I recently got Hearts of Iron II and it is a great game. Hearts of Iron II is a grand strategy game from the good people at Paradox Interactive set in the WWII era. You play as any nation from 1936 to 1947, and it is amazing. Naturally, I played as the heinous, the tyrannical, the vile Costa Rica. Alot of amazing things happened, and I had no part of it.
            I started out in January 1936, I immediately set about building infrastructure, a factory, and a mountain infantry battalion. My plan was to begin a costa rican empire and to conquer my neighbors while they were still weak. I did not have the Industrial Capacity to do all of that so I cancelled the factory (it had a completion time of 3 months but the date went up 1 day with each passing day). I was intent on expanding my army and upgrading their weapons. I opened the diplomacy channel to begin negotiations for trade agreements with my neighbors, they would sell me the resources that would seal their fate. However, I soon noticed that the US had guaranteed independence of all the South and Central American states. Guaranteed for me, meant "I will eat you if you screw with me, Costa Rica." I soon gave up my imperial ambitions on account of that, and I was having recruiting troubles.
             So I resigned myself to my newfound humble role and spent the rest of the game trying to keep my economy afloat in the hopes that I may one day build a new factory. The US had the run of America's, except for Canada, who had a much more intimidating flag than they do now. An american warship or a flying fortress passed by every now and then, which brought interest to an otherwise uneventful part of the world. I was one country away from the Panama Canal Zone, which was a territory of the US as it should be. My neighbors, like me, had a single division with them. The divisions all had a friendly demeanor but sort of eyed each other in a way that said, "Why hello there, nope, you stay over on your side."
              I formed an intricate trading network with many partners from around the world, including one landlocked chinese faction, whom I not sure how the supplies moved back and forth. But for the most part, I traded with my immediate neighbors, Republican Spain, Finland, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and I think, Oman. The Brazilians were total assholes to me, though. Needless to say, they were radical leftists. During the Spanish Civil War, I traded with both the Republicans and Nationalists, but they cancelled their deal with me when they found out I was playing both sides, in that sort of huff and puff when two women find out their man has been going out with the both of them. I eventually won back Republican Spain's trust and they, along with the Swiss, became my largest trading partners.
             Couple of interesting things happened in this gaming instance(to be continued)