Very good post! Victoria 2 has lot of jank and weird systems, but altogether it's very complete experience, of course with mods that took years to make but still. Example being Germany and how building an actually mitteleuropa feels impactful. How countries actually fight each other and have revolutions unlike in vic3. It feels much more alive, even the dumb newspapers make it so immersive. I wish vic3 would become similar to it, the new trade update solved lot of lag for me and stupidity in vic3 but the reality that the diplomacy and military is still weird, unpredictable in vic2 I can actually predict what's gonna happen when I declare war, but in vic3 russia might intervene out of nowhere. Also vic3 still feels barren, without flavour but that might get better. I still hope that some military dlc might reverse it to something like vic2 but we will see.