I still feel the RTW campaign stile is the best. In ancient eras it works near perfection espetially with some very, very good mods there are (europa barbarorum for instance). It gives you a scope of commanding your armies from affar and the logistical problems for instance - this is more in the mod mind you - when you send a major conquering army against other civ and you made the mistake of advancing too far then, tough you win locally, the AI wins due to the fact that your forces get wasted and you have no chance of recovering yours. So, when you make an offensive war it'll take a lot of your resources both in money as manpower (you can actually loose a war because you simply don't have the manpower to ustain the war). And it gives you a lot of liberty to build your armies and conduct your own war.
As for building churning out units, again, the EB mod has made it somewhat realistic for old ages. Of course it has to be different for a WWII game. The resource sistem more like Hearts of Iron or something but still, I said like not just as.
I want something that gives you the same strategic insight (CC2 is very good indeed. But just locally. I feel you never get the full scope of it as you don't build your forces.).
Anyway, just my long 2cts.
Cheers...