LogFAQs > #893044552

CK2 is my favorite. It's a classic and no other game I can think of is very much like it outside of Paradox.

EUIV is great. The scope is more global and I honestly miss the depth of the characters from CK2, but the game makes up for it by giving most of the major nations some serious unique flair and giving you the ability to shape an empire how you want. It does, however, limit you slightly more on how hard you can stray from history.

HOI4 is an excellent game with excellent polish, but will really only appeal to people who are fans of the time period and the conflict. Its combat system is one of the deepest and interesting and the ability to customize your units down to the soldier is going to appeal to hardcore grand strategy wargamers. That being said, it's my least favorite simply because I feel that the short time span and focus on an inevitable world war takes away a lot of replay value and limits the amount of alternate history you can create.

V2 is a really cool game. I only have about 80 hours with it, though. The population mechanics and some of the ideas are really cool, but it's dated now and is well in need of a new sequel to take it out of the box, brush it off, and give it a shiny new coat of paint.

Stellaris is becoming my second favorite. While it initially lacked the depth of the other games, it's been getting steadily better and better since release. The amount of customization is just insane. I also particularly like how they have fleshed out factions and ideas; races evolve to the point where you can begin with a pacifist materialist faction and end with warmongering spiritualists. The sci-fi setting is expertly done and you can tell that they really put a lot of effort into creating new story elements and adding in classic sci-fi scenarios along the way. The ground combat and the fleet design aspects need work (as currently, doomstacks are the status quo), but the new update is likely going to take care of all that.