Hearts of Iron III (PC)

In diplomacy, you'll be dealing mainly with the frequent trade agreement for ressources, but also brokering the likes of non-agression treaties, alligning oneself to one of the major 3 factions(Allies, Axis, Comintern... assuming you aren't a part of any when starting) or, when you are part of one of them, trying to influence another country into joining your faction. It is also where you can buy foreign production licenses for vehicles and units based on those of more advanced countries than you, however if the other nation will accept the deal is linked to your standing with said nation. Other major factors of note are threat and neutrality. The former represent how threatening a nation is to your region which can affect diplomacy with them, the later represent your neutrality in regard to the many conflicts around the world which can prevents you to tie yourself to some of these conflicts or declare war on other nations until it is lowered. But that'll be seen later.

Technology see the distribution of your various research project, but also of intelligence in general. Also, research speed can be sped up by accumulated knowledge both practical(accumulated from experience in the use and production of units linked to these technologies) or theorical(accumulated from past researches linked to that technology type). But you can also focus your nation's inteligence on researches, or on diplomacy? Or maybe will you prefer to focus on the production of spies, that you can send to other countries or yours for various missions?

Which brings me to said espionnage panel: Spies produced by your country are distributed on a priority basis. You can send them home where they can perform such missions as counter-espionnage(killing enemy spies in your country), raising your national unit(to make your nation more hardened to war and other such attempts to cause it to surrender) or lowering your neutrality to permit you to enact more engaging laws and permit your nation to involves itself more in the surrounding conflicts. Neutrality is heavily dependant on your country of choice, many being more neutral than others while a lot of the key players have very little neutrality from the start.

In the production panel you will manage your nation's production and how distributed it is between supplies(used by your troops during war), reinforcement(to replace losses to an unit), upgrades(to re-equip units to the current standards of your technology), consumer goods(to help lower dissent in your nation by keeping your population angry) and production itself which is how much of your industry is focused on working on whatever is in your current production line, be it units, infrastructure, ships or forts and so on. Anything you can produce, be it millitary units, infrastructures(roads and so on), forts, naval units or even trade convoy will go there.

Sounds complicated? Yes, it can be to an uninitiated player(like yours truly). However, this is also another place where Hearts of Iron 3 is great because if a player is less proficient in an area, he can always decide to automate it. Yes, you heard me: Hearts of Iron 3 is such that all aspects of it can be automated at your leasure, thus providing you with the possibility to ease yourself in the game by automating all of the aspects you feels less familiar with until such familiarity is attained. It's a great way of making the game much more accessible to new players.

Graphics and sounds

Due to the game's focus, Hearts of Iron 3's graphics are nothing really too complicated, actually taking more on a minimalist touch since the gamescreen you'll most often be looking at is that of the map of the world. Still, what is there is nicely done. The many panels such as technology and millitary units will often be accompanied by historical-looking black and white photos, the maps of the world itself is well detailed with many features to give an idea of the terrain type of a province and so on.
Music, on it's side, tends to be decently atmospheric regarding the current mood of the moment(calm, war, defense) and tend to be of decent quality. Of note, too, is the charge of the valkyries that plays when loading the game.
All in all, though not "spectacular, graphics and sound in the game are still nonetheless quite good and fulfill the job they are meant to.

Minor note

There is one thing to note with Hearts of Iron 3. There can be time when it can be a rather great resources hog. This is in part due to all the AI it has to manage especially when you consider it has to simulate a whole world all at once, ontop of loading it prior to being able to play it at all. As such, expect the game to require an hefty computer to be able to manage all of this.

Final Notes

Hearts of Iron 3 is an excellent game and almost unique in it's genre and level of details and offers a great presentation of many of the more global aspects of World War 2 that are often forgotten about in smaller scale games which should please people who likes to research that perior. However, it is a game that requires much patience to play and, though excellent, some less patient players might be turned off by it's pace or all there is to manage. However, for those who can gather the patience needed to play this game it is a gem waiting only to be discovered and enjoyed.