Many of previous guides have attempted to cover if you can play HOI4 and get a date/still get a date/etc.

This all ignores the bigger picture: A significant other, family, children all exist for only one purpose...to prevent you from playing HOI4.

Many of us have had successful careers, full rich family lives, wives, girlfriends, children, etc. All of these will pale as the insignificant distractions they are once you begin to play HOI4.

Picture this dear friend: Christmas day your wife comes in "Where's Johnny's present you said you'd buy?" Now we all know you are deep into the Soviet campaign trying to get rid of Trotsky and help Republican Spain realize true communism and here this selfish woman calling herself your "wife" comes and rudely interrupts your game about some child, allegedly yours, and some silly toy he wanted. Does little Johnny know how many divisions Germany's bringing to your frontlines? No! Does he care? NO! he's too busy thinking only of himself! You on the other hand are trying to save millions of russians, nay THE WORLD, and all you get from it is some weepy dialogue about divorce and "not taking care of the children" and "you don't hold me like you used to" or "we haven't made love in months"...blah blah blah.

The significant other, children, extended family, etc all serve only one diabolical purpose: prevent you from playing HOI4. Little Jimmy...err Johnny, whatever, and your wife/girlfriend/whatever should be bringing you meals while you game so you can focus on what matters in life: winning at HOI4.

Often you hear HOI4 players questioning if devoting nearly every waking minute to playing HOI4.

"How will I finish school?"

"Won't work fire me?"

"I won't graduate if I play all the time"

Dear friends, none of these things matter.

School is just a sad attempt by governments to indoctrinate you alongside their pop culture with whatever non HOI4 related pointless ideas. It serves no good purpose.

College/University sadly has been unmasked as mostly a scam, get a degree to make the same money your manual labor parents made, except now you have debt. Moreso what does any of this have to do with determining my naval fleet composition for the US in the Pacific? It doesn't...avoid college unless someone else is paying for it and then do bare minimum so you can continue to play HOI4 unmolested.

Work: the biggest lie of them all. Employers want people who sadly think they will be paid more money for more work all while NEVER actually giving them either. You don't need to enter this scam. Again bare minimum effort get a Steam deck if you must work, otherwise become a burden on the system like everyone else. Look if our elites think we got money to fund this war here or there, these million of immigrants (see suckers to be used by employers), etc then guess what there's free money out there waiting on whatever made up illness you have so you can continue to play HOI4 unabated. Get on Welfare, claim disability, make up a illness, claim you're a transracial furry (grab buzzwords from leftists websites and combine them at random it'll sound believable to the social worker), whatever it takes to get back to HOI4.

None of these things provide any real fulfillment like HOI4 anyways. Even if you did say become a CEO of some multi billion dollar company you're usually so old by that time that your millions of dollars won't buy back the years you lost not playing HOI4. Why live with regret?

Many a new HOI4 players often,sadly, think that going to PDX forums and reading threads or worse replying will help make the game better. Sadly this is all unture.

HOI4 was created despite of PDX's best efforts to make a woke WW2 interacial trans community simulator. Many feel the spirit of MacArthur, Yamamoto, Montgomery, etc are who actually crafted the game and deceived the developers long enough to make a decent product before returning to mediocrity to produce such "classics" as Victoria 3. This guide is not to touch upon such questions such as life after death but clearly HOI4 was crafted from something beyond our time and space.

PDX forums stand mostly as a place for blowhards to repeat pointless multiplayer focused ideas such as making a fleet from only subs or light cruisers, touching on silly ideas like the Maus tank or various other Wunderwaffe, or whatever out of context 1930s political movement that wouldn't have actually gained any traction in it's time as a new focus, and the most evil of them all: suggesting another minor country get a focus tree far beyond the size of any major with bonuses that make no sense and become a game breaking mechanic.

It sadly is not a place to discuss HOI4 with any serious meaning. Worse still bad players who aren't good at HOI4 will live on said forums and exist there longer than playing HOI4 because they sadly feel their opinions actually matter to any of us, which obviously they don't., some are even moderators of said forums. These people are more lost than those who work, have families, etc as they think censoring discussions about WW2 in regards to a WW2 game will make a better WW2 game.

Save yourself the headache now, avoid the wicked and evil place know as PDX forums, it only distracts from playing HOI4 with those lost souls who will never know the glory of seeing Germany conquer the entire planet.

About 500 hrs in you'll begin to wonder if you are "wasting your life". This is where many players will have a small crisis. Let's be clear: in reality you are taking your first step into realizing that life before HOI4 was the "waste" and now you are "living". Your meaning in life is to conquer the world repeatedly from 1936-194-something...actual meaning, actual work.

You're not wasting your life....they are.

You saved the world many times, most will never be able to claim that.