Victoria II

Impressively complex but also restrictive. If you're not playing one of the "intended" countries, you'll end up sitting around doing virtually nothing with minimal goals at best and hard coded disadvantages at worst. Otherwise, it's overly centralized on pops that land value is mostly irrelevant to such a degree that low value land is more valuable if it has high pops. I can't hate this entirely since its take on pops is fascinating and intricate, but this is overpraised.

Doesn't do it for me in the way eg EU3 does, perhaps due to its more free-form nature and lack of guiding hand.

Very challenging and fun. It is one Paradox studios most unpolished games but also one of their best.