Hearts of Iron III: Their Finest Hour

HOI IV comes out in just two weeks, and I'm still playing HOI III with Their Finest Hour. Why? Because it's a classic. For me at least, it's earned its reputation as one of the most complex and realistic WWII computer games. This expansion is a must-have- new leaders and traits really add a lot. The elite units also add more realism. Nothing like storming Moskva with Waffen-SS divisions!

Their Finest Hour adds so much to the base game. The elite units add to the game's variety, while also offering new strategic options. Each nation's elite unit has its own special traits to set it apart from the normal infantry (and to make up for their increased cost). For example, British Ghurkas are tougher than regular infantry, while German SS troops are better at putting down partisan uprisings with their improved "suppression" stat. The traits system for leaders is incredibly good fun. Though it's a huge hassle individually assigning leaders (made worse by the fact the game accesses a 50MB folder of 18,000 individual portraits EVERY TIME you want to choose a leader, which has to be done for EVERY SINGLE unit and HQ), it's still an incredibly important part of gameplay. Leaders gain traits based on everything they do -- fighting in forests, for example, eventually leads to the Ranger trait, which reduces the penalty for fighting in such terrain. It adds a great deal to the game, and it's great fun making great leaders out of low-skilled commanders. TFH is definitely worth picking up!

Their Finest Hour is the latest expansion for Hearts of Iron 3, and it's a must-have for fans of the franchise. The expansion offers a decent amount of content -- leaders being able to gain traits is an excellent addition, and naval invasions finally got tweaked, making them more realistic with a better chance of the AI actually pulling off a successful naval landing (which is still rare). It also adds battle plans, which is a relatively minor thing, but it's really, really cool. It lets you draw your plans on the map and share them with your allies -- it's a great help for multiplayer, but it's also useful in single player games to remind you of your targets and options. This expansion gives you some much-needed AI tweaks and optimizes the game further, as well. In addition, I rather enjoyed the Spanish Civil War battle scenario... I don't think I've ever seen this war show up in a video game before. Is there enough content here to justify the price? That's for you to decide. There's absolutely no other downside to getting this, though, if you're a fan of the game. This gives you nothing but positives, and it helps to complete Hearts of Iron, turning it into the game it always should have been. Their Finest Hour is indeed the finest hour of HoI.