Hearts of Iron 2: Doomsday

[Thon]

couldn't resist at $20, since Europa Universalis 2 is one of the best strategy games i've ever played.

played as the Soviets starting at 1936 and in '39 i just overran and annexed Estonia and Latvia in about 2 weeks of fighting. i've got a half million men on the Finnish border, and Germany invaded Poland and kicked off WW2.

it's crazy how many varied units there are to research, just listing infantry and armor:
Regular/Motorized/Mechanized/Paratroopers/Marines/Mountaineers, light/medium/heavy/modern tanks. aircraft and naval vessels are equally fleshed out. there's even rockets like the V1 or V2, and fission/fusion weps can be loaded on those or a bomber

for combat: terrain, weather, and being attacked from multiple angles/provinces all have a large effect on the outcome. once you break through a front, you can send in tanks to blaze around enemy armies. if they can roll through all the surrounding provinces, or at least enough to cut off a direct route to their territory the army will run out of supplies. no fuel/ammo/food will make a million man army worthless very quickly if they don't break out. which is what happened to the germans at Stalingrad. incidentally you can also supply a cut off army with air transports if you have enough, like the germans tried. but fighters will shoot them down faster than you can replace them most likely

plus there's over 100 countries to play. communist china, nationalist china, and a few chinese warlord factions for instance. so you could try and conquer africa with South Africa, or unite south america with Argentina. i don't think Belgium stands much of a chance, but it's possible to try

just way too many factors to ever be able to list here, there's a demo so you can at least see if it's your kind of game or not