.

As a father myself I do not recommend this product to anyone looking for quality games!

It's an amazing expansion to the game. HOI3 was kinda buggy in the start but quickly grew to be really enjoyable. But there seemed to be lot of things lacking in it. With this expansion, it has become almost just right. Thanks P'dox !!

Semper Fi adds a lot of entertaining aspects into the already great Hearts of Iron 3. It is a must buy for fans of the series as it adds twice as many historical events, techs, leaders, and accuracy to the game.

Semper Fi absolutely completes HoI3. Although I enjoyed the game within the first couple patches it still didn't seem to run smoothly - this addition completes the game and ensures that the HoI series is still as good as it gets with regards to WW2 grand strategy.

Semper Fi is an essential addition to the HOI 3. I liked it but I have to warn fellow players to be careful in how this game is patched and updated. Chech the official forum and read the instructions carefully 4/5

Hearts of Iron 1 and 2 made me a fan of Paradox, but part 3 just left me frustrated.

Semper Fi fixed some of the issues inherent in the vanilla version of HOI3, but still left a clunky game that does not seem to work the way it should. Without going over the posts I left on the Paradox forum, the game tends to lag out after a couple years of game time. Like all of the HOI/Vicki/EU games HOI3 has a fairly steep learning curve and of all of them HOI3 would be the last one I would recommend to people who want a game they can just jump into and play, principally because of the new command system that HOI3 introduced.

Fantastic Game, Unfortunately seems to have a memory leak and has trouble working well on dual core processor systems. Works fine on my single processor system if you restart the game every couple of hours. You can speed up game improvement by adjusting the priority of the game process. Ctrl-alt-Del / Task manager / processes / locate the game right click and set to realtime.

Cheers Sven

One of the most wonderful sit back grand strategy games on the market. Play as any nation that was around in the 30's and 40's and sit back and watch the world go to war. Controls are simple and the learning curve is a little rough - just don't take on one of the big 6 in your first game :-)

If you're going to own HOI3 then you must purchase this to go along with it. It fixes too many things and improves the experience too much to do without out it.

Semper Fi is a great addition for anyone who owns the original, a must have. The Theater system is completely redone so it has a very nice feel to it. The AI is improved noticeably and Brigades can be upgraded which is very useful and is alot quicker then having to retrain all your armies.

This expansion is definitely worth the money.

Semper Fi is a wonderful, wonderful, expansion pack. It makes many tedious things easier (too many to list, in fact), and essentially cures the game of all crashes. The AI seems to be more intelligent, creating a real challenge in your opposition. That is not even mentioning the multiplayer, which is great fun for LAN parties, or groups of friends, allowing up to 32 players, each with their own country. All in all, if you LIKED the original game, this expansion is a necessity, as it brings the game from a 4 Star good, to a 5 Star excellent.

An overall improvements towards base Hearts of Iron III. You can set your own victory conditions (Comitern with Japan, China, United Kingdom? World War III, because you need to occupy German, set Eastern Europe as satellites and occupy New York, Washington, Boston and San Francisco? Or vice versa? Create Holy Romanian Empire?) and also enjoy enhanced AI and new events? Are you Semper Fi?

THis is the expansion that HOI3 needed. Really refines an already solid game, by adding much needed features and tweaks. Makes setting up your oob so much easier and just streamlines everyhting for better playability. I am so glad that I got this, well worth the money.

A 'must buy' expansion for any HoI3 owner who wants to get the best from the game. And a serious option for those who, like me, didn't really get into the original game. The improvements to the interface, AI and general balance really make a difference. I'm having a great time playing the game with Semper Fi plus the latest update. Some of the additions aren't all that impressive, like the battle events and strategical achievements, but are a nice touch anyway. The only reason I don't give a 5 star is because after all this time, surrender events and rules still cause plenty of problems, making the late game crazy and a messy post-war.

Semper fi is a huge improvement over the original game. It improves theatres, techs, bug fixes, decisions , added strategic effects, allied objectives and many more that makes the game the only real grand strategy game out there. oh!!! And dont forget the speed, the game is really running now. Thank you Paradox, thank you Gamersgate.

While Semper Fi surely improved the playability of HoI3, it didn't fix that even with SF this game offers far less as a challenge or entertainment factor, than the other products from Paradox.

I really love their games, but it speaks for itself when your only concerns with a game are its limitations, be it in regard of mistaken game design decisions or medicore programing.

Must have if you purchased HOI3. However, the game still needs fine tuning. The scenario starts are hardly realistic in terms of Allies and Axis. The only thing that's really set are the country lines. Units and commanders and what not are not historically assigned where they were at that time. It's a pet peeve for me, even though I know I'll assign them elsewhere. Very micromanagable in terms of gameplay.

This expansion finally makes HOI3 playable and fun. Try not to combine the different versions from GG, Impulse or Steam, it's a hell of a lot of work to get them working together.

If you want to play Diday's I.C.E mod then you must have semper fi. And with the dev team currently busy on other projects the modders are working franticly to make a game with limitless replayability and real depth beyond that imaginable by almost any other franchise. 4.5 out of 5, till the team returns to more actively supporting the game then 5 out of 5

Definitely worth getting, big improvement for the HOI3 series. Hoping they will release another expansion with features recommended by the players.

This expansion really helps to flesh out the game. It does not add any huge features at first glance, but there are many subtle changes that enchance the game to simply make it better.

Better AI,the ability to use multiple ports to supply far off lands (or right next store lands) and better speed and stability to name a few.

It would be no exaggeration to call Hearts of Iron III a lackluster performance by Paradox. I was deeply disappointed with the quality of the game. Semper Fi, however, has taken all of the problems of the original Hearts of Iron III release and turned the game into a title loaded with familiar Paradox Quality.

While HoI3 made me want a refund, with Semper Fi added, anyone would be hard pressed to pry this game from my grasp.

This is a MUST BUY for anyone who owns or is considering Hearts of Iron III. Truly Excellent.

I was sceptical before buying here. HoI3 had several flaws, that were annoying (and it was promised since realese, that they would be solved) So would SF finally better?

Well, i bought in the end and to no regret. It is better and it fixes almost everything wrong in HoI3. Some nice new features as well, even though they are not that important.

But in the end, HoI3 finally feels like it should have felt since the beginning, thanks to SemperFi

MustBuy, if you have HoI3

This is what HOI3 should have been from the start. I stoped playing HOI3 for more than a year being fed up with all the bugs, then Semper Fi brought me back to this great game franchise.

Hearts of iron 3 Semper Fi takes everything that was good about HOI 3 and improves upon it. The game as a whole seems to run smoother for me, and appears more polished. Semper fi itself also adds a variety of new features that just seems to improve the games over all. My favorite happens to be the Air and Naval maps. Plus being able to set both Air and Naval tactics. If you liked HOI 3, then Semper Fi will only make it better for you.

At last.....hoi3 is (1.4+SF) playable as it (almost) meant to be, The interface is upgraded with the OOB-Browser which makes reorganisation much easier and the often demanded possibility to influence the strategic Objective of allied AI countries. The new air war map and so on.

I still miss things like the ability to build installations ( e.g. german flak in ploesti etc... ) in allied AI countries, but i will mod that via events....

Well basically SF contains things which should have been in there from the beginning and i´m not happy to pay 20 bucks for a oversized "patch" though.

Do you hear me PI ? :)

Great improvement; Hoi 3 vanilla was relatively ok, hoi 3 + Semper Fi is amazing. With some mods, is definitely the best WW2 grand strategy experience. If you enjoyed Hoi 2, you must purchase it. Pro: better Ai and user interface. In contrast, there is still a lot of potential in this game to be released by future patches and expansions.

A must have for everyone with HOI3. This really brings the game to its adulthood and makes it a true successor to HOI2. Future patches will only improve it further.

Great addition to the game. Adds additional features to the game that are great for flavor. You better hope though that you do not have the same victory conditions as the other factions. Good luck with that! Game is definitely playable and loads of fun with the new patch out. Also, the game has a community that well above any other community that I have seen. The game is very easily modded and there are several good mods to choose from. This expansion definitely seals the game and makes it a very well-rounded game. Play is unlimited!

After playing HoI 3 for a long time I really looked forward too this addon. I must say that it gives the game a more depths and fun too the game

At last, with the addition of Semper Fi, HOI3 starts to look and play like the game it's meant to be; a serious enhancement of the AI, nice additions like the theatre creation (makes it way easier to use the army hierarchy), more events and victory conditions are the tweaks which makes this a must buy for every grand strategy lover!

If you enjoy the HOI series, this is a must have. If you started playing HOI with HOI3, this is a must have. If you want to play HOI3 and enjoy it, this is a must have. SF Makes HOI3 the complete game it should have been at release. It is more of a 'super patch' than a true expansion, but certainly it is a big help in adding to enjoyment of the game. While there are still bugs, SF makes HOI3 playable.

HOI games aren't for everyone, but if you own HOI3 and want to get the most out of your experience, you need this expansion.

I must admit that adding the DLCs and the extension makes HoI much more enjoyable. I still do not agree fully with the DLC concept so I delayed my purchase till I could see reviews of the DLCs and of the extension. But the end product is convincing.

Great work, after installing Semper Fi you will have more options for getting historical results playing HOI3!

Now reorganisation is improved so you get a good overview!

HOI3 is growing on me, but what really put me over the top was the Semper Fi "patch". I´m a bit split, but I know developing these things takes money and so on.

Keep up the good work. :)

This expansion really helps to flesh out the game. It does not add any huge features, but many small ones that work to make the game more streamlined and immersive. The biggest improvement the expansion includes is a smarter AI. As with vanilla 1.4, however, this expansion in its current form (v2.00) has many bugs and much room for improvement. I would reccomend waiting for the first official patch is out, and then pick this up for sure. This expansion is pretty much essential for continued enjoyment of this game. On that note, Paradox should have included the AI fixes to the base game. They were a fix more than an additional feature and should not have been sold in an expansion. -1 star for that.

Hearts of Iron 3: Semper Fi adds a lot of great new things to the ALREADY great game! The most important change is the addition of player-defined theatres which, when coupled with the changes to the command structure controls, really will make you want to pick this up again and spend another 3 months of your life playing way too much HOI3!

This expension brings quite a lot of feature which will not transform the gaming experience but rather improve it. The strategic effects add flavor and give you nice personal objectives. The AI objectives are a good way to make alliances more usefull.

There are still some issues, for example with the Jap AI.

All in all a must have.

This expansion really brings HOI3 to life.The game feels more complete the new additions add a new level of detail.Like other reviews have stated it feels like they shoulda been in the OGgame.but with a game of this scale,its gotta be hard to think of every detail you can add to it on release.If you like HOI3 you'll love the Semper Fi expansion

This is long awaited Addon which makes HOI3, about 10 times more playable! Still needed for much more tweaks, its still best version so far. But still, for long awaited 100% vanilla bug-free version, we are few kilometers closer!

All in all, very good buy.

An awesome addition to an already awesome game. Semper Fi fixes the majority of the issues with the original game, while adding a number of important features that improve various elements of the game. The AI has been improved, with much better showings from the Soviets than in 1.4, the Order of Battle Editor makes organising a large army a much easier task and the definable theatres give you a better strategic sense. SF has made the great even better, and has turned Hearts of Iron 3 into the best WWII grand-strategy ever.

Hearts of Iron III was a much anticipated game boasting a complete new twist on the old Hearts of Iron genre. However that game was plagued with problems: the AI was very weak, the supply system was effectively broken, and naval/air combat was almost useless. Semper Fi corrects most of these deficiencies.

It's more than just a patch, however. Paradox went on to add functionality by giving you the ability to drag and drop units into your hierarchy. New map filters have been added to better decipher the information you need. Victory conditions can be selected before beginning a game. You can now create and assign new theaters of war to better improve your troop management. Not only that, but both your AI (should you choose to avoid micromanaging) and the enemy AI have been vastly improved. Supply issues have for the most part been resolved, however you now have the option of turning off the supply system altogether by choosing "Arcade Mode" before starting play. This abstracts supply like in Hearts of Iron II, and your troops draw from the national stockpile instead of tracking through provinces.

Naval combat has been vastly improved - now positioning actually means something and naval battles are not just a "lose all your ships or sink all the enemy ships" affairs - fast, high tech ships will overtake and sink stragglers or be able to get away even if out-gunned.

Semper Fi also adds a 1940 scenario.

While Semper Fi is not a perfect release, and suffers from a few glitches and bugs, Paradox is working on patches for this expansion as well. I was disappointed with Hearts of Iron III even after version 1.4. However the Semper Fi add on now makes it an enjoyable game and unlocks the full potential of brigade scale combat. HOI3 was perhaps trying to innovate too much, too soon. With Semper Fi the game is suddenly enjoyable and playable.

This woderful game is an excellent job from Paradox. In this addon for HOI3 we have tactital news, this news improve the gameplay i help us to defeat the enemy, like to reorganize the army. If you like HOI3 you need to buy this addon, improve the strategic gameplay to the next level. It's deserve 9,5/10

This expansion truely makes HoI3 the way it is ment to be. This is all I have been playing lately, both single and multi. I pre-ordered it and it is worth every penny for the amount of enjoyment and play time I have gotten out of it.

It will only get better from here.

Hearts of Iron 3 Semper Fi is not some kind of 'miracle', the game is still a bit laggy on modern PC's and bugs are still there. But the most important thing for players of HoI3 is not the game but the community. The community improves the game and because the developers work together with the community there is always an improvement of HoI. No game is perfect today by being released but at least this game is supported by its developers patching everything they can as fast as possible.

In my opinion definitely worth the money :)

This expansion fixes many overlooked aspects of HOI3. Most notably the ability to edit your own theaters and easy management of your units. I would say that the expansion is worth the money but don't expect it to transform HOI3 to greatness. Still a long road to go to really make HOI3 the game it's meant to be.

Semper Fi is a very welcome expansion of HoI3. It suffices to say that with SF, I started playing HoI3 again after letting it take the dust for one year. Now that most bugs are ironed out, this great game can start to unleash its true potential. Thank you Paradox.

One thing to note with this expansion is that everything related to AI choices, production, diplomacy etc is being handled by amateur coders in their spare time.

Most of the complaints about HOI3 were because of very weak AI scripting and yet they release an expansion which resolves none of these issues and then hand it off to a few fans to fix.

Many buyers (including me) felt that HOI3 was an unfinished product and hoped for Paradox to fix it. Most of us hoped the patches would solve the problems, but many remained. We then focused our hopes on Semper Fi – and the expansion does deliver many of the fixes (not the least to the AI) that the community so longed for. Personally I hoped for a bit more and the game is still at bit buggy and slow on a modern, multicore computer. However most of the community seems pleased with what SF delivers – but I tend to wish more for an expansion and many things provided in SF should have been patched in for free. Great though is that Paradox keeps producing patches in a great pace.

While all new additions are great, SF is still somewhat bugged, and unluckily for me, slower than vanilla. I was also waiting some of the enhancements from SF to be patched into vanilla HoI 3 but I guess they needed more money to pay to developers. Without the small bugs and slowdown I would have given clear 5/5 but in it's release state only 4/5.

Semper Fi is a major improvement to Hearts of Iron III.

I really like the new interesting features and improvements, and it makes the game even more awesome.

Still, there are some things I miss, but I hope they'll add that in a future addon.

1 thing, there is a "major" bug in the original Semper Fi version, that messes up the model pictures for units. They will all have the same generic picture.

This is confirmed to be fixed in the upcoming patch, 2.01, which also has a beta version out now.

It can be found on Paradox Plaza forums, in the HoI3 - Tech Support subforum.

I love you Paradox!

Removes many issues and brings numerous features. You can now create and define theaters, which is very important for setting up your order of battle. With the order of battle browser, you can easily change order of battle. New strategic air map, navy maps are useful. Ai is better, germany actually builds tanks, world war ii proceeds upon the general timeline if you dont intervene. A necessity for playing hearts of iron iii from this point on. oh, also the new standard for strategy wargames.

Semper Fi is one of that expansions that doesn't have an impressive new/remodeled feature but a nice mix of things that make the original game (Hearts of Iron III) evolves in the correct way.

What I'm enjoying more and more is that players have now easier changing our army composition and structure, as well as you're allowed now to stablish your own 'theaters'. This is great for game immersion. Lots of new historical events and the 'strategical effects' feature make the things go better.

But the best thing is how the AI has improved. It's a difficult feature on which rely your marketing. Because everyone can say it, but it's not always true. In Semper Fi it is.

So my recommendation for HoI3 players is that they're losing the chance. And for strategy lovers who didn't do it before, to get HoI3 and Semper Fi.

What a nice expansion ! Anyone who didn't like Heart of Iron III, must try this. It's a far step forward. There's a lot of excellent addition and also the playability is greatly improve. At last, it's not just complex game but it's a game fun to play.

So iam very happy to say that semper fi has made HOI3 a good strategy game.

The most important improvement is the military AI. The AI does now defend in depth to the best of its abilities. A good player will still prevail, but it can be a challenge. On attack the AI does some crazy and unpredictable moves, which contrary to what that might imply actually makes for an interesting game play. Keeps you on your toes abit more. For example invading France as the Germans and suddenly having the French AI pull a few divisions out of the line an attack occupied Norway. Totally doesn’t help save Paris much but forces the player to send troops to Norway and lose abit of focus.

Also the US AI conducts some fairly aggressive pacific island hopping campaign with marines….

Not sure how often this happens but the US even launched a serious invasion of Japan itself, which the jap AI fought to a standstill.

The UI is vastly improved making it a lot easier to organise OOB and create theatres, HQ command structures and troop transfers. Also my personal favourite allows for the unit number to be displayed on the counter rather than the commander…

The game also runs a lot faster now. I use a dual core vista so I must admit since the 1st patch I never really had any major issues. I ve heard quad core i7 machines might still be problematic….

The main issues with the 1.4 patch have also been addressed

I.e. the US now builds cags with their carriers, support brigades no longer take all the damage in battles .

Supply is either an arcade mode where the player can chose to basically not have it modelled or it seems the way it was designed to be, i.e. a large mechanized force deep in Russia will run out of supplies very quickly.

There are of course still kinks to iron out, mostly balancing and a lot of immersion issues

Generic sub pictures and pre war tanks pictures etc, nothing which affects game play as such but takes away from the immersion factor.

Paradox have already promised a patch as soon as enough bugs come to light. As much as what people might hate on paradox they are very involved in the game community.

The vanilla version is intended to be an open sand box affair diplomatically. So its likely that you will see weird things like Japan invading Poland and the US joining the axis only to declare war on Germany. However a new feature allows the player to set the victory goals for each faction. Essentially this lets the player dictate what the AI will try to achieve ( you don’t have to do this but it helps to add historical parameters to the game)

For example you can set the German Japan Italy axis victory goals which will mean Japan is more likely to focus on china and the pacific arena. Again I haven’t played enough to test all this out.

From what ive heard it’s still in need of balancing .

In any case I am more involved in the modding of the game than the vanilla version. Without sounding too biased I strongly recommend the ICE mod for more historical play. We are balancing it for semper fi and the modding possibilities with the expansion are a dream…..

So much so that I wont play the vanilla version at all anymore. But I am biased as I said.

So its early days , a patch for the ( few) bugs is on its way but its fair to say the expansion has made HOI3 worth buying.

It adds alot of things that where missing in the orignal, The ability to define Theatres yourself makes it much easier to control your armies.

The historical objectives is also a nice touch even tough I havent used them much still definetly worth buying.

Semper Fi is an excellent expansion for HoI3. It adds lots of feature thats improves the game. The new military AI is good and the new OOB manager is a real pain-saivor, and the ability to make your own theaters are really making HoI3 to the game it was ment to be from the begining.

There are still some things that could be better, but in my opinion they are mostly balancing issues (like the japanese-AI) that surely will be taken care of.

The new victory-system is nice and it will probably make long multiplayer games more interesting since you don´t know what the enemies goals are.

The game has only been released for one day when I write this, but I have already had lots of fun playing it.

There are some really good new features with this expansion one of which is capability of upgrading infantry to, for example, Motorized infantry, etc, which allows you to upgrade experienced units or in fact any unit as long as you have the technology and resources. Being able to designated theatres is a real plus as I can now concentrate front line troops at the front and leave rear security to another theatre which suite my style of playing. I would recommend this expanision but would stress there are some bugs even with this new addition to the game which is disappointing but typical Paradox.

I believe one way to make quality control and review of the game is to compare it to next best game in the genre.

Semper-Fi is by no doubt the best HOI game ever so far,but AoD still has some features that still are better.

However, form the point of overall game performance and presentation,as well as gameplay immersion and enjoyment,Arsenal of Democracy cant compete anymore with this modern advanced mighty new game,which is now finaly- natural state of things .:)

My sincere recommendation to any "armchair general" in the world.For game to play you will need basic original HOI III to instal though,but dont bother with playing that one alone.

Semper Fi enhances Hearts of Iron III in very many aspects. Things like victory conitions, hundreds of historical events and the new strategic effects add a lot of depth and immersion to the game. The military AI has been improved in all aspects, espacially considering the pacific war theatre. And all the other features like the new OOB handling and custom theatre creation are rounding this expansion up. All in all this expansion is a must have for every Hearts of Iron III player.

Semper Fi seems to be everything that players have been expecting to see from Hearts of iron 3 and a bit more on top. The Artificial Intelligence has been tweaked and manages to put up better fights, from what I have seen. and the people at Paradox also managed to put together a set of user interface improvements which make it easier to control your country and, more crucially, your armies.

The game also seems to be running quicker than with previous patches, which is a plus, and the new flavor elements, like modifiers linked to certain objectives, victory conditions that can be chosen and battle acknowledgment also make the game seem more like World War II than a random conflict.

If you ever liked Hearts of Iron II you know that the real power of the game was only unlocked with the Doomsday expansion so get Semper Fi and ring Hearts of Iron III to the next level.

Semper FI has given me a lot more enjoyment out of the HOI3 experience by expanding on what I could already do with a country from WW2 of my choice. Such as the new command hierarchy interface allows a much better view of all my forces and clearly shows where they a stationed on the map. Using this and the define theatre button, a well organised army can be created to give an advantage in war that was hard to do in the original HOI3.

The AI has been improved greatly. It's defensive stances are logical and provide a hard enemy to a human player than before; and the offensive AI uses the different types of units to its advantage (such as island hopping with marines and paratroopers).

If you think that all the features have slowed the game down, then you’re wrong. Many performance tweaks have been added that increase the speed of the game; but sometimes there are lag phases at the end of each day, like in the original HOI3 (these have been reduced from before though).

To be able to set pre-defined goals for the three major factions (Victory conditions), a more constructive game can be played to allow a realistic way of viewing what the three factions would have wanted to achieve in World War 2. This adds immersion to HOI3 and avoids the assumption that ruling the whole world is the only way to win.

A small amount of minor bugs have been found (NOTHING like when HOI3 1.0 has released), but a patch is already in the process of eliminating these.

Overall 5/5.

simply put. if you own hearts of iron 3 then you need this expansion, it fixes and adds so much to the base game, from being able to define your own theatres (FINALLY!!) through to visually seeing your command structure and an order of battle editor.

more than anything though is the stability of the game now, i havent had a single crash since installing this