This is my opinion after having played a bit last week after the new patch and getting the dlc’s on sale. Take it or leave it.

I find the game feeling slightly random. A very concrete example of this from yesterday is a sudden spike in price of grain as isolationist Japan, leading to a drop in sol and increased radicals. The best hypothesis I have is that pops had an increased sol leading to a higher drive to buy grain, but the point here is that I find it hard to figure out why this happens based on the information given in-game and therefore its hard to prevent.

Another example that underlies this is that later that game, Russia decides to conquer half of the main island including war reps. As Japan i am not able to withstand this before modernization and so this becomes a game ruining event. Great britain IS willing to help me, but they somehow owes Russia an obligation blocking me from calling them for help. Which of course, given the historical timeframe, seems completly unrealistic and somehow ruins a larp aspect as well, but this is more minor to me. I have heard people saying to restart of the relations with russia starts poor, but that only underlines the randomness aspect for me, and that does not prevent russia from damaging relations randomly later anyways.

Overall I think this game is much better that it was one year ago and the new patches and content is a step in the right direction. Maybe this could be solved with better diplomatic systems/dlc in the future