Strategy games are tricky beasts due to the tightrope developers must walk while crafting the titles. Make a game too easy and simple, and you risk alienating the core fan base who demand complexity; make it too hard, and sales will plummet because only the hardest of the hardcore will be willing to find any sort of enjoyment. That is the dilemma facing Paradox as they craft Hearts of Iron III, a WWII sim that straddles the fence between welcoming and punishing.

Series vets will be very excited to jump into the third installment of the Hearts of Iron franchise, as it features all you'd expect from an advanced strategy title and then some. Players can opt to control one of over 150 different countries, each with different motivations and goals. Diplomacy is incredibly deep, allowing countries to set up trade pacts, treaties, defense arrangements and more. There are even opportunities to try and sway other nations to change their government so it looks more like your own, thus making them more amenable to your offers and more likely to bow to your whims. On the home front, players can set construction quotas for each unit and then drill down into every tank, plane and ship to determine exactly what types of guns, armor, etc., to be attached. I could spend pages talking about all the options available for micromanagement, but to cut to the quick, just assume that if you can dream it, you can likely do it in Hearts of Iron III.

While this insane level of depth has been praised by the hardcore, it is cursed by the newcomer, as the high barrier of entry makes it almost impossible to pick up a Hearts of Iron game and start playing. With that complaint in mind, the team is working on a more simplified user interface for new players, as well as a competent AI that won't always offer you the most beneficial solutions for each scenario but will still manage your affairs competently enough so that it helps much more than it hurts. Unfortunately, this new interface wasn't ready to be shown off yet, so at this point, it remains little more than a theory. It seems as though the developers understand just what a critical piece of the game this will be, though, and they are working as hard as they can to get it implemented into the final build.

If you ever wanted to pretend to be Winston Churchill, FDR, Stalin or even Hitler and lead your nation through one of the bloodiest wars mankind has ever known, then Hearts of Iron III will soon put it all at your fingertips. The question that remains to be answered is, will you need to have a Churchill-level understanding of politics, diplomacy and warfare in order to play the game, or can any armchair president jump in and put up a competent fight for his country's flag? Paradox is hoping they can make a game that proves to be the latter. Here's hoping they manage to pull off a feat as Herculean as the British standing up to the Nazi blitz and turning the tide of the war.