[b]The biggest problem I have with the game is that it simply isn't fun.[/b]
[h2]Overall Strategy[/h2]
The game has a huge number of mechanics that are deeply connected to each other, which at first gives you the impression that there are going to be a lot of different strategies and ways to play. Unfortunately, that isn't really the case. You quickly realize that the main strategy is to increase Control in your provinces, take all the Crown Power bonuses, and build buildings to solve the deficits in your market or markets. That's pretty much all there is to it.
Strategies like specializing your market in producing one specific good and importing everything else are massively worse than simply producing those goods yourself, which makes a lot of the market mechanics feel pointless.
Then there is Control, a value that basically governs everything in the game. The problem is that it also gets in the way of a lot of other mechanics, since it limits where you can build, where you can conquer, and so on. One of the most effective strategies during the first few hours of the game is actually to do as little as possible. You build very little, conquer very little, and simply focus on increasing your Control. As a result, the beginning of the game becomes very boring, tedious, and repetitive.
[h2]Diplomacy[/h2]
Diplomacy in this game is terrible, although the problem isn't really the system itself. The diplomat system is fine, but it feels largely unnecessary. EU4 was very different in this regard. One of the first things you would do after starting a game was look at which countries could become your allies and which ones could potentially become your enemies. Here, that barely matters. At least with the countries I have played, diplomacy has not been particularly relevant.
There is also the problem that, as you progress and start getting several diplomats per month, you end up with more diplomats than you really need. If you don't want to waste them, you have to constantly send them to Improve Relations, unless you simply automate the process. It isn't a particularly interesting use of the mechanic and mostly feels like something you have to manage because the game gives you more diplomats than you have meaningful things to do with them.
[h2]Expansion[/h2]
This is one of the areas where I think the game is in the worst state. The game effectively punishes you for conquering territory. When you conquer a new territory, its Wealth is added to your country's total Wealth, but because that territory has 0 Control, you don't actually receive any of that money.
The problem is that the difference between your country's total Wealth and the amount of money you actually collect based on your Control affects a lot of your expenses. This means that conquering new territory can increase your monthly costs without increasing your income. In theory, this isn't necessarily a huge problem because you can integrate those territories, although it takes a very long time, and eventually start taxing them. The problem is that you also need to be able to extend your Control to those territories before you can really benefit from them.
(As far as I understand, adding new territory with 0 Control also affects your Crown Power, which could in turn reduce the maximum taxation of your Estates. I'm not completely sure about this last part, though, so I won't go into it any further.)
This creates a major problem with expansion. Once you have conquered enough territory to have your two Local Governors and your capital providing Control, there isn't really much reason to conquer more land. The only useful way to continue expanding is to create a large number of vassals or fiefdoms.
This is another example of the game's design problem. There are a huge number of mechanics, but the actual strategy is very shallow. If you want to play a conquest-focused game, you expand as far as your capital and Local Governors allow you to, and then you start creating subjects. It doesn't really matter which country you are playing. Whether you focus on conquest, subjects, or internal development, the strategy ends up being pretty much the same.
Even if you want to play tall, you run into the same problem. The market system tends to punish smaller countries, so you are pushed towards growing until you have enough provinces to cover a market and produce all the basic resources locally. This makes it difficult for different countries or different playstyles to actually develop their own strategies.
[h2]Internal Management[/h2]
The game has a huge number of mechanics for managing your country internally, but most of them don't really matter because, once again, everything depends on Control. Control determines your Crown Power, and until you reach a certain level, State Management is basically a mechanic you can't really use.
At the beginning, you assign a few privileges to your Estates and then mostly forget about them for the next 20 hours, until you have improved Communalism enough to revoke a privilege you don't like. There is also a rather hidden menu where you can get a bonus from an Estate in exchange for some Satisfaction. You can use it to get 20 Stability from the Commons, 15 Legitimacy from the Clergy, or money from the Burghers. It works, but it feels a little bit like cheesing the system rather than an interesting part of managing your country.
Another problem is that there is basically no difficulty in keeping your Estates happy, except for the Nobility, which will be causing problems from the very beginning of the game. These mechanics are available from the start, but in practice they are heavily limited until you have already played for quite a few hours. Just like with the other systems, every country also feels pretty much the same. You start with a powerful Nobility and end up making the same decisions in almost every game.
[h2]Dynasty and Character Management[/h2]
One mechanic I have really disliked is Dynasty and Character Management. After the first 20 years or so, you constantly get notifications about characters coming of age, children being born, what education you want them to receive, and so on. There are so many of these notifications that the whole system quickly becomes very tedious to deal with.
The other problem is that Dynasty Management has quite a big impact on Crown Power. If you appoint characters who are close to the king as generals, admirals, or members of your cabinet, you get bonuses. However, all of this can suddenly fall apart when your ruler dies, because you then have to replace these characters with new ones, assuming you even have suitable replacements. The new characters will usually have worse stats, and replacing them costs a lot of Stability and Legitimacy.
For example, let's say your king dies and one of the members of your cabinet was his nephew, who is also the new king's cousin. Suddenly, that character stops belonging to the Crown Estate and becomes part of the Nobility Estate. There is nothing you can do about it. You can't adopt him, you can't marry him to someone close to the new ruler, nothing. You just have to replace him.
The mechanic feels less like something designed to create interesting gameplay and more like an attempt to introduce "historical" elements involving changes of government and family conflicts. The problem is that, in practice, you have very little control over what happens, so you mostly have to deal with the consequences. This is especially frustrating when you have managed to build a very good cabinet and have some great generals, your king dies and suddenly you lose 15% Crown Power. Considering that getting to 35% Crown Power can already be difficult at the beginning of the game, losing 15% is a huge deal.
