Naturally, if the right expectations are set from the start, the frustration will be kept to minimum

(1) This does not play like an RTS (or RTT if you prefer). While the battles are playing out in real time (with pause), the flow of the game is not at all similar to an RTS. So if you come from playing games such as Steel Division 2, Gates of Hell Ostfront or Armored Brigade, while that is helpful to a degree (flanking, armor, weapon effects, line of sight, line of fire, etc concepts will apply), the mechanics do not transfer well. If you have experience in Combat Mission, the same advice applies (despite being compared often, the games have more differences than similarities. Major ones are:

• the flow of orders: in CM you are effectively expected to issue orders to every unit every time the gameplay stops. In Graviteam you have to discover the degree of micromanagement that suites your play style.
  
• physics modeling: things may get frustrating when vehicles seemingly doing crazy sh**t because the game's engine does not let them turn around on the spot;
  
• no multiplayer
  
• no replay
  
• operations layer: you move counters representing battle groups on topographic maps up to 200 sq km large and that results in 3d tactical engagement (the terrain matches the topographic map precisely - unlike Army General in SD2 or Total War).
  
• the game dynamically sets goals for the computer-controlled troops. So on one hand, there is replayability, on the other - your opponent’s actions will at times seem unreasonable compared to a human-built scenario script).

Another frequent misconception is an equivalency with Command Ops 2 implementation of orders, and it's not accurate. While troops and units do autonomously react to the situation in GTMF, unlike CO2, a commander will not come up with a plan of attack based on the orders - units will simply move to contact in the exact formation they were ordered. There is no holding support back, maintaining advanced guard, reserve or scouts - you as a player have to give explicit orders to do any of that.

(2) The game is constantly updated - mostly in minor aspects, but occasionally a major mechanics change is rolled out. Your favorite tutorial/gameplay video will get outdated. So you should expect to have to relearn things that you have figured out already. Official descriptions of updates are often lacking, so the best place for details is the Steam forum (developers are active on Steam)

(3) There will be countless situations when you have no idea why certain things happen, the infamous AI appears to be cheating or that same AI when acting on your behalf purposely does something dumb. You could rage quit and uninstall the game, you could compose an angry tirade blaming developers for making a terrible game and not owning up to it - both good options. But personally I would instead suggest looking up “negativity bias” (I am not being an ass - look it up, it’s a useful concept to be aware of), then capture as much information as possible in screenshots (some folks even do videos!) and post your predicament in game forums. There is always a non-zero probability that you have discovered an issue, and if not you are likely to get an explanation or at least an idea of what’s going on.

(4) The game’s manual (accessible via game’s steam home page or the local installation) should be viewed as a reference as opposed to something that teaches how to play. And even as a reference it is far from complete. Prepare yourself for trial and error, searching forums and asking questions.

(5) The game really needs a decent CPU. There are recommendations out on the forums of what works well. If your system isn’t up to par - the manual lists options on how to make your engagements smaller (fewer units -> better performance). As far as graphics, smoke and ultra high grass details is the performance’s worst enemy (there are options to reduce quality, turn certain effects off)

(6) The sound is not great, but there are a few very comprehensive mods available (please check the forum - Ruki’s mod seems to be most up-to date at the moment)

(7) DLCs are never affecting the gameplay, there may be game updates release at the same time, but everyone gets those for free. Purchasing a DLC gives access to the operation(s) and the map to use in custom battles.

(8) Before buying, watch a review video by Tonci87: https://youtu.be/w0uud0Fv-Lw
It is not a tutorial though. If you are looking for something with explanations of mechanics, check out this video by Warsimmer: https://youtu.be/3qGgx3niBT4 but just like I said, any mechanics is a subject to update.

(9) Finally, if you are still on the fence and worried that Steam’s two hours are not nearly enough to find out how you feel about the game, you are absolutely right. Provided you don’t subscribe to my philosophy that playing a game for hundreds of hours is an expense much greater than an actual cash outlay at the time of purchase, and want to avoid spending said cash on something you may not like, I recommend waiting until https://gtm.you1.cn/storesteam/app/549080/Tank_Warfare_Tunisia_1943/ goes on sale. This game uses exactly the same engine as GT:MF, and is often on sale for less than $10. If you like TW: Tunisia, you will eventually buy GT:MF and all its DLCs anyway.

Probably what attracted most of us in the first place - great-looking screenshots of tanks with smoke rising over the battlefield:) So one immediately wants to know - how do you win these awesome battles? While the game will display win/loss/draw (under some modes, not all), you will not be required to capture flags, take over certain territory or destroy all opponents. Instead the goal of each battle is up to you - players set goals they want to achieve before the battle and during the battle execute those goals. They could in theory be “take over all 9 square kilometers” or “kill all enemies” or you could forgo this entire goal setting nonsense and do whatever you find most interesting. Until you get to campaign mode, all battles are self-contained anyway: what happens in a battle, stays in a battle.

There are four ways of getting the game to launch a battle:

• skirmish menu item (also launched by a button in the lower right corner). This lets you select the smallest denomination of units (squads of infantry or individual vehicles) against a random selection of enemy units and fight over 1x2km battlefield. Skirmish mode will have order modifiers unavailable until you accumulate certain amount of game time (2 hrs?)
  
• Tutorial battles/quick battles (“missions” menu item). This gives you objectives for the battle, so you don’t have to think about those yourself. Warning: Following tutorial instructions will not necessarily lead you to success.
  
• Battle editor. Provides the ability to set up a fairly decent-size battle or test out a particular situation on a particular map (Functionality is not documented, so be prepared to do some research).
  
• Campaign battle. As you play out an operation on the 2-d map moving counters, it’ll result in engagements against the opponent (the manual describes this)

How not to lose your progress, given these battles can take hours to play out:
Go to game options and turn on “ask for confirmation”. You may argue this should be a default, I do not disagree, but given that it is not - turn it on. You will thank me later :)
The game’s save system only keeps two battle saves - one for campaign battles (autosave_001.tacstream) and one for everything else (autosave_000.tacstream) in the user profile game folder. However, you can copy these files on your own at any time. You may argue this is a terrible system, but this is a workaround, until the system becomes less terrible.
Game updates often (but not always) invalidate tactical saves. The developers usually give a few days warning, so one can finish up, however, it’s not guaranteed. There is no fool-proof solution here outside of messing around with Steam (or finishing battles in one sitting).

Something that is not clear from the manual about orders wheel: https://youtube.com/shorts/wDQx7wphRrQ

The game does not list unit/weapon capabilities - that is because the weapons and ammunition are modeled (to the extent possible) to work like their real-life counterpart. And if you find one that does not, report it though Steam board and the developers will consider addressing it. To see the list of weapons and ammunition, hover over “ammo” icon in the left-hand pane

Here is what to capture in screenshots/videos in situations where you want developers to look at something suspicious:

• select the unit in question (only the unit on question - if you need to capture info for more than one unit, do it one at a time)
  
• capture the information from the left-hand unit panel (it will have “fire level”, whether the unit is connected to its commander, etc.)
  
• capture casualties/damage information (these are a tooltips in the very first section of the left-hand pane: hover over “personnel” and [weapon name] sections). Note - [weapon name] will not always be there.
  
• capture the state of ammunition (also a tooltip - hover over the ammo icon in the left-hand pane)
  
• capture the visibility status of the enemy: icon colors will tell you who is currently visible (this often solves “why isn’t someone shooting” question)
  
• turn on “vision sectors” (it’s one of the on/off options in a drop-down of the bar in top center of the screen), it matters for AFVs - will show where the crew is looking
  
• turn on “target lines” (also a button of the bar in top center of the screen)

In both Skirmish and Battle Editor, units available to play with are specific to the selected year. The year setting is controlled by "Select time Period" button in the editor (only available when placing units on the maps) or an explicit drop-down in Skirmish setup page. One often overlooked feature is the ability to set up an engagement between forces from different time frames in the battle editor. Now you can finally find out how many Panthers does it take to kill a platoon of T-55s! https://youtu.be/Q0TRAbrfmmQ

Another somewhat obscure functionality of the battle editor is the ability to customize the unit: you need to cntrl+lef-click on the deployed unit, which brings up the editor on the right-hand side. Most important function you get access to is to assign reinforcements to the empty spots in the unit - this is how you get artillery and air forward observers.

With that you are equipped to start trying things out as far as battles go. There are more videos by Warsimmer and Tonci87 which will undoubtedly be useful, just make sure you are prepared for older ones to be showing playthroughs based on the older versions of the game.

This is what really makes the game in my opinion. You come for tanks driving around the map and stay for the historical campaigns experience.

As a new player, do not start long campaigns. In GT:MF you could get away with playing 7-turn Saur Mogila, but there are plenty of short operation in DLCs - there are recommendations on the forum. TW: Tunisia does have a short operation that comes with the main game. Caveat: when you do get to longer operations, you will have to learn to manage additional aspects, but I recommend to start from shorter ones just so you don’t get immediately overwhelmed.

To make your life easier as you learn (and in general, if you like certainty), set “Direct Control” to “enabled”. With this configuration, you get to see the result of the move immediately and restart the turn if something isn’t to your liking. Indirect means you do not see where your counters end up until it’s too late to do anything about it (i.e. the moves are resolved after you hit “end turn”). Once you feel like you need more excitement in your life, put it back. Enabling “Direct Control” will also allow you to ignore sector boundaries (if those are present in an operation), and it's the only way to move multiple BGs a "stack" of battlegroups in one turn (in some operations, multiple reserve BGs appear on one node, forming a "stack"). Please note, “Indirect Control” is not a WEGO mode, as described in the manual: “The orders themselves will be executed prior to the movement of the AI platoons/BG, after pressing the end of turn button”

Another setting to change (this one conditionally) for the operations is "battle radius". Given that capturing ground is more or less a staple of any operation, you want to avoid this: https://gtm.you1.cn/app/312980/discussions/0/3108018684254672739/ However, large battle radius means there will be more troops in each battle and it may start affecting the performance. Some operations are worse than others, so see for yourself. But you could always switch back if needed.

Save system keeps one file per operation, so there is no way to go back to your previous turns in the game itself. Yet you can (and should - especially while you are learning/experimenting) get into the habit of making manual copies of the save files. If your operation happens to be stuck on a corrupt tactical battle save (due to an unexpected game update for instance), right-click will reset the operation back to the state just before the battle, and you would lose the battle progress, but retain the progress in the operation.

There are three standards of operations in the game (technically, there are more, but these three have different ways of getting access to off-map artillery) - operations with platoons, operations with battlegroups where FOs for off-map artillery are “reinforcements” and operations with battlegroups where FOs are no different from other platoons. You have to make sure you recognize what type you’ve chosen to play and adjust accordingly. Mainly, make sure you know how to assign spotters in these 3 cases: (1) as a reinforcement for a command platoon, (2) see manual page 16 (3) select an FO platoon into a battle group. Sometimes there are two versions of the same operation - manual FAQ contains some instructions on how to recognize one that’s most up-to-date, and I strongly recommend to play that one (although, it’s entirely up to you - the older version will work too, you’ll get a slightly different experience). FAQ (#12) does not cover one symbol: an empty square under the photo - it identifies operation where attacks from the edge are not allowed.

There are two standards of operational winning conditions in the game. Newer ones are described in the manual (ish) and can be recognized by a presence of “primary” and “secondary” sets. Older ones are obscure - someone at some point almost figured it out ( https://gtm.you1.cn/app/312980/discussions/0/1643164649203129092/#c1643164649204817557 ), by and large it is capturing and holding keypoints. Or you could manage to your own sets of conditions - just because the game says you lost, you don’t have to agree with it.

Once you get to larger operations, the list of platoons (especially on Red Army side) gets a bit out control - you could end having to manage a number of platoons approaching 1000-1500. There is a way to get to the parent unit (Bn/Regiment/Brigade) that does not involve clicking through 90 tabs in hopes to get where you want: in the Order of Battle view, right click on the formation card takes you to the platoons view with the very first platoon of that formation selected. Left click is similar, but takes you to the first BG for this formation.

The first thing most of us to is set “realism level” to “simulator”. This is a simulator after all! Beware - there is no "simulator AI", which is miles ahead of "optimal AI" that are missing out on ;) But, the battle duration does make a difference in the computer opponent’s behavior! (1hr may lead to the opponent making some hasty moves, so set it to at least two hours). These options really represent a bundle of settings: some can only be set as part of the bundle and some came be set separately (the list is displayed in the pop-up when you hover over the selection).
Most frequently, this comes up in the context of nights being too dark: https://gtm.you1.cn/app/312980/discussions/0/3185740658289459352/#c3185740658290041955 In addiction to this setting, there is a also “Brighten in pause mode” if you are OK not seeing the flow of action, but want to see where things are when paused.

Another frequent point of confusion is the overlapping settings in options and “conditions” when launching an operation. You can think of the latter as “overrides”. So the settings in options are global, and you can choose something different on “per operation” basis.