i actually used to play CON before i switched to COW. i do prefer COW cause CON has no special events or anything....and only have 3 different maps and 2 speeds, but if you tell me what country you are playing and what doctrine you are, i can give you some tips.

for phillipenes you need a lot of navy, and i would reccomend you use naval infantry. naval infantry is important because they are the only unit that can launch a naval landing in provinces without naval bases. start by building a few arms industries and naval bases to make some navy. don't use air units cause its completely crap. i would build army bases in the rest if your cities to make some recons. after a few days research naval infantry and during these days, make sure a few of your cities have the requirements for building naval infantry. i would reccomend invading vietnam or indonesia first. you need to build high level arms infantry in the city that produces fuel, cause you'll need a lot of that.

for Mali build army bases in all your cities and research recon and mech. infantry. build some arms industries in some cities and army base level 2 to make mech. infantry. try to attack ai first. i don't know much about this region cause i never played it before...

for romania you need main battle tanks mostly. try to join an europe coalition and attack bulgaria. once you get a few main battle tanks, attack one of your neighbors that go inactive.

some overall tips are that you shouldnt annex too many cities cause they cost too much and there are a lot of resource shortages. also arms industries are really important in your cities to get more resources.

So I used to play S1914, moved on to CoW, then to CoN and now Im back to CoW.

CoN is actually fun, but the devs prevent mass producing armies, and there are way to many units to actually understand how to play. I got to level 70 ish till I decided that CoW is better

I tried CoN personally didn’t like it I found to UI to be a bit overwhelming but at the time I was looking for a game I could grind for a few hours. Then I tried CoW and was drawn in by the feel of the game, it felt grounded, it didn’t feel over the top or unrealistic like CoN felt for me and it got me into the play for 5 mins check back in 2 hours types of games (This was before 1.5 btw). Later on I tried S1914 and again felt overwhelmed by the UI and didn’t last that long past the tutorial overall I like CoW’s strait forwards gameplay and the types of units feel appropriate for the setting.

Well I personally prefer CoN cuz I've played it for a longer time than CoW
I somehow think that CoN is easier to understand but then maybe it's because I'm new to CoW