Hearts of Iron III

unplayable, crashed.

it has made me get a girl...

it is very fun. if u do not have hoi4, get this game.

Even though this game is old, it is still amazing and if you want HOI but dont have alot of money buy this.

it is better than hoi4

not making teh gamae fair

This game is needlessly complicated. It is stupidly obtuse. You cannot change division templates after they have already been deployed. It has the worst naval system of any game Paradox Interactive has ever created. It will take you minutes to hours to create a decent order of battle as any decently sized nation. Multiple minor nations start with technology and allow you to build divisions with technology they have not produced, meaning you might be able to make a template but not produce any divisions with that template and not know why. It does not have any reasonable way to see how your supplies flow nor how many divisions you have in one tile. Its map is hilariously inaccurate. It has multiple decrepit files from Victoria, the game it is based on, and will crash if you go to a screen on the interface the wrong way. If you mod this game in any way it will inevitably crash. You can do nothing and this game will crash. You can do anything and this game will crash. HOI4 is leagues better in nearly every single regard.

I would not have it any other way.

10/10.

Good Game i Really want to play Hearts of Iron 4 now but my crappy laptop can hardly run this game

ok ok ok ok ok ok ok ok ok

awesome

after some months the game could`nt load

its good

Game itself is fantastic. However with Windows 11, it crashes after unpausing, crashes when loading, showing a save file compression error message, and sometimes crashes when starting up a campaign. I tried various fixes that I found on the webs, but nothing works. What a shame, wish Paradox would update it for modern systems. Don't see why not as they seem to capable releasing redundant DLC and charging you 20 bucks for it.

This install does NOT WORK!!!

Great game. Very cheap for the Heart Of Iron series and great tester to get before HOI IV. Goes on sale for about 3 dollars and the addons and mods are very cheap and great to use.

fun game that feels like a cheaper version of hoi4 but in a good way as it can be harder only bad thing that hoi4 is better at other than some other stuff is the lack of mods for it but you can make events kinda easily

I got this working on Windows 11. If it's the only Paradox game on your device, it won't generate the Paradox Interactive folder automatically, and the game won't launch. To remedy this, I loaded another Paradox game, and the folder generated. Runs great, and good game.

The Paradox designer, who spends his days fine-tuning broken mechanics and rigging AI diplomacy, came home to find his wife had speedrun a collaboration government—with an Indian, in his bed. Panicking, he fumbled for the door—denied, no military access. He scrambled to justify a war goal, only to realize his father-in-law had already guaranteed their independence. Poor guy—spends his life designing grand strategy games, yet couldn't even stop his own wife from getting annexed in a one-turn event.

The game no longer works for me on a modern Windows 11 machine. Brings up a paradox window to start the game and then crashes.

P社的游戏策划下班回到家看到自己的老婆在床上跟一个阿三造合作政府，想开门制止发现自己没有军事通行权，好不容易造好宣称发现自己老婆和阿三被岳父保独了

The Paradox game designer returned home after work, only to find his wife forming a collaboration government with an Indian on the bed. He tried to open the door to stop them, only to realize he had no military access. After finally justifying a war goal, he discovered that his wife and the Indian had been guaranteed independence by his father-in-law.

good good

Going from HoI4 to HoI3 is like going from Audi A4 2024 to Renault Clio Sport 2003. In some things HoI3 is better, but it has so many quality of life issues that, for most people, its simply not worth it compared to HoI4.
There is no alt history in HoI3 due to it being railroaded when it comes to WW2 events (some might actually like that). You cannot change country leaders or ideologies and internal politics are non existant which makes player focus only on production, research and warfare. The only good things I found in 3 is deeper research system (with practical and theory) and more realistic order of battle which is fun for the first couple of times but after that is just becomes a nuisance.

Cannot get to the menu regardless of anything I do. Abandon ware. Thanks Paradox.

Game ist trash & not working.
I own all the DLC and after some time without playing i did try to start it again but it is no longer working.
Loking at the forum it looks like the game company is just not caring about there customers.

the heart is of iron, and its in 3, bought all dlc, and now im in thee

All.

eh, it's a ok game

I've had this gem for a very long time and just hadn't played it very much until a few months ago. Definitely different from HOI4! I enjoy that I can control almost every little detail of the gameplay without automating the units. I just set the game speed to the second lowest and have the message settings set to pause the game when my units are attacked or when I win or lose a battle so I can react to each of the MANY events that require my immediate attention. It definitely feels more like I'm making decisions and issuing orders from the strategic level all the way down to the tactical level. Don't get me wrong - there is a STEEP learning curve! I'm still finding mechanics that give me more options (underground resistance cells can spawn others in adjacent provences). All of your supplies, upgrades, reinforcements, production queue, and consumer goods are created from one pool of "Industrial Capacity" that needs constant attention and allocation. You need to balance your leadership points between research, diplomacy, espionage, and officer training. You have to decide what you will research with the finite pool of leadership points you have! You will overlook critical research because it has a mundane name and description until you read and understand the stats boost it gives. These might not be selling points if you're looking for a point-and-click, automated game that looks like it would be more comfortable on your phone. It may not have the 3D animated sprites of infantry running in place at each other as they attack and defend 3D terrain. It may not have railway guns, mulberry harbors, or supply depots. It will challenge you. It will make you feel stupid at times. You will experience CRUSHING defeats - and you will come back and fight harder than before! I whole-heartedly recommend this game for anyone who wants to spend months of their spare time slogging it out on the Eastern Front, or in the jungles and alpine plateaus of South America, or ANYWHERE. Can I give this game six stars? PDX should be making games like this still! Buy it! Play it! LOVE it!

The whole point is to take control of your country, but it doesn't allow it. The Germans built useless pocket battleships and massive slow expensive tanks. They had built a flying jet the 262 by 1939. The game will not allow research and manufacture of jet aircraft prior to 1943, when the 262 went into production. You should be able to cancel all big ships and heavy tanks to concentrate on jet powered aircraft from 1936.

hate it and love it at the same time

top

Hearts of Iron III should’ve been amazing. The concept is fantastic, world-spanning strategy, complex diplomacy, and the chance to rewrite history. It had all the potential to be a great experience, especially for fans of grand strategy games. But the reality? It’s a nightmare.

The bugs are everywhere. Constant crashes, glitches that ruin gameplay, AI that acts like it’s been hit by a truck, and broken save files that make you question why you even bothered. Every time you think you're getting into it, something breaks and pulls you right out of the experience. It’s frustrating as hell. You’ll spend more time fixing issues than actually playing the damn game.

Honestly, save yourself the headache and your money. Hearts of Iron III could have been amazing, but it's just too broken. Instead, go play *Hearts of Iron IV*—it’s everything this game should have been and a thousand times more polished.

Rating: 3/10. Don’t waste your time with this mess. Just play HOI4 instead, and save yourself the frustration.

This game, with the black ice mod, is the most addictive game I've ever played.

its a good game for its time but its very buggy

staple of the RTS genre. I mc. love it.

After all these years one if not all of the best out there. Black Ice mod enhances this more. Since Paradox abandoned this and has moved onto HOI4. They should sell the rights to Matrix or Slitheriene and let them enhance whats already here. The Cold War and modern would be incredible.

The mechanics of the game are very fun. There is a nice arcadey feel about the combat. Messing around with order of battle and different technologies/unit compositions is also pretty fun. The different nations also create decent replayability. The AI is not great, but it is OK. It shouldn't take too much effort to beat the AI, but the AI can present interesting challenges. If you are overly arrogant you can get yourself into trouble, at least as far as losing battles and units. It's an old game at the time of this review, but I think it is still fun to play. I would definitely recommend turning on the weekly auto save function as crashes can happen.

greatest 3.2 hours ive spent not being able to play

crashes to much

HOI3 is the ww2 game from Paradox if you are looking for an in-depth grand strategy ww2 experience and trumps the Hoi4 in every aspect. Ignore the play time, I played this game before it was even on Steam when it was still a bug fest. The stand outs are extremely well integrated tech tree, grand strategy feel, I like both naval and air combat. Diplomacy, espionage. The whole pack.

The issue of the game is that it is micromanagement heavy. But, some might like it. It plays slow, it is time consuming, it can get frustrating. Learning curve is steep. But, what you get in return is a stand out ww2 game.

based

I love hearts of iron but it kept crashing soooo......yeah no playing for me i guess :(

Ok

HOI3. The undisputed champion of strategic wargames. It´s complex, it´s micro-obsessive, it´s slow paced, it´s difficult, it´s old and as such chrashes somewhat haphazardly, BUT it is still the best Hearts of Iron iteration, by far. I dare you to try it.

Классная игрулька, 10/10

good for a pre HOI4

I spent enough time on this game to publish an opinion now.

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- Graphics exactly corresponding to what a table wargamer wants.
- Micro gestion & numerous aspects around battle as politics, technology, intelligence...
- Historicity

(big) BUT

|--|
- Quite impossible to play on W10 or W11. Only way to play it is to have installed it on your W7 PC before migration toward W10. Tried all but nothing works really.
- Very big problem when you save games. At any moment, you could have to deal with compression error. That annihilates weeks of game to nothing.
- Only Road to war campaign seems to have been playtested. A pity when you see number of interesting scenarii proposed.
- Very unstable on W10.
- No multiplayer.

Whatever you could read on internet, this game is now not playable.
And, unfortunately, HOI IV is pure shit compared to features of this game.

Unhappy.

Idk how 2 play this game i prefer hoi4 but i bought it for 22 cents so i reccomend it

This game cant run keeps crashing.

terrible i wanted to play and windows cant download the file dont recomond