Where can I find a good, easy to follow written tutorial for HOI4?

[MonkeySage]

I've played CK2 and EU4 before, but they were nothing compared to this game in terms of difficulty. To begin with, I have no idea what I'm doing. I see a whole lot of buttons and I have no idea what they do. I see a deploy button, a train button, national focus, etc. Again, completely lost.

I'm kind of a mediocre strategy game player as it is, but i've managed to have a lot of fun with CK2 and EU4- they're simple enough and easy to understand. This is the complete opposite, it's so complex. A friend of mine bought these for me without asking, and I kind of feel bad because I haven't played them a whole lot since then, it's been months and I've barely touched it.

I want to enjoy this game, to be able to play it properly, but I haven't even grasped the basics.

[Otomodachi]

The wiki (https://hoi4.paradoxwikis.com/Beginner%27s_guide) is how I learned to play.

Train is how you start the process of converting manpower and equipment into actual troops you can use- it basically calls people up into basic training (which doesn't really exist on the map). Deploy is what lets you take those troops, training in "phantom space", and actually place them on the map. The deploy button is how to choose where they appear when the training is finished, essentially.

National Focus is like a skill tree, basically. It's not research, but it can basically be thought of as an alternate research. National focuses generally give either concentrated bonuses to your territory, like free factories or forts etc., or faction-wide bonuses to things from economy to military units. There's also a lot of focuses that gives you bonus to researching specific things faster.

Happy to answer any specific questions you come up with, I am also a mediocre strategy player but I've got a very strong grasp on the controls of HOI4, at least.

[keepLooking]

Its Wiki, as was mentioned above, is the only solid source. But nevertheless, HOI4 is the easiest part of the series so far