>>2208524
>>2208385
Also, while the game not being a dumbed down manafest is nice, I think they kinda overshot and ended up with something that kinda lacks "narrative". So many systems are so intertwined and complex (especially with all the Situations and international organizations) it's kinda hard to figure out what is even happening.
Trade/production is micromanagement to the extreme, and half the time I couldn't get the stuff my pops keep whining about. My income seems to be constantly fluctuating widely with no real input on my part.
The estates are better than the interest groups Vic3 had at launch but they're so rigid and annoying and just act as roadblocks to actually DOING anything. The proximity/control system makes conquering anything pretty much useless past a certain size. So in practice what you're actually doing for 80% of the time is kinda tweaking around the edges and putting out little bushfires in your economy while waiting for income/stability to rise.
A lot of the really "big" stuff only happens on the scale of centuries. Like, you can't just "focus" or "specialize". It's all stuff that happens out of a million little decisions you make throughout the game.
By the time you do see your values shift or pops being integrated/converted or whatever it never feels like a big payoff to major choices you've made, like it was with picking specific idea groups in EU4. It just feels like the "natural" way things would've gone, and that my actions are being molded by the state of the country rather than the other way around.

I guess that's all very true to real history but.... it's not very fun to play. I don't think they need to dumb anything down and if anything it's probably me who still has a long way towards gitting gud, but I wish they'd do something to kinda "bundle" a lot of the systems into bigger and more comprehensible chunks. I think some UI tweaks would help a lot with that, but that'll take some months/years/DLCs.