Any tips on how to actually expand and not self destruct through rebellion and invasions would be greatly appreciated.
in my personal experience, stumbling around for hours not knowing how anything works and gradually learning over the course of playing is the way to go.
https://youtu.be/i9P248pkgYI
I am absolutely going to post an hour long video and just recommend you watch the whole thing. This is a great channel in general and I've found him useful.
a few tips on hoi4:
im pretty confident the maths works out so that a) if you have more than 7 free slots in a tile, it is worth to build 2-3 levels of infrastructure, and b) you generally want to build civilian factories until about 2 years before a major war. for example, you would begin building mils as the ussr mid-late '39. (ignoring construction bonusses and maluses)
for division templates, the standard template for infantry is 7 inf/2 arty, or 14inf/4arty. if youre infantry's only purpose is defence, then you can run pure infantry divs - just make sure combat width is 20 or 40. engineer companies are basically mandatory imo for infantry divs. similarly, add aa/at guns based off of need. ai doesn't build very many tanks or planes, so you're not as likely to actual need the aforementioned guns, but do keep it in mind. other divisions are a lot more situation dependent, but infantry is almost always some variation of 7/2 or 14/4.
if you can afford them, carriers are always strong. if you dont care about navy, but need superiority for invasions, spam shitty tier 1 subs with the bare minimum of equipment. naval superiority is calculated based off quantity. battleships are basically really only useful for eating damage unfortunately (my master's thesis argued that the battleship only became obsolete because of guided missiles, not carriers, and that post-war carrier bias was informed by the usn's experience in the pacific war). the most efficient way to win surface battles is to stack cruisers with ~152mm guns (medium batteries) and torpedo loaded destroyers, with catapult carrying cruisers for spotting enemy fleets. surface combat favours blowing apart the enemies escorts then torpedoing their capital ships.
playing as a major, use armoured divisions to make breakthroughs, with motorised/mechanised following to hold the line as your armour advances. as a minor, specialise in something - armoured divisions, mechanised, navy etc. your resources are limited, so focus on excelling in one area and using it to support your allies, like getting air superiority for the ussr. if you're not sure what to specialise in, your access to natural resources can inform this decision - aluminium rich nations would probably focus on air, so on so forth.
for research starts, electronic mechanical engineering and construction can be taken in your first two research slots and basically will always end up paying themselves off. unless you plan on rushing to a specific tech and staying on producing that, like rushing the spiteful as terf island, or t-55s as the ussr. otherwise go down dispersed industry - it will minimise production efficiency loss from switching production lines, like from upgrades through tech or variants.
on the defence, use fallback lines along rivers and mountains - if you have reserves, ideally you have multiple lines across multiple natural features to make sure you take advantage of entrenchment bonuses.
if you need specific help with anything, feel free to ask, and sorry if any of this is self-evident or you already know.
thats outside my field of expertise, though if ur question is more general i might be able to answer it
Was just checking if I heard a lecture by you at a summer school.
