Eventually it clicks. It def took me a while but it’s really a curve, once a few things fall into place all the systems fall into place too. It does take a little while for sure though, but then it’s fun cause you can do shit like this. I plan on destroying America in this run.
Also, my manpower is hella low (18k) because I have 2.5% conscription and total mobilization, which gives a -3% recruitable population. I’ll bump it to 5% conscription and have several million to spare, no problem.
Get the ones that apply to the countries you like. I bought “Waking the tiger” for a few bucks for this run, took me a couple tries and maybe 10 odd hours in total, worth the cost. There’s expansions for the Spanish civil war, yugoslavia, etc which are all fun communist play throughs.