Hearts of Iron IV: Waking the Tiger

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7.4

Mixed or average reviews- based on 7 Ratings

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  • Summary: Waking the Tiger is the newest expansion for Paradox Development Studio’s celebrated World War II strategy wargame, Hearts of Iron IV. This expansion adds new gameplay options for all players, and has a special focus on the Asian front of the deadliest war in human history.

Critic Reviews

Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 2 out of 3
  2. Mixed: 1 out of 3
  3. Negative: 0 out of 3
  1. Game Debate
    Mar 26, 2018
    90
    To be honest, Waking the Tiger is worth it for the National Focus trees, new general mechanics and decision system alone. If, like me, you have little to no real knowledge of what the heck was happening over there during the war, Waking the Tiger will school you real quick and in that beautiful, delicious way that only Hearts of Iron IV can.
  2. Gamer.no
    Mar 12, 2018
    80
    Waking the Tiger is a great expansion for an already deep strategy game, fleshing out the experience for large and small nations alike.
  3. Cubed3
    Mar 26, 2018
    60
    On paper it sounds more interesting than it truly is As far as DLC goes, Hearts of Iron IV: Waking the Tiger is merely sufficient as it gives a variety of Asian countries to play. Like previous DLC, many of these countries are practically unplayable from a balance perspective, but ones like China provide a unique take. This expansion will do little for those who did not like the base game, but those in love with the game will like this.

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Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 0 out of 2
  2. Mixed: 1 out of 2
  3. Negative: 1 out of 2
  1. Rnoviok
    Dec 4, 2021
    6
    adds a focuss tree for Germany, Japan, Manchuria, among others
    Basic dlc for this game
  2. Rrichard
    Mar 8, 2018
    4
    Hearts of Iron IV: Micro the Tiger

    800 hour player, 7 hours with the DLC. Time split between competitive multiplayer, and single player.    Hearts of Iron IV: Micro the Tiger

    800 hour player, 7 hours with the DLC. Time split between competitive multiplayer, and single player.

    Overall, I'm disappointed with the patch and expansion. The new features added make the game worse, and the the overall direction of the game feels lazy. Its makes you realise how good TFV and DoD were.

    The biggest culprit is the new 'Chain of Command' system. Previously you could assign an unlimited number of divisions against a single Field Marshall. Now, you must manually assign each division against an individual general, with 24 divisions maximum. When you're fighting with hundreds of divisions, your time is spent manually allocating your divisions among your generals and fixing all the broken frontlines. Its needless busywork that never should have been introduced.

    The traits system for Generals feels unnecessarily complex, and just added on for the sake of it, rather than an actual improvement over the old system. Tonally it is too much 'RPG', out of place in a grand strategy. If I have 10x generals controlling my 240 divisions as Russia, I don't even have time or interest in managing the traits of my Generals. It was better when traits were gained automatically based on fighting conditions.

    In terms of features, the new Decisions system is hamstrung by the fact that none of the choices are any good. For example, spending 100 political power to create... one building slot? It feels like whoever designed the selections has barely played any strategy games and certainly never played HOI4 competitively in mulitplayer - where min/maxing is essential.

    The new focus trees are clearly created with the viewpoint that 'bigger is better'. The problem is that nations like China are given huge elaborate new Focus Trees, but six months less before Japan declares war on them! The player should really just focus everything on their economic and military picks, and the whole border wars thing becomes irrelevant.

    When I think of a great game, I think of one where the developers know the game better than the community itself. They're better at playing it, and have a strong vision for its future.

    I've been getting the opposite feeling watching from the developers over the past many months. The strengths of the game used to be its clean presentation, and focus on research, production, equipment, and grand strategy. However, the game has become overwhelming with the new systems, and has introduced far too much micromanagement. Its clear the developers have too much hanging over them from the early Hearts of Iron games (HOI2/HOI3), and have not realised what made Hearts if Iron IV such a great modern new one.

    4/10. A step backwards, and perhaps enough to kill my interest in the franchise.    … Expand

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