How many hours have you played? Does WW2 setting interest you(obviously yes)? You can try the subscription for one or three months and then wait for sale and grab those DLCs if you like it. That's what i did, but HoI4 is too much a wargame for me, i need other mechanics as well.

>>2411784
Haven't played it yet. Years ago I heard it's more "arcadey" than HoI3, is this still the case or did it get better over the years?

>>2411780
It’s the best WW2 simulator that simulates every single aspect of the war (economy, resources, military, and politics) as any GS game would. But for all its width, none of the mechanics feel that deep, especially politics.

If you want true military autism simulator though, you’ve gotta play the Gary Grisby games.

>>2411833
Do the mods fix the lack of depth?

>>2411817
It's still more arcadey purely because HoI4 never adopted the HoI3 HQ system, where you had several levels of HQs. But this thing also was hellish in HoI3 because of how much micromanagement it took, it never was transferred for good reasons.

>>2412322
If you set your theatre borders correctly you can easily manage your front/OOB with AI in hoi3 too, you only dont have meme arrows on the map.
Ironically hoi4 is the game with the most micro with the companies/ship designer/focus trees/decisions hide and seek of +5% modifiers.

any time I try to play and learn it they bloat it with more shit and I just turn it off

Gary Grigsby games are better at it but they're also grognard games.

>>2411958
They can, BICE usually does that but it has it's own issues, namely the focus on fighter aircraft over every other aircraft. You need to produce upwards of 6-10 fighters per day to keep pace. Doesn't sound like much but that's an easy 100 military factories, aluminium and plane factories (something added in BICE) being gobbled up

>>2412630
Then why did you buy the DLC that adds more bloat, stupid fuckface?

>>2411780
Shadow Empire is the best WW2 simulator.

>>2411817
>>2412322
>arcadey
That’s a pretty absurd accusation to level against any game that would fit on this board. Even if it doesn’t tickle your particular autistic tastes, saying that it’s basically Rampart with a WW2 skin is extremely misleading

>>2411780
On the one hand no, because it can't simulate WW2 properly at all. On the other hand, any competitors are unbearable to play, so, you don't really have a choice.

>>2413074
Hmm.. tell me more about it, you piqued my curiosity.

>>2413081
Cant you conquer all of england in HoI4 with nothing but bombers?

>>2411833
>It’s the best WW2 simulator that simulates every single aspect of the war (economy, resources, military, and politics)

How does it handle navies? One thing i liked about Making History is a carrier or battleship would take months to build and once damaged you needed to get it to a proper port with the facilities to fix them.

I also liked Making Histories industrial resources

>>2413074
>baby's first wargame

>>2417156
Weird. On one hand, it has loads of moving parts. You design every ship from the ground up with a fair amount of customisation options to play around with. There's shit tons of different stats, modifiers and mechanics at work there. Yet all it really comes down to is that you have two fleets. One escorting convoys and then another one that's your rapefleet with all your battleships and carriers. If your rapefleet beats their rapefleet once, congrats you've won the naval war. The AI and generally the game's mechanics don't really feel like they're capable of simulating any nuance or tension for navies but that goes for everything else in the game.

>>2411780
>ww2 simulator
As others have said its fairly alright but there's basically no real competition
>get all the DLCs
Buy the base game and then use creamapi to unlock all DLCs. Paradox preinstalls all DLCs so you literally just need to change a text file to say they're enabled. It also makes updates/mods infinitely easier if you get a steam copy.

>>2428437
>if your rapefleet beats their rapefleet once, congrats you've won the naval war
So exactly like Stellaris.

Why tf is this game so difficult for me? I have 400 hours and I still struggle. I watched a ton of youtube videos, and used their templetes and designs.

Literally any other strategy game I become great at by just watching one or two videos. I got insanely better at Starcraft2 , EU4, ck3, and total war by just watching a couple youtube videos about it.

>>2411833
is there a Gary Grigsby equivalent for politics, intelligence, logistics, or any other aspect of WW2?