Representing an exact way how a country that's in political and economic sphere is actually subservient and beneficial to its great power would be a monumental task that would require a simulation that is not even agreed upon academically in the first place or having the CPU power required to calculate all unsold productions and economic effects of this on supply and demand. However these are done in such ways that abstraction is only done when it is necessary because of technical or practical limitations. Such as how sphere mechanics duplicates production or how excess unsold production is destroyed at the end of the day. Victoria 2 uses a few obscure sleights of hands that are essentially abstractions that tie to each other, and these are generally the areas that people complain about most. Victoria 2 is a game that is more simulationist (though by design just an arcade game) and also more able to represent dynamics of the era it is representing (in regards of shifting situation of politics, demographics and economic development). Victoria 2 meanwhile is actually a simple game, it has certain complexities in the coding sense, but as for game mechanics it is built on large amount of fundamentals and very few abstractions. EU4 is a static, and stagnant, game that goes little beyond being risk with (bad) trade despite all the abstractions and complexity they have add over the years, it has became a game that's just a pile of mechanics and abstractions that made it only more divorced from the era it is trying to represent or coherent as a game. Is it a more realistic game compared to Victoria 2, in either for simulation of a game as such in the vacuum, or representing the dynamics of the era it is representing? The answer is no in both cases. It has a lot more mechanics and derivative mechanics, just layers and layers of abstraction on top of each other, lots of regional fluff, cosmetic or mechanic. I would go right ahead and say that EU4 is a more complex game than Victoria 2 in the outright. First one is the misunderstanding that complexity for complexity sake is a desirable goal, second is that addition of abstractions makes a game more 'realistic'. There are two issues here, and one I consider a fundamental misunderstanding of the genre and indeed why Paradox is failing to make good games now. They added some nice things afterwards, like some mechanics, graphical improvements and quality of life additions, but fundamentally nothing they've released after has been a better game overall. I'm in agreement that Paradox doesn't have it in them to release a good game that would be superior to its predecesor. But it isn't particularly difficult to envision a better game in itself.

The game as it is is what an arcade is to a simulation in that aspect. More choices for government, more complexity and more consequence for political reforms, changes and internal political decisions.

There's plethora of good games with better warfare without me ever needing to give you examples on how that could be improved. No game is anywhere near to expressing that for a long time. Realism is a silly word because you probably need to study economics for at least as much as a PhD to even have a competent grasp of the complexity of real world economics. This is already expressed in the game I just want you to imagine more of the same and with more realism. larger variety of population sub-clades having an enormous range of needs. Complexity expressed perhaps in different motivations for demand, supply and economic growth, i.e. More population subsets to reflect real world examples more clearly, such as different clades of lower, middle and upper classes. With more motivations and parameters to become a specific subset of population.

Population mechanics being more complex.

I am not going to give you an extensive list of things I wished this theoretical game had, for I have already pointed out it is theoretical, and as such nothing but mental masturbation, but to give you a few:

Victoria 3 forums