If you want to ease into WW II at a tactical level, Battlefield Academy (western Europe and North Africa) or Battlefield Academy 2 (Eastern Front) are good choices. There are mods to make them a little more historical looking.



If you want to ease into WW II at a more operational level that allows you to see what the major battles looked like, the three Unity of Command games are quite good. A bit chess-like at times (especially the counters), but one of the few games where the AI will clean your clock if you aren't paying attention.



If you want to ease into WW II at a strategic level you should probably take a look at Strategic Command, but it has so many moving parts it's probably medium complexity.



I hesitate to mention Commander: the Great War for WW I because there's a lot wrong with it. But as an introductory game it's perfectly fine and plays out at a strategic level (low complexity). You might eventually graduate up to one of the Ageod games, but they aren't really for beginners and have their own peculiarities. One of the Tiller games (France 1914) is an absolute masterpiece, but it's operational and if you aren't used to playing at that level the complexity might be a bit mind-numbing.



I'm not that familiar with the Ultimate General ACW games, but they're worth taking a look at even though I don't think they're turn-based.



I haven't seen any good introductory level games for the Napoleonic period. There was a tactical game that came out recently about the Peninsular War (that company also produced one about trench warfare in WW I), but I disliked it so much I promptly asked Steam for a refund. If you feel like risking a Tiller game (and I'm not talking about the revamped dinosaurs that Matrix sells), be aware that the quality of the games depends very much on the designer. Most of the Tiller Napoleonics were designed by Bill Peters who is very good. He did not design Waterloo, Napoleon in Russia, which are subsequent editions of earlier Talonsoft titles under the 'modern' Tiller Napoleonic engine. Bill's designs have gotten better the more games he designs, and his later titles are marvelous, though most of them are too complex for introductory games because of too many moving parts. But if you want to dip your toe into a Napoleonic game that has a lot of the feel of a boardgame and a tabletop game, I'd suggest his (currently) latest title Marengo about the campaigns in Italy in 1796, 1797, and 1800. There were a lot of battles and most of them were fairly small, so it will be easier to learn the system with them rather than plunging in to a monster like Leipzig. Be aware that native Tiller graphics are eye bleedingly awful, but there's a mod that fixes that.



For the period before Napoleonics I'm tempted to mention Pike and Shot. It has a boatload of user-made scenarios that you can download from within the game, and many of these (depending on the designer) are better than the ones that came with the vanilla game. The engine does a good job of modeling late 16th and early 17th century warfare, and can be stretched to cover the late 15th to the late 17th century without too much violence to realism. The engine does not work for the 18th and 19th centuries, though that hasn't stopped people from making scenarios during those periods. If you find you like that style of combat and want a change of pace, try Sengoku Jidai which covers the same period but in the Far East, and has marvelous artwork and music. I should mention that the combat system in these games (and in Field of Glory II which covers ancients) takes a little getting used to, but once you figure out how to handle cavalry you should be all right.





