Insight on WW1 Games Sought

[Cheimison]

I am interested in playing some operational and strategic games set in the Great War. I have played a lot of casual 4x-type games, some turn-based tactical games (FoG2, Tin Soldiers) and various Paradox games. I already own a couple of these games on Steam but haven't actually gotten around to playing them. None of them were very expensive compared to what I usually pay for PDX games and their endless DLCs, so it's pretty much irrelevant whether or not I already have them.

I have looked up some reviews but there are not a whole lot, and they often refer to other games in the series I haven't played. I'm mostly looking for:
1. How easy the game is to play competently (the strategic difficulty, so to speak)
2. How easy it is to figure out the interface and game systems (incl. how well any tutorial or tooltips work.
3. What scale and level of detail is involved; I tend to prefer grand strategy with a lot of minutia but I also don't like to *have* to micromanage everything, so I have contradictory impulses here. Distant Worlds Universe had a good compliment of absurdly specific details and the ability to let AI control very specific functions with well defined limits/goals. Being simple or micromanagy is not, either way, a dealbreaker.
4. Whether knowing the underlying mechanics of warfare, etc. are really important or whether you can just 'wing it' based on a general concept of what resources are good for what situation. In some games (EU) you often just need to know the gist of the game and PDX titles and knowing the actual mechanics of combat, etc. is not relevant for single player or basic functionality. In some games it is hard to choose rational plans without a good knowledge of situational mechanics (some tactical games I've played are like this).

The games I have looked at the most are Commander: The Great War; Making History - The Great War (I played Making History Gold but never 'beat' it); TOAWIV (which I already hav); Strategic Command WWI and Supreme Ruler: The Great War. All I know about Strategic Command and Supreme Ruler is that Armchair General likes them both, but they seem to be very different games. Making History seemed to be most similar to games I've played before. I know TOAW4 only through brief experimentation and some playing of TOAW3, but I really don't know how to read the interface at a glance or know what I need to know to play scenarios. Mostly this is my fault, but I have a hard time picking up on important details sometimes until I randomly figure out how it works several years later.