Just out of curiosity, since you talk about integrating the games, what do you think would happen with the collision of...
Darkest Hour: Pretty much the same amount of provs, and a bit more events as in AoD.
Iron Cross: +4000 new provs and +6000 new events.
Not that I've made statistics or anything, but I would say the ratio of users would go 50-50, either preferring
'AoD - amount of provs and events in DH' compared to the new
'4k+6k vision of Iron Cross'.
Who thinks 4000 provs are a bit too complicated? Who thinks 6000 events might be a bit too many popups during the game. But who wouldn't want to try out the sweet map they have made. And sure we're eager to see what the new events are about.
So that's one big reason why the projects are seperate; Their approaches to modelling the game are totally different. So how would that 4th Uber Combo Game work? You could pick in the game menu, hey I wanna play with 4k provinces this time. And let's set the events between 3k-4k, since 6k is a bit too much. Not gonna work. Kinda ironic, if you combine the two games, the player community would split to those who favour mega events and mega provs, and those who want less. So they'll always be something separated.
The devs are perfectly aware how most users have reacted to 3 seperate HoI branches. So let's just be nice and silent, and give them a chance to tell what they're all about, in the dev diaries, k?