Slitherine

I've had a blast playing through AO from SCW and have now reached the fork in the road in AO 1943 where I can choose the historical or alternative path but I can't decide which to follow. What did other players pick in their first playthrough and, if you did ultimately played both, which did you like more? I am thinking ahead to 1944 and 1945 too, as I'd probably want to stick with one path throughout.

On the one hand, I always like learning about history from games and find real battles more compelling.

On the other hand, Panzer General/Panzer Corps seems to work best when you are the attacker - the blitzkrieg type scenarios are my favourites.

I've read conflicting opinions on the two paths, so would be interested to hear what people think.

I usually do the alt history branch first because winning every map on my way to Berlin leave a bitter taste

You already mentioned two good arguments.
In the historical path you are most of the time still attacking, but somehow you still lose. There are just no mechanics for defensiv scenarios, the AI is just too stupid. It never feels like you are losing the war. In 1945 there are some stupid missions to force you to lose. Iirc there is a map when the russians are attacking seelow heights It just ends when you kill 5 command units. You want to kill all the russian and prove that you alone can hold the eastern front, but it just ends, telling you its over...
Overall the historical part is just fine, but too easy, if you managed kursk.

The ahistorical path is more challenging talking about the gameplay. But its getting really weird. You deal the russians a heavy blow with the battle of kursk, but the result is, they are even stronger again.
Somehow you manage to establish a frontline of thousands of kilometers into the caucasus, and while the russians ignore that, they attack somewhere else even stronger.
In 1945 all your problems, world hunger everyting you could imagine get solved by the "breitspurbahn". And finally there are some ridiculous events with the "Oberkommandao" and atomic bombs.
Actually you could stop at 1945.
1946 is basically one mission all the time. Start from the west, kill endless amounts of amercian units, take some cities.