TLDR: If you don't have an external monitor, the game is UNPLAYABLE. Need glasses? Even moreso.
Honestly? The game is such a convoluted mess that it is an absolute BI*CH to even WANT to learn. God does it have so much potential, but fu**ing hell is it an absolute ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ hell to even attempt to play as someone that doesn't have 16 hours a day to learn it, and the learning curve truly isn't even my main complaint.
It is the fact that to even TRY to learn this game you need to navigate 5000 different menus and submenus, as well as the wiki and youtube, while also having zero access to the main feature: THE MAP; because they are, again, trying to teach you everything through submenus and text.
Genuinely, F**k ME, it took me like 2 days of playing 6 hours to at least understand EU4 when I was about 13. This ♥♥♥♥? Fu*ck*in* christ, you can't even use the 'esc' key to move back in a menu half the time.
Even though I've played lots of EU4, I never expected EU5 to be easy to learn due to how complex they wanted the gameplay to become... I followed the whoooole development roadmap. But guess what? their biggest ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ issue is teaching the player how to learn, and giving them a good USER EXPERIENCE.
I absolutely abhor the 'BIG BECAUSE BIG' UI that they apparently have to use for every single game now that they changed engine.
Like, can't you make the MAPS---which are literally the center of the game--- the main thing I can see on my screen? I'm on a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ 14-inch laptop and need glasses. But guess what? When you try their ♥♥♥♥-ass UI scaling to 110%, ♥♥♥♥ gets even more obscured than on their 100%. So... from being able to see like 5% of the screen while playing, now you get 4%. And guess what? There is still so many useless descriptions on-screen that you can't even make sense of it all unless you waste 20 minutes per 3 in-game months just to make sense of what the fu*k is supposedly going on.
PARADOX TINTO, y'all really need to think about the current-end-user for a little bit and not just your but-what-about-in-three-years(?) vision you apparently seem to have for the game. I ain't buying a single ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ DLC of yours again---even though I have all of them for EU4 (because IT was FUNCTIONAL GAME) until you, yourselves, make something that works FOR THE USER.
And, genuinely, exaggeration aside and to truly drive it home, once your tool-tips upon tool-tips are done popping up, who in the ♥♥♥♥ ever asked for a screen that is 3/4ths letters? Aren't you people embarrassed for how unplayable this is? Your entire franchise is built upon maps for f*c*s sakes. Y'all were more than disappointing, but even seem to be actively hostile to your core community.
Addendum: During ym first playthrough as Castile: Even I absolutely purged all graphics on my laptop, the game does run pretty good until about the 1600s where I just got bored of the lack of flavor---don't get me wrong. It is the unplayability of your UI and game that ♥♥♥♥♥ me up the most. I have almost no issues with the sh*t amount of time it takes for a day to pass---after all, I originally played y'all's game on my parent's Mac 2011 desktop.
Please, please, pretty please with sugar on top, PLEASE, Remember the end-user and maybe stop using your ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ 80 inch screens as you program your game... fu*ki*g hell.
Make the UI usable.
