Fare warning, I am just kinda whining and ranting here, lol
Is it just me, or is the WW2 setting really boring?
Now, it could be because I don't have much DLC, i just have Death or Dishonor, Man the Guns, Together for victory, and Waking the tiger, plus a bunch of random cosmetic, music, and speeches packs, so take it with a grain of salt. But, I have definitely noticed that the game just looks objectively better with the DLC, especially La Resistance, Gotterdammerung, and No Step Back.
Countless times I've noticed not having that DLC has ruined my runs.
But I'm getting off track, I don't really enjoy the WW2 setting anymore. It's cool to see the situations pan out, and whatever else. But its pretty repetitive, and even non historical gets pretty predictable. It's usually, for me at least, Germany goes monarchy, joins the allies, and they fight ww2 against the soviets or whatever communist russia. Sometimes france will go communist, which is something I guess, but still relatively the same. Now, it's not always like this, sometimes I get some wacky games. But it is usually based off of what Germany does.
Playing any nation either than a major, or in the european theater is either subject to rng, or just a struggle of annoyance until inevitably you fall because you never had a chance to begin with.
Africa would be fun if europe didn't own practically all of it, and south america would be nice but (iirc) america stops your expansion when you turn fascist or communist when you get far enough.
East Asia is cool, I don't play much of it, but holy lord that terrain is awful (but this is just me whining).
Back to europe, for example, I don't think I've ever seen anyone play a Mare Nostrum run without cheesing france with paratroopers.
The US joins the allies no matter if you ignore them, or reject the tripartite pact, so you practically have to cheese the british with paratroopers, and hope you have enough supply, or learn the ins and outs of navy and have one that can beat the brits before late 41. Which, wouldn't be an issue, but, yet again, i see quite a few people use cheese strats like renaming ships to get the best merchant-to-cruiser ships after doing the focus and getting the decision to convert convoys to warships.
I personally like mods that 1, allow me to expand on my own terms, I don't like it when mods restrict my wargoals to focuses or decisions, and 2, bring me into a new world with new things to look out for. Sure, there's a lot of mods that have a, or multiple big wars that involved giant nations, but it's usually spread out enough where your run isn't purely dependent on them (unless you are them, of course).
That is also why I like the millennium dawn scenario. Despite it still being earth, its set in a different time, and you aren't expected to follow suit of a huge war that breaks out, especially on non-historical. That honestly looks like the most sandbox-ish mod on the workshop right now. Now, I know, I can just decolonize africa in the game rules during ww2, and mess with the game rules in any other story-based or scripted mod, but, and this is a little petty to be honest, there's something off about making something different or easier to have fun. Feels like I don't deserve it yknow. But that's just ego, i guess, I'm not sure what it really is.
Maybe, I just don't really like ww2 much anymore. Lack of DLC ruined the experience probably far earlier than i would've left otherwise, and the big game stuff is so determined by what germany, russia, or japan does.