More controllable countries

[JaguarUSF]

Just as floating an idea, here are the countries involved in World War II and semi-interesting minor countries that could be modded to be playable:
AXIS
Aleady In: Germany, Japan
"New": Italy
"New": The Minor Eastern Bloc - Hungary, Romania, Slovakia, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia

ALLIED
Already In: US/UK/France, Soviet Union, China
"New": Splitting US and UK to two forces
Australia owned by UK but could be separated
Brazil probably not interesting
Canada owned by UK but could be separated
France wouldn't be very exciting
New Zealand owned by UK but could be separated
Poland also wouldn't be very exciting
South Africa

[Dalwin]

I would agree that in a more detailed game such as HOI2 it is fun to play the various minor nations. The scale of this game would give most other nations little to do.

If this were a game more friendly to multiplayer games with a large number of players, then additional countries would also make sense.

With the turn based structure, I don't think I would want to wait over an hour just so I could move my small collection of Australian units and spend my 2 factories. Even in single player games, being a minor nation would be a lot like just being a spectator as the AI played itself.

For this particular game, I think they got it just right concerning which countries are playable and which are grouped together.

[JaguarUSF]

This is true.
It would probably be more reasonable if diplomacy was "turned on," letting the nations choose their side. But that's probably for a mod of some kind