I got Victoria day before yesterday, and I have been playing it a lot. It’s taken me this long just to get a handle on the economic system - it’s a very complex game, even by Paradox standards (they are the ones who made Europa Universalis and Hearts of Iron).
It’s a lot of fun for those with an interest in history, or alternate history as things may end up. The time frame is 1836-1920. My first successful game has been as Mexico. By 1880 in my universe Mexico reaches from the Mississipi River to the Pacific coast - in 1874 I managed to take Louisiana and Arkansas from the Confederacy. I would have got more but the USA decided to jump in once I was only a little ways from Richmond and took their capital. The USA is the strongest nation in the world, due to extremely high Prestige (not sure how they got so much, maybe it’s their African colonies or conquering portions of Canada), but Austria is an industrial powerhouse. England apparently lost a lot of prestige in the Crimean War but are recovering - they were the 14th ranked nation in 1874 (behind Chile!), but they made it up to #5 by 1880.
The hardest part to get used to is the economy. You have 10 classes of population, and Mexico is seriously lacking in skilled craftsmen to populate my factories at the beginning of the game. You need lots of resources that are tough to get a lot of in the early game to promote population groups to being Craftsmen - paper was the hardest thing for me to get, but once I got a paper mill running I was able to seriously industrialize the nation. Texas is home to one of the biggest artillery factories in the world now. The immigration model is interesting, once I started lowering taxes on the poor and providing social programs they started pouring in from Europe - chunks of southern Mexico and Texas are largely German and Polish in population.
I was feeling regret my first few hours after getting the game, but I’m really enjoying the depth now that I am mastering the interface. I hope there are some other Victoria players on the forums to share tips and stories with.