Mine was. I came to this forum last fall in a furor because I'd bought HoI IV and it crashed roughly every hour of playing. I'd encountered a similar problem with other games, perhaps they were from Paradox too, and I knew all I probably needed was a little program that would do something with the memory allocation or whatever it was causing the problem. I googled for it and found what seemed to be the fix from the brief google description, but was rather irritated to discover I needed to create an account before I could read the entirety of the post which I was pretty sure had the answer I was looking for. I tried to find the information elsewhere and was unsuccessful, so my irritation now boiling over into a rage I created the damn forum account and answered their demands for personal information with whatever came into my head at the time (my birthdate is not accurate and I don't recall what I put down for my name though I considered a phonetic spelling along the lines of FOAD). I had no intention of ever posting on this forum outside perhaps relaying in no uncertain terms just what I thought about companies which released games you couldn't play unless you gave them your personal information to read the fix, but with the game fixed I decided I'd really rather just play the game instead.
I think perhaps the game you want is not the game they designed, because this game is indeed satisfying and lotsa fun in single player mode as well, though like you mentioned in another thread about multiplayer, 'house rules' can improve the experience and I find making rules for myself easier than getting everyone else to concur on them. While I agree that the AI needs work and it would improve the experience if Germany put up a better fight against the Bear, I've found you can still enjoy the game even knowing the 'German Question' is likely to be resolved by 1941. That's because the worse Germany does against the Soviets, the more difficult the other stages of the game will be for you because the game moves on to having to take down Japan, do that peace conference, then you can fight a Hot War against the Soviets over Iran, Iraq and Afghanistan. Even playing the Soviets you can still have an engaging experience if the Germans roll over and die because you're still racing the Western powers to Berlin and beyond and once that's settled you still have the Japanese to force to the table, which will require building and outfitting a real navy and invasion force. Then there's that Hot War for the future of the world you can choose to engage in....
I've been playing wargames since I was a little kid circa 1978 when I spent my allowance on War at Sea and played that incessantly before moving on to more involved games like 'Rise and Decline' and the 'Squad Leader' series. When I sold my game collection circa 1999 I had over one hundred games, the vast majority pretty much every (war) game Avalon Hill and SPI ever produced along with later gems like 'Empires in Arms' and 'World in Flames' from other manufacturers. A friend of mine and I spent the better part of our free time for weeks (as I recall) setting up the entirety of the old Europa series on ping-pong tables in his den once, after such a massive undertaking we had little interest in actually messing up what we accomplished by playing it--he eventually glued the pieces together, put it on the wall, and called it 'art.' In my many years since I've managed to put together a gaming group regardless of the environment I was in, starting in elementary school, then middle-school, high school, college, USN, Army National Guard not to mention places I worked at. Point being, liking this game and enjoying it even while it still needs work does not make someone an 'inexperienced' player. There is more to this game than just the war between Germany and the Soviet Union and while I would appreciate a better simulation of that titanic death struggle (implementation of which likely would improve the game as a whole) it is not the be-all and end-all of this game, which scope includes the post-war era as well. I have played many games which depict WWII but few which include the pre- and post-war period and those who are just looking to play the war have many other options to choose from, but playing the entire period is pretty unique in the genre and while I still think the final product needs work it is still engaging on many levels as is. No matter how well or poorly the AI acts it doesn't change whether or not my tech and build strategy got me to where I wanted to be at the outset of the war and I can judge my performance of that against a different standard than whether it prevailed against an AI that still needs work.
There's a lot to this game that a sizable number of the people posting to this site never seem to get to, they're still building basic infantry weapons and expect it all to be done by 1939 and never fill out their tech trees or make the transition to the post-war period. They want something to play 'Command and Conquer' with and it may just turn out that this game will never be what they want it to be. I think many of your observations are valid and an attempt to improve the game, but I also think you're mistaken that enjoying (at least facets of) the game we have now is indicative of an 'inexperienced' player.
