first of all.. insanely complicated tech tree that i still havent worked out properly despite playing for hours

secondly... being able to start in 1933 really does allow you to create a country the way you want before going to war

excellent mod and worth it. now if only i could work out the tech tree

Now this is how it had to be right from the start - Iron Cross gives you ability to shape your country over the years the way you want, not just decide what kind of divisions should be more developed, like plain Hearts of Iron II.

Honestly, I tried to like this expansion. No matter how much I worked at it though I just couldn't stop thinking that this is actually less fun than the original HoI2, something about it didn't click. While expanding some important aspects of the game, mainly by improving immersion in the historical timeline, it didn't feel quite complete enough. Arsenal of Democracy and Darkest Hour are superior.

Iron Cross is an effort made by good members of our gaming community, and that alone should be reason enough for our support. Add to that its low price, the new unique features, the 1.01 patch that has just come out and improved the game vastly, as well as the fact that it will be playable on top of Darkest Hour in a few days, and you have yourselves an absolute must buy!

Interesting piece of programming code. Modification for hearts of Iron games (Arsenal of Democracy or Hearts of Iron II Doomsday - Armageddon), which totally polimorph these games into something different. Concetrated tech trees, plenty of events for every country, lessening quantities of troops, introducing some new tricks. But there are also some disadvantages - non-functioning buttons, overcomplicated map and plain bugs. But it's constantly supported, so for sure there will be improvements.

Iron cross is Mod 34, I was hoping it would make

AOD as much fun as HoI arm Mod 34 is.

I find the mod out of balance to the point 33 was

boring when it used to be fun.

It's also unhistorical, the allies 33 start as Belgium, France and UK

All in all a good mod gone bad.

The game could be good, however, the grammar is horrible and the game is very unstable under Windows 7. The game crashes frequently. There are some things that don't make sense with the events as well, but overall this adds value to HOI if the bugs would get fixed.

Iron Cross ads a lot new content that enhances your HoI2:A or AoD experience even further.

The new map is a real improvement in my mind.

The reworked Techtree is nice aswell.

The AI also seems like it was improved but cannot say much about that because I got myself Iron Cross 3Days after buying AoD.

The translations ( in my case german) are horrible atleast on the loadin screen but ingame everything seemed to be correct.

Iron Cross is therefore a real gem that will increase your fun with HoI2:A/AoD alot.

P.S: For me Multiplayer is stable without a single crash(Hamachi and LAN).

Iron Cross adds a lot to the game, but is really a beta version in its current state. It badly needs another patch or two to correct some serious issues. Some of the translation (the developers quite obviously don't speak English as their first language), and orders of battle are particularly out of whack.

That being said, I think as long as the developers are reading the forums and listening to what the players have said so far (or at least listen to the intelligent, well thought-out comments), it will become the best variation on HOI2 out there.

First of all, great game addition, actually the best of them all.

Minor problems ; 2 little provinces especially in germany, the lowlands and italy. Could use more ZOOM.

i dont know why some people complain about unstable game, i dont have any problems.

Indeed the grammar could be improved.

As long i can understand the messages however i wont complain. The AI can be very agressive sometimes with invasions, love that.

Serioously the best what you can buy for an agile and tactical mind.

For now i would give 3 stars rating for this game, but i wait until they release official patch that may improve IC. At present day game has bad german translation, features from AOD that not working, balaancing issues. Positive is new big map (but should be improved too).

This is my first review, and i have a reson to write it, the earlier reviews..

I am a huge fan of practically every paradox release since the late 90´s and was eager to buy this addon to HOI2. I have enjoyed the original game for hundreds of hours paying well spent money on doomsday, armageddon and AoD.

For one reaon only i hesitated before investing in Iron Cross, the previous reviews. There were some good ones, but most of them rejected the game arguing the techtree was close to impossible to understand. I thought the regular buginfected releasesymptoms and hasty release were too much this time, so many reviewers said so, but I have learned my lesson...

The people arguing that the game is hard/impossible to understand, please go back to Age of Empires or whatever you usually play. The ingame clearly tells what you need to research before you can research something else, just spend two minutes checking the ingame instructions. It demands some attention from the player, but is not even hard to understand.

I had all the installation problems, plus the savegame problems. I got angry having to read up on forums on how to make it run smoothly on Vista but I had no problems whatsoever understanding the game once it worked.

Ther game is totally worth every euro, but only if youre a hardcore paradox fan, and we who are just that, we know their games and addons are cheap compared to the hours spent, very cheap..

I bought it and anticipated some good times, well i didn't play it for a while but now that i tried, I realised that having three screens and trying to play the game just gets you in to a whole lot of troble, and that isn't worth it. Now i played it a bit on my laptop and well i could see how i would enjoy this, but sure as said It just wont work in a pleasing way. So as far as my opinion goes... I would give you one if i could but i can't and well thats the devs fault.

I shall be honest, it is not the best, but that being said it is not the worst either. It introduces some interesting features however the usefullness of these is marred by poor English

Give it a chance though, in time I hope Iron Cross will be a valuable addition to the HoI2 system

Complicated and fiddly -

I genuinely found it difficult to see how this addition was an improvement. The number of provinces has been increased, the tech tree is unbelievably complicated, the documentation is spotty, etc. I would not recommend this to anyone who has not thoroughly researched the game on all the Paradox forums. In other words, it's not recommended as an impulse buy. Perhaps it seems like something you would like? I doubt it.

This game is only 10 bucks. Buying it will probably encourage them to improve it.

The installation is simple if you follow the instructions closely. The game did not crash in about 100 hours of playing.

The new tech tree makes it a completely different game. But it seems to be unbalanced. The research is much slower compared to AoD and you have much more to research. It also requires a lot of wirk to fully understand the pre-requisites for some technologies.

All in all well worth the money.

Installed it on Armageddon 1.2, upgraded from Dommsday 1.3a and it works perfect,no crashes in 60 hours of playing.

The new Techtree is not so easy to understand,but if you got it,the most intensive Hoi2 Mod is awaiting you.

Dont forget to download Rev.2 from Paradox Forum.

Thanks for this great Mod.:)

Whilst this add on is good, I especially like the early start date. It's a pain to install but once you do it's worth it. Mind you 7 pounds seems a bit steep to me.

The AoD was the best and also a functional add-on to the HOI2. Iron Cross gives some very good improvements, but fails badly in the combat system. I.e. The armor divisions are expensive to build and they are quite low value units in the combat. The tanks are not the queens of the battle field on the Polish plains, but the Polish infantry is even without any AT-weapons.

Okay. I guess some of us are having problems with the install. I will admit that if you are not EXACTLY sure on what to choose for the download, it will mess up. I had AOD with the latest patch. 1.05 I think. Downloaded Iron cross to the AOD folder. That was it and it runs great. No CTDs yet. Their is some gripe as to the many new little provinces such as the ones in Africa. I think it's a close model to HOI III, or they were trying to shoot for that amount of provinces. Text issues, and missing items are around, but I know patches coming up will solve this. It's Paradox and this should be expected. HOI III was a disaster but they have really turned it around, and this is far from HOI III. BTW I love the 1934 campaign and can choose Rhodesia or one of the many new African countries. Pretty cool. The extended time line as well. I can only hope for an HOI game that extends into modern times. Pick this up!

Have been playing the game. No issues with most of it. The translations are funny since the english sentence word arrangement is definitely not the kings english.

I am working with the tech tree. It's a PIA to have to bounce out to the tutorial to determine what needs to be built for something. It would be better to have the requirements button in the main screen. I also would have preferred to have the 8 tech lines like AoD rather than the standard 5.

I'm also having crash problems pretty frequently which AoD didn't seem to have. My pc is adaquate, intel quad core, 4 gig memory, 1 gig video card so I'm not sure what's up with that.

I like the game but really look forward to the first patch!

I love the HoI franchise so I downloaded this add on as soon as it came out

It is very disappointing in its current form and I would have to agree with other reviews and say that it should not have been released in this form

The English translation is almost always wrong and you are left wondering what actually has happened

The tech tree is confusing and looks like there is too much info per screen and some of the techs just dont make sense - I built extra factories as Germany but found that my IC dropped when I went to war

D'uh !

The games looks good, in the same way a new car might look but if when you start it up the doors fall off and you only have a couple of gears you won't drive it very far

Good effort but save your money until the major issues are ironed out or download one of the free MODs which offer as much for free

Weak addon. Some functions do not work, game runs much slower, confusing to find all the prerequisites to research. A large number of odd messages, about treaties between the same country. AI does not seem any stronger than AoD.

I second everything said above. Most of the text seems translated directly from a dictionary, with no attention to grammar ou sintaxe (or common sense). This is the weirdest flaw of all.

But there are others. The techtree is so intricate, you can't correcly devise what you need to acheive a certain tech. This sends you researching for years and years until you finally get ir right. The balance of effects generated by techs is also poorly worked out.

Lots of other things poorly worked out: the combat system has very unbalanced measures, everything costs too much to build, reinforce or repair...

In a nutshell, this is clearly a game they pushed out to the sale stand without proper testing. Maybe after a couple of patches, it will be allright.

The only thing I really liked was the revised map, with many more provinces whit, in highly populated areas, does seem to depict more accurately blitzkrieg issues.

Cannot reccomend on the basis it is a nightmare to install.

I installed Hearts of Iron "Complete" by first installing the base game.

Then the Armageddon, patched it to 1.2

Then the Doomsday, patched it to 1.4

Then installed Iron Cross. Iron Cross asks me to pick a folder and select one option from a list of options. It assumes I know which game is in what folder, and that I have some idea of "Darkest Hour" is the same as Doomsday or not.

I guessed and it crashed.

I'd pay them 10 bucks just to have a single fully patched download of everything without having to download all of it piece meal to play this variation of the game.

This add-on is great! The revised research part of the game gives it a whole new feel, like a whole new game. You can, over time, customize your nation to fight and act more your style. Starting in 1933 also gives you the time you need to begin to shape your country. The new events, research trees (Totally Different from the old game), and starting in 1933 gives you a different style of play. If you like the HOI 2 series you have to get this add-on.

I think this game has lots of potential, but seems incomplete. There are game functions that did not work properly. I could not allocate any funds to the intelligence system - thus I couldn't perform any intelligence functions. The screen seems crowded with all the new provinces - unable to zoom in past a certain level. Many of the additional events are meaningless to the game - your not able to make a decision on them. I think it could be a great game when all the kinks are worked out of it.

Great choice for a fully updated version of the Hearts of Iron II engine :).

I played HoI II a lot when it was released, but later I didn´t get any of the expansions or mods until Arsenal of Democracy was out this summer, so I can say that the mix Arsenal of Democracy + Iron Cross seems to me the perfect choice for those who like Paradox´s great strategy style, but are not always aware of the latest version.

Easy to install, I found a lot of new provinces (with a much more realistic distribution in those areas that I know); a huge technology tree which I have to study properly, and a lot of new events added to the extended timeline and all the new features I already saw in AoD, and many hardcore players surely know since Armaggedon or Doomsday.

In short, a great reason to enjoy this great engine and game system again :).

Needs some work, especially with editing the language. Right now more like a mod in alpha. Wait till it gets finished before buying.

This addon is a mixed blessing.

The higher number of provinces is not the problem i expected (all of sudden i had 5 instead of 3 provinces to guard against the french and more than half where not behind a river), tactics do not change much through it, but you need more headquarters to get the usual effects out of them.

The new tech tree and the tech teams are definitive a favourite, but the layout is less than perfect. You sometimes need 2 or more techs as a prerequisite for a tech and these can spread over as many tech screens. The misguiding abbreviations don't help either.

Another beef i have is the fact that industrial research LOWERS your research efficiency A LOT (between -1% and -7%) while all other research increases your research efficiency marginally (between 0,1% and 1,1% or up to 4% for special research enhancing techs). This hurts even more since you need a lot of industrial techs to research most other techs and especially higher 'research' techs. Your efficiency might plummet as low as 50% before it goes up again which is quite irritating if you are used to the 100%+ efficiency of the original.

The last thing to mention is that the english in this version is atrocious. I do not know how they did it, maybe babelfish or some other automatic translator, but the english is so bad that at its best it is hilarious and slightly annoying while as its worst you won't be able to understand what they want to tell you. Some events were not translated at all and some seem slightly bugged (a cooperation with Germany event when you are playing Germany, for example, or the Z-Plan events which do not seem to work as planned).

All in all it is interesting but not all it could have been with a little more care and circumspection.

It is a HUGE improvment, but playing from 1933 is a bit boring and I am not friends with the tech system, yet. :)

(I like it better then HOI3, but SHHHH).

Iron Cross could have been great, or at least good. Instead what we have here is a poorly translated hardly workable "expansion" to AoD/HOI2. I think they had a good number of ideas (new map, new events) and a lot of good ideas in the technology as well, but there are many major problems. For one, some of the technologies do not make sense at all, reducing or gaining research speed. Additionally there are no historical dates on the technologies, leading to major problems. Such as Ethiopia thoroughly whipping the Italians. The IC of democracies are too low to do anything useful (for some time)... Don't get me wrong, this game has potential it just needs improved translations, reworked technology and unit tree and some events need to be reworked (the trade agreement with your own nation is an interesting example). There are probably many more problems, but I can't keep playing.

Installed the game and it did go over Aod without any visible problems then started up a game as Germany in the 1933 game. The new events are nice, and on the map I love the little bit more attention to detail the Dev's went to in actually naming all the Rivers. Also I really appreciate that the game actually asks you at the start weather you want to AI to be able to cheat or not, which is a big plus when listening to people complain about the AI doing thing it shouldn't.

At present Iron Cross is in a lamentable state. Users of AOD will find that this version is not stable unless run in administer mode. Many of the events trigger incorrectly, for instance the UK will receive support from signing treaties with itself as will the USA.

Most of the events and text cannot be clearly understood and the standard of english is very poor. You will be left wondering what some events mean. This lack of correct english is perhaps most present in the game quotes that barely make any sense at all.

Additionally many small details are incorrect ranging from countries spelt incorrectly (Irak) to non english capitals. More basic issues are present, some regions do not display aircraft listings correctly.

In short this product is far from finished and should not be on sale at present.