götterdämmerung!

I'm not sure if anyone remembers 2002's Hearts of Iron, which was a pretty good real-time strategy game covering the political climate of 1936-1945 by Strategy First. Although technically a World War II-based game, you can control any country regardless of their historical "value" to the time period, letting a truly resourceful player lead any nation to victory. Like my absolute favourite board game Axis and Allies, HOI takes great care to replicate the economic and military strength of every country at the time when you begin the game, providing a fairly realistic battleground. The game's focus on the "industrial capacity" of your country effectively governs its ability to wage war, similar to A&A's industrial production credits. It also makes diplomacy and shared resources a viable option, instead of the typical "world domination by force" strategy. However the AI proved to be underdeveloped and abstract, making little to no sense in its tactical maneuvers. I remember declaring war on many countries with negligible diplomatic or financial repercussions, which ended up nullifying a lot of these meticulous details. Although the game is in real time, a lot of the mechanics would have been better suited to a turn-based framework. Some gamers inexperienced with the genre may find the game a bit daunting at first, especially with the barely informative tutorials and occasionally cluttered interface.

Strategy First released the 1.06 patch yesterday, which further improves the AI and adds a new scenario, "Götterdämmerung", which covers the final years of the war. I'm interested enough in the AI improvements and new scenario that I've reinstalled the game; here's hoping it provides an adequate - and more realistic - challenge this time around.