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In this game, WWII is mere years away, and nothing can prevent its occurrence. In my first playthrough, I used the Soviet Union, a large but backwards nation-state being propelled irresistibly into the future by the storm of progress. The USSR's role in WWII is downplayed in US, but through a combination of poor generalship and worse leadership, it managed to lose more than 26 million people during the period covered by Hearts of Iron IV.Yet the USSR also arguably won the war for everyone else, at least the war in Europe, by virtue of its ability to rapidly reestablish its industrial operations east of the Ural Mountains and then toss wave after wave of men and materiel at the German military. This victory came at the highest of all possible costs, so I assumed that with the benefit of hindsight I could surely do better.Article continues after the video belowAnd I suppose I did do better, at least according to how Paradox measures such things. I completed my purge of Leon Trotsky and his faction almost immediately, then invested heavily in factory output, tank and plane technology, and the defensive "people's army" military concept.I also tried to approach my foreign policy in a thoroughly realist manner, as various neoconservative and neoliberal wonks often claim to be doing. It didn't make dollars and sense to wage war against Germany and Japan, so instead I initiated a "lend-lease" program to subsidize their military efforts and focused on maintaining decent relations with both countries. The actual German advance had cost millions of Soviet lives, so it made little sense to directly engage with them.The USSR arguably won the war for everyone else, but since victory came at the highest of all possible costs, I assumed that with the benefit of hindsight I could surely do better.
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In Hearts of Iron IV, I was a far worse Communist than the real-life Joseph Stalin ever was. That guy, though badly off his rocker by the late 1930s, had at least been something of a true believer as he rose through the party ranks. I had no ideological pretensions; I merely wanted the Baltic States and all of Scandinavia, and I didn't want to fight the United States or Germany if I could help it.In Hearts of Iron IV , you run the show, but that show is a ghoulish bloodbath, and the winner is simply the last hegemon standing.
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Unable to escape the angry rhetoric that drives cable news ratings, it's understandable that some people's minds begin to entertain thoughts of fascist national revival. Let a strongman take the reins, goes the reasoning, and he will show them—whoever they are. The idea is comforting, but the reality is another matter altogether. In Hearts of Iron IV and Paradox's other offerings, you run the show, but that show is a ghoulish bloodbath, and the winner is simply the last hegemon standing."To ravage, to slaughter, to usurp under false titles, they call empire; and where they make a desert, they call it peace," wrote the Roman historian Tacitus. Such a barren peace might be the best and final solution in grand strategy video games, but a steady diet of this violent virtual realpolitik leaves you wondering why anybody would ever want to make our real world a closer approximation of that.Hearts of Iron IV is out now for Windows, Linux, and Mac OS. Find more information at the Paradox Interactive website.Follow Oliver Lee Bateman on Twitter.New, on Motherboard: When Is a Hack an Act of War?