- Darkest Hour: A Hearts of Iron Game
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Darkest Hour: A Hearts of Iron Game 
Developer(s) Darkest Hour Team Publisher(s) Paradox Interactive Engine Europa Engine Platform(s) Microsoft Windows Release date(s) 5 April, 2011 [1] Genre(s) Real-time grand strategy Mode(s) Single-player, Multiplayer System requirements Pentium III with 800 MHz, 128 MB RAM, 1 GB of free hard drive space, 4 MB DirectX-compatible video card, DirectX-compatible sound card.
Darkest Hour: A Hearts of Iron Game, or DH, is a grand strategy wargame that is based on Paradox Interactive's Europa engine. It is described as a 1914-1964 Grand Strategy Game and it allows the player to take control of and manage nearly any nation-state during the 1914-1964 timeframe including its political, diplomatic, espionage, economic, military, and technological aspects.
The game was released on 5 April, 2011. [2]
Contents
Description
Darkest Hour is, at its core, an evolution of Hearts of Iron 2 Armageddon.[3] This has been considered crucial by the development team to make it easy to port community-made modifications from HOI2 to DH.[3] Moreover, the most important changes to the engines have been added as mods to the core game, with the name "Darkest Hour Light" and "Darkest Hour Full"[3]:
- Darkest Hour (core game): this version is focused on compatibility with Hearts of Iron 2 Armageddon and all mods available for it. The number of changed files has been kept as low as possible and all new options are disabled or set as close as possible to the original settings.
- Darkest Hour Light: this version is available as a mod with only a few changes from HOI2, but nearly all new features are enabled.
- Darkest Hour Full: this version is available as a mod without any compatibility with HOI2 and implements or reworks many new features, the most visible difference being the new map and research system.
Gameplay
Darkest Hour Full provides different grand campaign scenarios (where it is possible to choose any of the nations involved) or battlescenarios (focused on single theaters of operations, with only a few nations involved and playable).[3]
The scenarios are:
- 1914 The Great War (starting on June 27, 1914)
- 1936 The Road to Another War (starting on January 1, 1936)
The player can build land divisions, aircraft wings, and naval ships/fleets, and combine these into corps and armies. The player also has the ability to control the appointment of military leaders of land, air and naval units as well as to control the appointment of individual government ministers and military commanders in key General Staff positions. The player can declare war, enforce embargoes, make alliances, claim and annex territories. The player can also alter the social and economic policies of their nation using sliders, such as democratic versus authoritarian, free market versus central planning and so on. Moving the sliders will result in different bonuses and penalties, allowing for a range of choices and strategies. Technological research is also controlled by the player. All this is on a global scale, with the player simultaneously dealing and interacting with nations across the world. The game can be paused at any point.
The game provides a launcher that allows the player to change its settings (like resolution, language, etc.) and eventually choose a mod to run on top of it.[3]
The 1.02 patch, released on November 11, 2011[4] added four new grand campaign scenarios and new functionalities (infantry units can now have two brigades and it is possible to upgrade a unit to a different model, for example a simple infantry unit can be upgraded to a motorized unit). The four new scenarios are:
- 1933 Day of Decision (starting on March 4, 1933)
- 1940 Burning Europe (starting on May 10, 1940)
- 1941 Awakening the Giant (starting on June 22, 1941)
- 1942 Enemy at the Gate (starting on November 22, 1942)
Community Mods
It had been confirmed that many Mods designed for HOI2 Armageddon would also be converted to Darkest Hour. Most popular of these mods include Kaiserreich (alternative history where Central Powers won World War I), the Fallout Mod (set in the world of Fallout games), and Mod33 (rework of the game, beginning in 1933). Kaiserreich was released the same day as the game[5]. Mod33 was released on 27 August, 2011.
Note: As of 2 October, 2011 the TRP Mod, Kaiserreich, Road to Doomsday and Mod33 have been released for Darkest Hour. The Fallout Mod is planned but yet to be released.
Expansion packs
The Iron Cross expansion for HoI2 is also compatible with Darkest Hour.[6]
Development
Darkest Hour was first announced on September 14, 2010 by Paradox Interactive.[7] The game became possible due to Paradox Interactive licensing the Europa engine to independent developers.[8]
References
- ^ "Darkest Hour: A Hearts of Iron Game Released" (Press release). Paradox Interactive. April 05, 2011. http://www.paradoxplaza.com/press/2011/4/darkest-hour-a-hearts-of-iron-game-released. Retrieved April 05, 2011.
- ^ "Darkest Hour: A Hearts of Iron Game Released" (Press release). Paradox Interactive. April 05, 2011. http://www.paradoxplaza.com/press/2011/4/darkest-hour-a-hearts-of-iron-game-released. Retrieved April 05, 2011.
- ^ a b c d e "First Developer's Diary". 2010-09-14. http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?t=499367.
- ^ http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?569802-Darkest-Hour-Patch-1.02-Hot-fixes
- ^ http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?529638-Kaiserreich-for-DH-1.0-released!
- ^ http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?t=499365
- ^ "Paradox Interactive announce Iron Cross and Darkest Hour". Paradox Interactive. 2010-09-14. http://www.paradoxplaza.com/news/2010/9/paradox-interactive-announce-iron-cross-and-darkest-hour.
- ^ Licensing Europa Engine, Paradox Plaza
External links
Categories:- 2011 video games
- Computer wargames
- World War II grand strategy computer games
- Government simulation video games
- Real-time strategy video games
- Windows games
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