Best mod?

[Goldblooded]

Hello i hope this is the correct forum to post this but im looking for advice on which mod to install/play i havent played or posted for quite a while but ive always been a big fan of this game and i keep coming back to it; i recently gotten into it again. I noticed theres 3 great historical mods , peace without victory, edge of darkness and all in one; which one would you recommend is the best to play all the way through and the most historically accurate? Thank you

 

[zanaikin]

It really depends on what you're looking for out of the experience.
As someone who is currently writing an AAR based on Edge of Darkness mod, I can say -- this mod is amazing if you're looking for immersion or just seeking to learn more about history, as it fills the prewar years with a ton of world events (i.e. http://www.indiana.edu/~league/1936.htm) that helps fills out the picture of WW2's full ramifications on the world. It includes minimods like secret weapons (more flavor) and WiF2 (more challenging gameplay). But... it's a little rough around the edges as some of the events (especially for minors) have broken triggers (i.e. Chiang keeps dying because the event looks for the wrong division ID).
Can't speak for the others as I haven't tried.
Hope this helps,

 

[jamiroquai000]

Of course ALL-IN-ONE

 

[Rangergxi]

World in Flames II is an improvement of Vanilla and Edge of Darkness is an improvement of World in Flames II. Edge of Darkness has the best ww2 experience. Lots of excellent additions and a lot of improvements that just make for an objectively better experience.

Total Realism Project is also pretty great. It has the best-executed supply system and has actually succeeded in turning Soviet Union games into a challenge.

Peace without Victory, The Grand Campaign and All in One are fun but they're just vanilla with added events and different dates. Vanilla is fine but it just doesn't compare to the previously mentioned TRP and EoD. Also, the game just doesn't play all that well with long lengths of time. The AI just can't handle it.

Kaissereich is obligatory just for the experience. I personally don't like the world building but people love this and It's pretty easy to see why.

 

[Goldblooded]

Ah okay so would you say for playing a long term historical game EOD is the best, does it affect the Ai ? Bare in mind, peace without victory has a lot of extra features too

 

[zanaikin]

Total Realism Project is also pretty great. It has the best-executed supply system and has actually succeeded in turning Soviet Union games into a challenge.

How exactly does TRP affect the supply system? It's not really explained in their mod's feature list.

 

[JJMerrill]

TRP actually has my favorite supply and TC balance system in all of the mods I've played. Overall transport capacity is much more limited and severely impacted by partisans - it actually makes MIL/GAR divisions on anti-partisan duty necessary to keep your TC from becoming overloaded.

I had the honor of joining the Edge of Darkness team some time ago and I am working on a major bug fix/balance update along with additional content. The mentions in this thread are greatly appreciated.

 

[Goldblooded]

Trouble with TRP, it doesnt have the historical flags (secondly) and also D-day never happens.

 

[Lazer_Pages]

Peace without victory is pretty good, the alt-history events are nice, like recreating Austria-Hungary or winning the Polish-Soviet war as the reds. The creator of the mod is also working on a new project, Thunder in the Sky which looks very promising.

 

[jamiroquai000]

Peace without Victory, The Grand Campaign and All in One are fun but they're just vanilla with added events and different dates. Vanilla is fine but it just doesn't compare to the previously mentioned TRP and EoD.

Here I must disagree ALL-IN-ONE is a mix of MODs ( over 15 mods ) like World in Flames II, Edge of Darkness,NWO 2 and many others are inside , plus many custom additions by me for minor and major countries... how could be a vanilla mod? I think that you never played ALL-IN-ONE mod or never had read the description of the MOD.

 

[mccarty.geoff]

Best group of modders for the entire Hearts of Iron series are the guys who compile C.O.R.E. It is as professional as it comes when several people work together on a project that is streamlined and balanced properly. They did a mod for AoD but, most of the team moved onto HoI3 before Darkest Hour was released. The work on Kaiserreich (currently the best for DH) is good but, there is too much disimilarity between the scripters and many game features are just tweaks on DH vanilla. Kaiserreich is more of a pulp fiction short story whereas C.O.R.E. was a novel of WW2 history.
The best mod for Darkest Hour has yet to be released.

 

[Lord Rommel]

Trouble with TRP, it doesnt have the historical flags (secondly) ...

Please keep the following in mind:
1.) All TRP devs are from germany. We have to follow german laws.
2.) We were ordered by PDox to remove all swastikas in the mod. So we had to decided: Keep TRP here at Pdox-Plaza or keep swastikas and reduce the playerbase. We have decided to stay here at Pdox-Plaza (to be honest i have no idea why other mods are allowed(?) to keep swastikas ingame?).
3.) We think that there is no additional value to keep the swastikas ingame. Germany is germany. U dont need the swastika flag to play TRP.

...and also D-day never happens.

Well. AI will do naval invasions. But naval invasion ai is complex. Studti has already eliminated a lot of problems. AI will try invasions in TRP so i think that is already an achievement

 

[Goldblooded]

Please keep the following in mind:
1.) All TRP devs are from germany. We have to follow german laws.
2.) We were ordered by PDox to remove all swastikas in the mod. So we had to decided: Keep TRP here at Pdox-Plaza or keep swastikas and reduce the playerbase. We have decided to stay here at Pdox-Plaza (to be honest i have no idea why other mods are allowed(?) to keep swastikas ingame?).
3.) We think that there is no additional value to keep the swastikas ingame. Germany is germany. U dont need the swastika flag to play TRP.


Well. AI will do naval invasions. But naval invasion ai is complex. Studti has already eliminated a lot of problems. AI will try invasions in TRP so i think that is already an achievement

Yeah i guess thats a good point, but as you pointed out several other mods do use the historical flags. I thought in germany they are allowed for educational purposes? It is for people like me with OCD , Yeah true but i never seem to see it in TRP

 

[Rangergxi]

Here I must disagree ALL-IN-ONE is a mix of MODs ( over 15 mods ) like World in Flames II, Edge of Darkness,NWO 2 and many others are inside , plus many custom additions by me for minor and major countries... how could be a vanilla mod? I think that you never played ALL-IN-ONE mod or never had read the description of the MOD.

I remember now. It was very glitchy but had an insane amount of events. Couldn't really play it but it was very informative. France declaring war in 37, the USSR invading China in 34 and the critical errors kinda kill it for me. I can only speak about my own experiences so perhaps I just have bad luck or have made a mistake.

Trouble with TRP, it doesnt have the historical flags (secondly) and also D-day never happens.

It's honestly a miracle that any mods here are able to have "historical flags". It'd be nice if paradox was at least consistent in how it whitewashes unspeakably horrible events and evil regimes but what can you do? Nothing, that's what.

The mod is probably the best when it comes to strictly following history. Events are well scripted and the modders have even successfully balanced the Chinese theatre. The Chinese AI can stand up to the Japanese AI and It's a challenge for the player because of the supply system and terrain balancing. I can't think of any mod that's been able to do this. The North Africa theatre is also pretty great in this mod for the same reasons.

 

[zanaikin]

The mod is probably the best when it comes to strictly following history. Events are well scripted and the modders have even successfully balanced the Chinese theatre. The Chinese AI can stand up to the Japanese AI and It's a challenge for the player because of the supply system and terrain balancing. I can't think of any mod that's been able to do this. The North Africa theatre is also pretty great in this mod for the same reasons.

The vanilla DH can achieve a historic stalemate between Japan and China most of the time =P
My problem with TRP is that it focuses almost exclusively on improving the gameplay of the big players while all the little guys are uninteresting and bland (your minor allies are just... there).

 

[DerStudti]

My problem with TRP is that it focuses almost exclusively on improving the gameplay of the big players while all the little guys are uninteresting and bland (your minor allies are just... there).

This mostly stems from two reasons, both of which have to do with manpower.
1) Team size. Two main modders and maybe two or three casual contributors just don't suffice to cover any possible nation, especially concerning events. So we focus on those that are played most often and that had most of an impact in WW2 history.
2) Country manpower reserves (and industrial capacity). One has to remember that most countries around the world back in the 1930s either didn't have a large enough economy or a large enough population to impact the war more than they did back then. Even wealthy western offshoots like Canada, Australia, Newzealand and South Africa taken together had a slightly smaller population than Poland. Even major participants like Japan and Italy struggled to keep up with their allies' and enemies' economy. All in all, there aren't terribly many of these "what if" countries left for the player to outperform with. We're working on a (slightly) more flexible manpower system though to improve playability for both majors and minors...but please don't expect "hidden world powers" to rise now since we're going to implement some measures against "human waves" out of (for example) China and India, the first one being underdeveloped and torn apart by conflicting warlords and the latter one being a british colony made dependant on UK's industry.

 

[Rangergxi]

The vanilla DH can achieve a historic stalemate between Japan and China most of the time =P
My problem with TRP is that it focuses almost exclusively on improving the gameplay of the big players while all the little guys are uninteresting and bland (your minor allies are just... there).

You should consider Hoi4. You can conquer the world as Bhutan quite easily.

 

[zanaikin]

This mostly stems from two reasons, both of which have to do with manpower.
1) Team size. Two main modders and maybe two or three casual contributors just don't suffice to cover any possible nation, especially concerning events. So we focus on those that are played most often and that had most of an impact in WW2 history.
2) Country manpower reserves (and industrial capacity). One has to remember that most countries around the world back in the 1930s either didn't have a large enough economy or a large enough population to impact the war more than they did back then. Even wealthy western offshoots like Canada, Australia, Newzealand and South Africa taken together had a slightly smaller population than Poland. Even major participants like Japan and Italy struggled to keep up with their allies' and enemies' economy. All in all, there aren't terribly many of these "what if" countries left for the player to outperform with. We're working on a (slightly) more flexible manpower system though to improve playability for both majors and minors...but please don't expect "hidden world powers" to rise now since we're going to implement some measures against "human waves" out of (for example) China and India, the first one being underdeveloped and torn apart by conflicting warlords and the latter one being a british colony made dependant on UK's industry.

You should consider Hoi4. You can conquer the world as Bhutan quite easily.

I don't mean conquest or territory taken or any of that (I find world conquest games boring =P). I mean purely the amt of attention (events, major choices, and whatnot) dedicated to each country. HoI4 does do nicely in this given the amount of detail going into national idea trees like Commonwealth states or Axis minors... certainly compared to vanilla DH. And even a shift of minor allies between games can create a huge difference in gameplay experience (i.e. Germany with and without Turkey)
But true, mod team resources is a major restriction.

 

[Lord Rommel]

[...]
My problem with TRP is that it focuses almost exclusively on improving the gameplay of the big players while all the little guys are uninteresting and bland (your minor allies are just... there).

It is all a question of source information and inspiration. E.g. for Romania we have implemented the Romanian naval program. Hungary can buy tank licenses from Sweden or the Me210 license from Germany. Wea re always happy about more information, ideas and suggestion. You can always post event concepts or ideas at the TRP thread here at Plaza.