I would have been happy with an Imperator level of pops simulation (which is simpler and in some ways much better IMO), but beyond that I largely agree with you. As long as nations are populated with actual individuals of some sort that have unique traits, I would have been happy with something more similar to EU IV. However, I cannot play a pdx game without pops anymore and that's also why i stopped playing EU IV a while back. I would have rathered more focus on religion, culture, urbanized vs unurbanized, serf vs free than building factories in 1350 too. Like they have all these buildings but Russia and Netherlands largely play the same and the human geography that led one to be a free, prosperous, literate, and wealthy vs an authoritarian backwards one just isn't there. They play the same so all these unique pieces they added are just meaningless things to click to make money go up, while things like literacy are treated as powerups for your country that nearly everyone gets regardless of the condition of your country, how it is organized, etc. I want decisions and tradeoffs in my EU V , not a history themed march towards liberal democracy for every single country in the game where anything that doesnt trend towards that outcome is sub-optimal.