The Great Game: The End is Nigh (Hearts of Iron II)

I'll show some pictures later but mozilla decided to stop working right for me: basically me and Golle have been playing Hearts of Iron for the last some odd while, he was the Spanish Empire, I was the Universal People's Republic (China), the game was covnerted from Victoria some 6 months-12 months ago and weve been playing nearly every saturday.

The game has been awesome since we have so much freedom to play around in an Alternative historical scenario.

In simple terms there are 3 major blocks, the Comintern, and then there's a quasi democratic block and a quasi facist block. We fought some pretty major wars, originally I had fought head to head with Golle as he was allied with Belgium who had been invading The Yngling realm (norway ruled scandinavia and northern europe) so us commies decided to side with Norway to defend the world from Belgium (Burgandy/Burgandian) domination.

Golle surprised me with his skill and foiled my initial invasion of Egypt slowign down my advance to a crawl. As such I reprioritized the political aspects and negotiated with Golle for him to switch sides and he did.

Norway however peaced Burgundy rather then have the Chinese "hordes" dominate European politics and a rather sad peace had to be quickly signed with Burgundy.

Later after a brief interlude Norway and his Polish vassal-client-state-ally dowed the Comintern and invaded Greece and Chinese controled Siberia in tandem with Burgundy invading Greece, the Greek Player, Skarion fought on valiantly against overwhelming odds, constructing what can only be described as being akin to the Maginot Line in the Balkans, but unlike the Maginot Line, the Skarion Line had no obvious weakpoints and held back inch by inch, mile by mile, held against the Burgundian army but slowly numbers and determination forced the Greeks back to Constantinople which with the population starving to death and the solders running low on ammunition surrendered and Greece ended up partitioned between Poland and Burgundy. And CHina had to accept the humiliating peace of forking over Siberia so that Norway would agree to once more flip flop and fight Burgundy.


Norway did change sides and once more this time a Nuclear armed China with Republican Spanish forces invaded Burgundy with English support, things looked grim for Burgundy until they offered to surrender to the Comintern unless the Ynglings agreed to peace which they did once more backstabed by Norway the full Burgundian might was sifted vs the Comintern and even managed to push the Chinese temparilirly out of modern day Turkey, however the Chinese forces commanded by Peng Dehui managed to trick the Burgundians into overextending themselves and encircled them in Kars destroying them.

With several Burgundian cities destoryed through strategic bombing and nuclear incineration and with Norway once more invading China this time aiming to "rule China" as Emperors Burgundy agreed reluctantly to put aside their differences and fight off the Ynglings.


Quickly mobilizing the massive manpower of China recuring as many as 6 million militiamen to fight along side the regular army the Norweigian invasion force (highly mechanized) was defeated in Northern Manchuria and pushed back.

In the 2 year war that dragged on slowly but surely the multimillion man Chinese army forced back the Yngliongs out of Siberia and into central eurasia.

In Europe with Burgundy (at this point AI controlled) at the verge of defeat Spanish and Chinese fforces invaded Norway itself north of Narvik destorying their nuclear reactor in the proccess and occupyinhg much of Scandinavia after encircling the backbone of the army defending Norway south of Oslo.

Also some 1 500,000 Chinese mechanized forces supplied by Burgundian oil, was assembling in the Po Valley in Northern Italy and once organized stealthily crossed the Alps and struck at the Yngling and Polish forces south of the Danue smashing them, catching them completely by surprise.


King of Men the person playing the Ynglongs could only say these words, words that would forever make that session my favorite and damn well is probably the best moment throughout the entire 2 years of play it took to reach Doomsday from Europe II.

"Where the f*** did all these Chinese troops come from!?"

The last words MacArthur ever spoke.

with a few final nuclear blows against Norway and the complete crumbling of their defencive line the Yngling Realm surendered to the Victorious comintern.

The terms were the disemberment of Poland to recreate a Russian Leninest state.

The Balkanization of the Balkans into constituent people's republics.

large amount of reosurces ot be transfered to the comintern as war indemnities.

Siberia returned to China.

Brazil and African possessions ceded to Spain.


Golle you played well and friday is our last session

Well yeas it has been quite interesting session (tough not "almoust every monday", everytime when Ender's mom wants him to do something, we just had to postpon the sessions)

I'm not that in to computergames, aside the HoiII I only have one game from the same company. But I've really liked the game and exspecially these multiplayer sessions. I orginally hoped in for ender's request to just see what it was about. Like Ender explained in the very first session where I came along I re-organized the entire Spain's arsenal and started to give soem sense to its actions. With inferior both strenght and capability I still managed to throw chinese troops away from Africa. Alongside with the game wit paying little tought for the tactics and strategies (with the limits of the game itself) I managed to achive quite good results when the general odds were against me. Only setback was the Belgium invasion which basicly destroyed my whole army. They had some unfair benefits which made each of Burgundi divisions at least two times more efficient than mines...and he already have the douple of the troops I had!
Well I was beaten and was left with about 30 divisions of over 200 divs. It was complete and theral ass-whipping. But the political situation in the europe leaved me to heal my wounds and I gathered my leftovers and headed them to South america and Africa to retake my empire. Slowly and yet advancing I managed to throw British (Belgiums ally) away from the South America and most of Africa. Between Spain and Belgium there were created France, puppet of Norway and after war broke out between Comitern and Norway I had small "race" with Belgium to capture as much as I could. With the battlehardened core of my army I managed to gain most of the France and as the Imperium was soemwhat secured I had again nearly 200 divs just waiting for some action.
I sended some to help Ender in the Caucasus but as I alredy had some experiences with amphibious landings and relatively large transport fleet I came up with tricky plan. Norways troops were In Siberia and Europe, far away from Scandinavia. As Norway had virtually no fleet of its own I had wonderfull opportunity to revenge the backstapping that ended up almoust to my doom. I loaded 20 divs to transport ships in Cherborough and headed them to the North sea. The landing took Norweigians by the suprise and he could not make much of resistance. Slowly I become to bring more and more troops to the bridge head (alongside with addtional help from china) And pretty soon I had the Bergen, Norweigian capitol encircled. Chinese mechanised divisions pushed trough and the fall of Scandinavia was near. Norweigians begun to get reinforcements and there were heavy fightings from Skoone (south sweden) Ultimately we managed to throw Norweigians out of Scandinavia. Even that didn't break the tough Norweigians as they transported their capital to Kiel. I was eager to push trough but Ender tried to keep me on hold.
There was a small passageway from Malmo to Gobenhagen but with water around and some ten divisions defending the Denmark side, Eder tought it was impossiple to get trough. I toughted othervice and while the chinese troops were still cleaning out the last resistance spots, I gathered nearly 80 divisions to Malmo and striked...

...As Ender described the best moment in the whole session, Mine was definetly the KoM's words after Gobenhagen fell..."Oh bugger...what are your terms?"

So Norweigian was down and Comitern cam victorious. As the belgians are now being driven to the sea I begun to wonder "whom are we going to fight now?" Only option was UK which in the mist of our own squarells had managed to raise too large, controlling the entire Northern america. I managed to covince the other players that joint operation against the brittish would be in place but unfortunetly the time is running out. What will happen is to be seen in this last session.

I'm bit sad that it ends, It was a good entertament. If anyone is up to multigame sessions with HoiII doomsday, count me in I'm always ready for good fighting

Having a hard time connecting them online , never play them online accept on LAN , yes the game is enjoyable.