so i've done eu4, hoi4, the breeding sim. i get really stressed leading up to important conflicts. afraid all my plans will go to waste. doing tons of save scumming. either optimizing or cheating because my free time is so limited and i want to see the cool thing i planned happen.
but vic3 feels more go with the flow. sure, my goal is some kind of communism (national or global), but that's a long ways off and meanwhile i'll just let stuff happen and happily clickity click my little mines and factories into place and relax as 
it's the build-up phase of Hoi4 but lasting 100 years instead of 4
it really does seem like the most materialist paradox map game. you are just a passenger on a train of the forces of history. sure you can press the brakes or horn but you don't feel like an actual "living breathing godhead of a nation directing everything like an infectious alien hive mind"
so yeah. good sleepytime game. hopefully it gets better over time.
the perf patches have helped alot; i use to quit out around 1870... so we're getting there. I've played 100+ hours of vic3 and never made it past 1905