Just started playing Unity of Command 2, and it took me a good couple of hours and half a dozen attempts just to get through the tutorial. It's very punishing with not much room for error - you basically have to have a thorough understanding of how all of the systems work from the very beginning and make multiple very precise moves, because a single mistake can cost you a run.
This is coming fresh off me playing the Operational Art of War 4, in which the tutorial mission involves playing the Korean War as the DPRK. Same story, I tried it multiple times and got completely wrecked every time. There's supposed to be a Chinese intervention to help when you're about to lose, but I guess I was unlucky because I never saw that in any of my attempts.
I don't think this is just a matter of me being terrible at wargames either, because I've played others like Panzer Corps and Flashpoint Campaigns: Red Storm and found the early missions beatable without much trouble and the difficulty curves comfortable.
The target audience seems to be people that really like fiddling with knobs that control the attributes of tanks.
Once you get past paradox, total war and company of heroes you get the games made exclusively by and for the stats nerds who think those games aren’t nearly complex enough.
I have never heard of any of these games. I have many friends who enjoy maps and spreadsheets and I don't know these games. I think you may be very deep in to specialist strategy games designed for really intense partisans of the genre who, perhaps, are looking for a punishing challenge not available in more widely appealing games.
This might be my neurodivergence but I sometimes spend hours obsessively looking for anything in the steam catalogue that catches my eye for whatever particular genre I'm obsessing over that day, then realizing I have no money for it
I can't do more crunchy than Hearts of Iron 3, but if the people I know are anything to go by, the punishinment snd terrible (or non-existent) tutorials are the point.
I can't speak for all the games you mentioned, but Unity of Command is a really difficult game in general. It's almost more of a puzzle game with how little room for error there is.
Panzer Corps is pretty much the peak of WWII strategy games for me, wish I enjoyed the sequel as well
