For real the best way to learn is to play as the Italians. You start off at war with Ethiopia, and you have a few colonies but not too many, you have a decent force but with lots of room for improvement (your "tank" battallions contain exactly one tank and six squadrons of horses lmao), and you can also just ignore the Naval mechanics until after you've finished learning how land combat works. There's this let's play on YouTube where the guy goes communist as Italy which you can watch for tips.
If you have the DLC I would disable Man the Guns and La Resistance while you get your footing with the game's primary mechanics, since those two DLC just tend to add a ton of complexity which could distract you from learning the more essential systems.
Second this. Play a game on historical mode (literally just a checkbox when you start a new game) and follow along. Figure out how to set up frontlines, do attack orders, etc.
It will take you a good several games before you really figure out how to use everything at your disposal. Dont worry about winning or losing the war and just focus on doing the best you can. There are a bazillion mods that make hoi4 endlessly replayable but none of them are going to be fun until you get the basics down.
Naval shit is generally super annoying so I'd recommend just focusing on ground forces and air.
I almost never mess with the stuff from Man the Guns, in fact keeping up with unit upgrades generally requires way too much micromanagement for me to ever want to do it (even if it can be super effective ie making really cheap mine-laying submarines), but the basics of fleet deployment and reinforcement can be automated if you set your fleets up right.
Air combat really bugs me though. I want to tell my planes to fly missions within their fuel range, but the way the skies are divvied up into "air zones" is really counter-intuitive. Plus there's the boring micromanagement demanded of you if you want to use carriers, moving your fleet and the reassigning air orders every single time.
I generally ignore strategic bombers, assign all of my fighters and CAS to my armies somewhat evenly, and let it handle itself, while occasionally building new airports if I notice a gap. My hate of micromanagement really limits what I can get out of this game
For real the best way to learn is to play as the Italians. You start off at war with Ethiopia, and you have a few colonies but not too many, you have a decent force but with lots of room for improvement (your "tank" battallions contain exactly one tank and six squadrons of horses lmao), and you can also just ignore the Naval mechanics until after you've finished learning how land combat works. There's this let's play on YouTube where the guy goes communist as Italy which you can watch for tips.
If you have the DLC I would disable Man the Guns and La Resistance while you get your footing with the game's primary mechanics, since those two DLC just tend to add a ton of complexity which could distract you from learning the more essential systems.
Second this. Play a game on historical mode (literally just a checkbox when you start a new game) and follow along. Figure out how to set up frontlines, do attack orders, etc.
It will take you a good several games before you really figure out how to use everything at your disposal. Dont worry about winning or losing the war and just focus on doing the best you can. There are a bazillion mods that make hoi4 endlessly replayable but none of them are going to be fun until you get the basics down.
Naval shit is generally super annoying so I'd recommend just focusing on ground forces and air.
I almost never mess with the stuff from Man the Guns, in fact keeping up with unit upgrades generally requires way too much micromanagement for me to ever want to do it (even if it can be super effective ie making really cheap mine-laying submarines), but the basics of fleet deployment and reinforcement can be automated if you set your fleets up right.
Air combat really bugs me though. I want to tell my planes to fly missions within their fuel range, but the way the skies are divvied up into "air zones" is really counter-intuitive. Plus there's the boring micromanagement demanded of you if you want to use carriers, moving your fleet and the reassigning air orders every single time.
The previous air system was even worse if you can believe it.
Oh snap.
I generally ignore strategic bombers, assign all of my fighters and CAS to my armies somewhat evenly, and let it handle itself, while occasionally building new airports if I notice a gap. My hate of micromanagement really limits what I can get out of this game
honestly if you play singleplayer, you can just attach your airwings to your armies and have the ai do that shit for you