Hearts of Iron II

Hearts of Iron II is a 2005 grand strategy game in which the player takes control of any state in the world from the mid-1930s and leads it through the whole of World War II - from research and industrial production through diplomacy to deploying divisions, air wings, and fleets on a map divided into thousands of provinces. It's played in real time with the option to pause, so the player sets their own pace between calm economic management during peacetime and hectic front-line command during battles, when you need to react to enemy movements within seconds.

The game builds on the first entry in the series and expands it with a more elaborate technology tree, national focuses in an earlier, scripted form, and an event system thanks to which history can also take an alternate course - a small European country can end up as a great power instead of being defeated, if the player handles diplomacy and research better than the AI opponents. It was precisely the engine's openness that attracted modders - a number of later major mods, including the famous alternate-history Kaiserreich, started out on this very base before moving on to newer entries in the series.

Despite its age, Hearts of Iron II remains popular with part of the community thanks to a balance between depth and clarity that, according to many players, the later Hearts of Iron III lost due to an excess of detail, while the fourth entry a few years later swung complexity the other way instead. With unofficial patches enabling it to run on 64-bit systems and modern graphics cards, the game can be launched without major issues on today's computers, even though the interface remains a product of its era.

Why play it: Suited to grand strategy fans who want to experience World War II in depth, but without the overwhelming micromanagement that the four-years-younger third entry brought.