I love strategy games and HoI4, which is the easiest of the main Paradox games.
But when dreaming of being a politician better go for Victoria or EU instead of HoI. You get that the creators of TNO are total politispergs, cause the, in my opinion, best thing about TNO is that it massively improves the politics and economy mechanics and inserts lots of RPG elements, politics and the economy are very shallow represented in the base game. To an extent, this makes TNO feel like a completely different game.
The base game and all mods that don't change core game mechanics (like Kaiserreich, Red Flood, Millenium Dawn, Equestria at War, The Great War etc.) is more like real time strategy than grand strategy, since when playing it right it's 90% micromanaging your troops anyways. You win by commanding your divisions directly and being good at that, not through choosing the right focus tree or changing ideology. Don't use battleplans and don't automate anything, not in HoI, Paradox or complex strategy games in general, which are all known for having bad AI, you wouldn't want that control your nation and forces and throw away the only advantage you have over the AI, being a human (at least in single player where you can pause everytime, multiplayer or games without pausing are a different thing).
E.g. Equestria at War massively suffers from this problem, as the creators invested much into lore and RPG elements without actually changing the mechanics, so it adds up very little to actual gameplay. When playing as a major country I always win, wether I'm suprecamist or harmonic and regardless of who I vote vor, I could blindly click through most events and it wouldn't make a huge difference.
Yeah, I know, Paradox games are nerdy stuff and Paradox game mods are, like, the nerdiest thing in the world after throwing Pen&Paper nights.
