If there were a hall of fame for great game concepts, Hearts of Iron would be a first-ballot inductee. But moving the strategic themes and historical depth of the Europa Universalis series to World War II was such a surefire idea that developer Paradox Interactive forgot the actual game. The resulting release was decidedly problematic, with a modern setting shoehorned into a design built for the era of muskets and pantaloons, artificial-intelligence holes the size of the Bismarck, and loads of bugs. However, the new Hearts of Iron II shows that Paradox has learned from its mistakes. Although the game follows its predecessor so closely that you may still want to play with mouse in one hand and textbook in the other, many refinements and additions make the intimidating interface and extraordinary depth almost user-friendly. If not for lingering issues with the steep learning curve, the barrage of information boxes, and a couple of bugs, this would undeniably be Paradox's finest hour.

New support options both simplify attacks on enemy provinces and make such offensive operations more realistic.

This is still not a game for the faint of heart. You oversee the affairs of an entire nation in the World War II era, with all that such a weighty responsibility entails, in real-time single-player or multiplayer campaigns. So not only do you send tanks streaming across borders, but you also build the economic infrastructure necessary to keep bullets flying and stomachs full, set up trade deals, and send out diplomats to handle a list of assignments from proposing nonaggression pacts to sponsoring coup attempts. As in Paradox's other games of historical grand strategy, time spent waging war on the battlefield pales in comparison with time spent planning and building. If you're looking for the second coming of Axis & Allies, keep looking.

Still, concessions to playability make Hearts of Iron II more accessible than the usual Paradox release. The manual is far better than the confusing, useless tome packed with the first Hearts of Iron, and the six tutorials offer up details on primary aspects of play like warfare and production. Only information overload remains a problem. The learning curve is more like a learning cliff. Even after you think you understand the core concepts, you start a game and get snowed under by a blizzard of pop-up information boxes. Mengkukuo has joined Japan in the war on Sinkiang. Canada has barely influenced the foreign policy of the United States. Colombia is remaining neutral in the war between Peru and Ecuador. The Netherlands suggests a trade agreement with us. The United Kingdom announces the death of its foreign minister. And so on. And so on. And so on.

It's incredibly overwhelming. Even after you get used to it--yet again, because Paradox has used a variation of this clunky interface in all of its historical strategy games--you can't help but grumble that there has to be a better way to keep players in the know. Although you can adjust the number and type of these notices, there isn't a happy medium. Whether you choose to wade through everything or turn off a number of categories, you will almost certainly miss a dire announcement or two. Tweaking the message frequency so you reach some level of satisfaction with the alerts shown is almost a game in itself. Three or four scenarios must be played to completion before you'll be able to get an idea of what works for you.

You can at least focus your warmongering now. While Hearts of Iron II centers on four sprawling campaigns, you can select a limited conflict with set adversaries if you're not in the mood to set the entire world ablaze between 1936 and 1947. Some of these battles are standard WWII fare, like the D-Day landing and Operation Barbarossa, but others are off the beaten path. You can even take part in the fictional Platinean War between German puppet Argentina and American puppet Brazil, for instance, or in a full-scale "what if" German invasion of Czechoslovakia.

Production is pretty intimidating at first, but most operations can be handled from this single menu screen.

These smaller scenarios also serve as extended tutorials. Many feature two-sided hostilities, and most involve accomplishing a single objective. Sometimes you can even ignore whole aspects of the game. When you're fighting the Platinean War, for example, supplies are regularly delivered from the US and Germany, so you don't have to worry about gathering the resources needed to build armies. The only catch is that it's difficult to step up from these scenarios to the full-fledged campaigns, as there isn't a middle ground. You're forced to go from regional engagements straight to governing a nation taking part in the biggest conflict in human history.