going back to the very first tinto talk psy-op dev diary i would say it's clear the emphasis of the design of this game was never really on creating something that stood on its own as something of beauty or fascination. rather, it was to jampack some slightly more troublesome features-that-worked-in-previous-games onto the screen so the dopamine addled can spin on hamster wheel and paint it blurple. contrary to paradox games in the past, i don't think anyone is ever going to load up this game for the pure wonder of it, y'know, like what's going to happen this game. it's like they somehow managed to carry over the present staleness of eu4 and double down on it so that no longer does the same thing happen every game, nothing happens at all