this is why eu5 and all of paradox games will stay dogshit because instead of pushing for realism, they keep pouring all of their resources into even more retarded abstracted point systems
when you look at a pdx game discussion, it all boils down to "haha look, i stacked this niggeretard modifier to 125% and now i can snatch half of europe in record time!"
when you look at the "must have" dlcs, it all boils down to the dlcs that actually introduce one actual gameplay mechanic albeit still piss poor quality but this tells you that gamers want coherent gameplay options more than anything
but heaven forbid paradox ever tries to design a system that actually reflects real life in all of its majestic potential

meanwhile politics are just as deranged as the economy, instead of grubby backroom deals, patronage, or riots in the streets, political life is reduced to pops rolling dice in the background and “voting” into existence massive ideological swings overnight. one week, your peasants are docile monarchists tending fields, the next, half the country has spontaneously become Jacobin revolutionaries. whole swathes of the population flip-flop ideology overnight, as if every farmer in Prussia read the same newspaper and collectively decided, “ja, socialism time”. Political parties themselves are cartoon caricatures, the conservatives forbid your factories from expanding because “muh interventionism” even if unemployment is sky-high, while laissez-faire liberals somehow prevent you from subsidizing a rifle factory during wartime, because the sacred invisible hand must decide whether your army gets bullets.

reforms are equally absurd. you can’t just pass laws through parliament or a monarch’s decree, no, you must wait until your pops reach exactly 7.8% “consciousness” and demand healthcare, at which point you press a single button and magically every doctor in your country agrees to invent socialized medicine overnight. political movements don’t march, strike, or riot. they just add modifiers to your reform chance. a revolutionary communist uprising doesn’t seize factories or rally discontent workers. instead, thousands of rebel brigades spawn out of thin air across your provinces like angry pokemon, completely ignoring supply, politics, or local leadership. your monarch or parliament can be “reactionary” but they never actually react, they just sit in a tooltip until you click “pass reform"

politics in memegame2 isn’t about factions, patronage, or institutions, no, it’s basically a slot machine where pops spit out ideologies, and you pray the numbers line up so you can pass “good health care” before your empire explodes.