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quickstart guide
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introduction
Darkest Hour is a grand strategy wargame based on Paradox Interactives Europa Engine. Darkest Hour provides two different
grand campaign scenarios that allow the player to take control of and manage nearly any nation-state during the timeframe of
the scenario, including its political, diplomatic, espionage, economic, military, and technological aspects.
THE TWO SCENARIOS ARE:
1914 The Great War (starting on June 27, 1914 and ending on December 31, 1920)
1936 The Road to War (starting on January 1, 1936 and ending on December 31, 1963)
Before starting a new campaign it is possible to select a different ending year (4, 8, 12, 16, 20, 24, or 28 years after the begin-
ning of the scenario).and Combat damage as well.
Diplomacy and Politics
The player can control the appointment of individual government ministers and military commanders in key General Staff
positions. Each minister has a personality which can provide bonuses or penalties. Some important key figures like Hitler,
Stalin, Roosevelt, and Wilhelm II have unique personalities with unique bonuses and penalties that better immerse the player
in the historical setting of the scenario.
The player can perform different diplomatic actions, such as declaring war, entering non-aggression pacts, guaranteeing the
independence of another country, demanding or offering military access, requesting military control, making alliances, as well as
claiming and demanding territories. The player can also alter the social and economic policies of his own nation using political slid-
ers, such as democratic versus authoritarian, free market versus central planning, and so on. Moving the sliders (which is allowed
once every two years) will result in different bonuses and penalties, allowing for a range of choices and strategies.
Espionage
Darkest Hour features an easy-to-use espionage system, which requires the allocation of money to be effective. The efficiency
of the system is in fact based on the level of the espionage network: higher levels are more effective but also drain more money
each day for maintenance.
There are several missions that can be performed: steal technological blueprint, assassinate minister, smear campaign,
coup nation, sabotage industry, nuclear sabotage, fund partisans, global manipulations, and sabotage tech team. The very
useful and easy-to-use automated spying system will let you assign priorities over countries and missions (on each specific
country) and the AI will occasionally perform the mission that you prioritized, based on the allocated resources.
Economy and Trade
Darkest Hour provides a realistic map with four zoom levels, with the outer levels providing a topographic view of the oceans
and the continents. The map is divided into approximately 2,700 provinces, and each province may contain a different quantity
of each of the five main resources: energy, metal, rare materials, oil, and manpower. It is also possible to construct different
buildings in each province: factories, anti-aircraft guns, radar stations, air bases, naval bases, land fortifications, coastal for-
tifications, rocket test facilities, and nuclear facilities.
quickstart guide
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Each factory in a nation contributes one point of Industrial Capacity (IC). Several factors, such as difficulty, ministerial
appointments, technologies, and lack of resources can modify the quantity of available IC. To function, each actual IC requires
two points of energy, one point of metal, and half a point of rare materials.
It is possible to trade energy, metal, rare materials, oil, supplies, and money (the latter two produced thanks to allocated
IC, see Production section) with any other nation of the world, provided that they are not enforcing an embargo against your
country. The automated trade system will make it very easy for players to acquire the resources that they need from neutral
countries, even during war.
Production
THE INDUSTRIAL CAPACITY OF A COUNTRY CAN BE ALLOCATED TO FIVE DIFFERENT SLIDERS:
Consumer Goods: this represents the internal demands of the country. Allocating enough IC to generate money and produc-
tion of consumer goods over the needed threshold also helps in reducing dissent (negative public opinion that has many
adverse effects on a country).
Production: this represents the buildings, land divisions, aircraft wings, and naval ships that the player decided to produce.
Supplies: supplies are consumed by a players armed forces (some units consume oil too).
Reinforcements: allocating IC here repairs aircrafts and ships, and will slowly replenish the strength of land divisions.
Upgrades: allocating IC here upgrades the equipment of land divisions and aircraft wings (when new models are researched
in the Technology Tab).
In the Production Tab, it is possible to start the construction of buildings, land divisions, aircraft wings, and naval ships. Each
requires a different amount of manpower, IC, and time to be built, but these factors can be heavily modified by ministers and
political sliders. For example, a high level of mobilization will sensibly reduce the amount of time necessary to train a new
division; however, it will also reduce the overall available IC as the skilled manpower is taken from the industry and conscripted.
There are many different land divisions, including infantry, cavalry, mountain, marines, paratroopers, headquarters, mo-
torized infantry, mechanized infantry, and tank divisions. Moreover, some of these units can be given an additional brigade,
such as artillery, cavalry, anti-air, heavy tanks, or engineers that increase some of the units stats (but may also result in
penalties, like a speed reduction for the artillery brigade).
Based out of air bases, there are several different types of aircraft wings: interceptors, multirole fighters, tactical bomb-
ers, strategic bombers, naval bombers, close air support units, and transport planes. It is also possible to attach an escort
fighter brigade to bombers and transport planes, which increase their defence from enemy air units but also reduce their
range. With certain technological breakthroughs, it will also be possible to build rockets such as the V1 and V2, as well as
intercontinental missiles.
Ships require a lot of time to be built and cannot be upgraded to better models. It is possible to build the following vessels:
aircraft carriers, light carriers, battleships, super heavy battleships, battlecruisers, heavy cruisers, light cruisers, destroyers,
submarines, heavy submarines, and transport ships. However, even if ships cannot be upgraded, it is possible to attach up-
gradable brigades to them: an improved radar system, anti-aircraft system, fire control, hull, naval torpedoes, anti-submarine
equipment, floatplanes, carrier air wings, and so on. A fleet must be equilibrated, so it is not advisable to build only the stron-
gest vessels, like battleships and aircraft carriers, because they need cover from the smaller ships. The number of screening
vessels in a fleet, like light cruisers and destroyers, should at least be equal to the number of the other ships (submarines
excluded) to avoid penalties.
An important characteristic of the production queue is the gearing bonus: a unit with a long serial queue gets a bonus in
time and cost for each unit produced (the effect is capped after a certain number of built units, determined by political slid-
ers). Another queue with the same kind of unit will not benefit from the bonus, as it is applied to each queue individually. It
is possible to choose to automatically upgrade a long serial queue to a newer model once researched in the Technology Tab:
this reduces the gearing bonus but produces the latest model of the unit, instead of the one initially put into production but
which is now outdated.
Consumer Goods during peacetime, though this need ends with full Mobilization, as the needs of the units move away from
domestic peacetime concerns and toward more purely military needs. A higher Neutrality rating lessens your Units need for
Consumer Goods.
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Technology
Technological research in Darkest Hour is divided into nine different tech trees that span the entire 1914-1964 timeframe:
infantry, armour & artillery, industry, aircraft, naval, land doctrines, air doctrines, naval doctrines, and secret weapons. Each
country has a certain number of tech slots (from a minimum of one to a maximum of five) based on the national IC. Each tech
has a year associated to it: researching it before its historical year results in a penalty, while researching it after its historical
year provides a bonus.
Moreover, each country has a unique set of tech teams that represent the specific companies and personalities that lead
the research or the training in a country; for example, Alan Turing, Anglo-Persian Oil Company, Krupp, Messerschmitt, Erich
von Manstein, Leon Trotsky, New York Naval Yard, and Beretta. Each tech team has a skill level (the higher, the better) and a
certain number of specialties, such as ammunition, chemistry, electronics, nuclear physics, bomber design, naval artillery, or
blitzkrieg tactics. Each tech team requires money each day to perform its research: the higher the skill, the more expensive it is.
War
As explained in the Production section, the player can build land divisions, aircraft wings, and naval ships. When they are ready,
they can be deployed on the map and combined, respectively, into corps/armies, squadrons, or fleets. The player also has the
ability to control the appointment of military leaders of land, air, and naval units, and modify the mobilization level of a country,
changing its conscription law and eventually mobilizing its reserves. Military leaders have different ranks and traits that grant
different bonuses. The higher the number of units in a corps, the higher the rank the military leader must be to be able to grant
its bonuses and avoid penalties. The presence of a HQ (headquarters) unit in a corps doubles the number of units that a military
leader can have under its command without penalties.
Once war is declared, higher levels of mobilization are available (at peace, only partial mobilization can be achieved) to
increase the quantity of available manpower and reduce the time and cost of training (with some penalties in IC, research, and
dissent, as skilled people are taken from factories and labs and trained to be soldiers).
A land unit is positioned on a province on the map and can perform the following missions: attack (attack an enemy-held
adjacent province), support attack (support the attack on an enemy-held adjacent province without moving into it), support
defence (units are ready to move to a specific adjacent province when a friendly unit is attacked there), reserves (units move
to any adjacent province when a friendly unit is attacked), planned defence (units retreat to a specific province if their strength
or organization get under a specific threshold), strategic redeployment (units move with train, they are removed from the map
and will reappear after the necessary time in the chosen province), and anti-partisan duty (units reduce the level of partisan
activity in a province). Each unit has two values, one for its strength and one for its organization, that decrease during battle
and bombardments. If the strength, which represents the soldiers in the unit, is reduced to zero, then the unit is destroyed;
however, if the organization is reduced to zero, the unit is forced to retreat from battle.
Aircraft units can be organized into squadrons commanded by air leaders, and the same consideration regarding rank and
traits for land leaders are applied here. An air unit must always be based on an airbase; otherwise, it is destroyed. Different air
units can perform different missions, which can usually be performed over a single province, over an area, or over an entire
region. The available missions are air superiority (air units fly continually over the selected air province, attacking enemy air
units), ground attack (air units attack enemy land units to reduce their strength), ground support (air units attack enemy land
units to reduce their organization), strategic bombardment (bombing of enemy factories and resources), logistical strike
(bombing of enemy infrastructure), runway cratering (bombing of enemy air bases), installation strike (bombing of enemy
buildings), naval strike (bombing of enemy naval units at sea), port strike (bombing of enemy naval bases and naval units
located in those naval bases), bomb convoys (bombing of convoys that transport resources or supplies), air supply (supplying
cut off friendly land units), airdrop assault (dropping paratroopers on a selected province), nuke (dropping a nuclear bomb),
and air scramble (air units are ready to fly and attack enemy air units that fly over an adjacent province).
Ships can be combined into fleets, but it is important that the number of screening vessels in a fleet, such as cruisers and
destroyers, should at least be equal to the number of the other ships (submarines excluded) to avoid penalties. The possible
missions are convoy raiding (sinking of convoys that transport resources or supplies), anti-submarine warfare (sinking of
enemy submarines), naval interdiction (naval units patrol a determined naval area in search of enemy naval units), naval
combat patrol (naval units patrol a determined naval region in search of enemy naval units), naval scramble (naval units are
ready to move and attack enemy naval units that are moving in an adjacent naval province), sneak move (naval units move
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slowly to avoid detection from the enemy), shore bombardment (bombardment of enemy units in a province), amphibious
assault (attack with land units on a province with a beach), sea transport (transport land units to a port), carrier strike on port
(performed by the CAG of carriers against naval bases), and carrier strike on an airbase (performed by the CAG of carriers
against airbases).
Some provinces on the map contain Victory Points, or VP. If a nation declares war and manages to control the capital and all
the VPs of the enemy country, then it has the possibility to annex that country (in the diplomatic screen).
Once annexed, a country can only be released by a country that occupies enough of its territories (sometimes all of them
are required for the release). A released country is considered a puppet state that is friendly to the nation that released it, and
is subject to certain limitations (can trade only with its master and has to send its unused resources to its master).
Events and Decisions
Events and decisions are an important part of Darkest Hour. They provide historical immersion and give the player the chance
to change the course of history. Events are triggered automatically once their conditions are met, and they offer the player one
or more choices on how to resolve them. If there is only one choice, then the player is forced to choose it; however, if there is
more than one choice available, then the player can choose any of them. A tooltip will show the effect of each choice, but be
aware that some choices may lead to unforeseen consequences in the future!
Decisions are similar to events, but they appear to the player in a separate list. A decision may be triggered only once its
conditions are met, and thanks to a tooltip, the player can see which conditions are necessary to initiate a certain decision and
therefore act in order to achieve them. Another tooltip shows the different consequences of a decision as they, like the events,
can have one or more choices. Moreover, the decisions always have a Cancel button, so the player can skip a decision and make
it at a later time (if its conditions are still met).
Events and decisions are usually tailored to specific countries and historical happenings (such as the Treaty of Munich,
Operation Barbarossa, the surrender of France, Pearl Harbour), but there is also a set of generic decisions that allow the
player to direct the course of their country (such as Creation of Public Jobs, War Bonds, Press Censorship, Wargames, War
Propaganda, Investment in National Research, or Investment in National Infrastructure).
Mods
The game provides a launcher that allows the player to change its settings (e.g., resolution, language, etc.) and eventually
choose a mod to run on top of it. Darkest Hour provides for a very high level of moddability and supports the creation of mods
among its community of players.
Moreover, it is easy to port community mods from HOI2 to DH. Many mods designed for HOI2 Armageddon can also be
converted to Darkest Hour, like the Kaiserreich Mod.
The Iron Cross expansion, already available for HOI2, will also be compatible with Darkest Hour.
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About Paradox Interactive
Since 1999, Paradox Interactive has been a leading global developer and publisher of PC-based strategy games. World-renowned
for its strategy catalog, the company holds a particularly strong presence in the United States and Europe.
Its steadily-growing portfolio includes originally developed titles such as the critically acclaimed Europa Universalis and the Hearts
of Iron franchises, as well as publishing titles such as the Magicka, Supreme Ruler 2020, Mount&Blade and Majesty 2 The Fantasy
Kingdom Sim. For more information, please visit www.paradoxplaza.com and follow @pdxinteractive on Twitter.
Our offices are located in New York, USA and Stockholm, Sweden. We work with renowned distributors world wide and are present
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