Paradox has destroyed Creative Assembly... for me.

[screwtype]

EU2 is not entirely complex, at least compare to other builds of Paradox games, especially the notoriously complicated (like, the most complicated grand strategy ever) Victoria. I think you'll have much fun as it does possess the Empire Management side lacking in HOI2, even if combat is, naturally, not comparable to the HOI series. For land you have cavalry, infantry, and artillery and that's it. Your land tech dictates your equipment, morale, and skill, for example.

Yeah I'll definitely be taking another look at EU 2, but when I can find the time to learn it. I don't have a manual so I have to try and pick up the game from internet forums.

But if you look further for even more Empire-building then nothing beats Victoria; if Victoria doesn't beat you to death first with its insane complexity, though. It's a game for people with a lot of time and patience only. I still can't get the hang of it after all this time.

Yeah looks too complicated to me at this stage. It looks like the sort of game that's going to require me to do quite a bit of mental arithmetic, and mental arithmetic is not my favourite pastime

Doomsday boost up Blitzkrieg a little on its own as well, adding another layer to the tree for extra org boost, and HSR a little more on top of it. And I agree with you there that the Night Doctrines being best are quite unbalanced; realistically it should be either the American firepower line (representing what eventually developed into modern warfare in, for example, Korea) and/or the Blitzkrieg line for the superior Wehrmacht. HSR in the HOI2 version (not yet in Doomsday, sadly) also make radar tech far more important with bonuses on the naval units and air units, as logically should. It's very nice: before this if you don't plan for radars then they are useless, whereas in reality radar played a good role in giving the Allies a certain superiority in detecting enemies. They also made techs more balanced overall; for example, agriculture actually give something more than manpower now: a small amount of free money, a boost in supplies production efficiency; the oil tech line also give extra industrial efficiency, etc. Which makes sense.

DD does sound good but I'll probably wait for a couple of patches to be released before I think about taking the plunge. But I think I'll take your advice and install one of the mods for HOI 2 in the meantime. What I've heard about CORE sounds good but people seem to think stony road gives a better challenge, so maybe I'll go for that one instead.