like i said it just needs a restart
i intended to start right around 1989/1990, so the soviet union would be crumbling. ex-soviet russia and china would prolly be the biggest nations you can get. its not a hard rule though, you can attempt to make a super mega ultra nation, but i would pretty much forget you with culture wars, corruption and all that if you managed to unify in the first place
everything would be pretty similar to this except for 1) daily NPC happenings, minor or major 2) no tech tree but some form of structure for research 3) battles a little more tactical than throwing your whole army against someone and having the GM crunch numbers. expect something like what grunter is posting. you dont need to give me troop movement maps and stuff, but simple things like "X amount of troops push to Y position" will be the norm
i may be a massive gaylovelord when im playing but i'm a pretty darn good moderator if i say so myself