In the end, it's an issue caused by the great varieties that computers come in and no way of ensuring that a piece of software (particularly games) will work on all of them. Companies do as much as they can to make them work on as many configurations as possible, but there's no way to cover everything. And unfortunately you end up with situations like this. Paradox did what it could to make the game run for as many people as possible, but there are exceptions. I'll bet there were plenty of people who couldn't get HoI or Europa Universalis I/II to run, despite the lack of 3D graphics. It's a big reason why more and more games are moving to the consoles.
Jon
Jon