Victoria 2

Victoria II spans the globe from 1836 to 1936 with over 200 playable nations. Like its predecessor, Victoria II focuses on internal management, covering the industrialization and social/political changes in a country with 8 different government types. The game gives a lot of importance to the economy of a country by having a complex market system with over 50 types of goods and factories. While warfare is a component of the game it is not the primary focus as in other Paradox Interactive games such as the Hearts of Iron series.

Nations' populations are divided into cultures, religions, classes and occupations. There are several different population groups (or "pops"), such as aristocrats, army officers, clergy, soldiers, labourers, slaves, bureaucrats and others. As in other Paradox titles such as Europa Universalis, historical missions called "decisions", which are micro-objectives in the larger game, have been added. There are thousands of historical events and decisions as well. These events and decisions can lead to the creation or disintegration of nation states.

A sequel for Victoria: An Empire Under the Sun was announced on August 19, 2009, as part of GamesCon 2009. Johan Andersson, the lead programmer for Paradox Interactive at the time, talked about the changes in gameplay compared to the previous game and showed the first screenshots of the game, which showed a map of Europe and various interface elements.

Shortly after the announcement of the game, the head of Paradox Interactive Studios, Fredrik Wester, publicly stated that, due to the low sales of the first game, he did not believe in the success of Victoria 2, he voted for another project to be put in development, and that he was ready to shave his head should the game see a profit. On the contrary, Johan Andersson, the initiator of the project, was confident that the game would be successful, referring to the requests and votes by fans and the opinion of the development team. In the end, Andersson and Wester made a bet that, if Victoria 2 was successful, Wester would shave his head, and if it was not, he would have sole control over which game would release next. It was revealed in a German interview with Fredrik that 70,000 copies would need to be sold for Victoria II to be profitable. On June 17, 2010, when it became known that there would be many pre-orders giving the game good sales, Wester asked Jessica Chobot at IGN to shave his head and upload the pictures to Twitter.

Victoria II received generally favourable reviews, achieving a 75% average on Metacritic.

GameSpot said that there was much less micromanagement than in its predecessor. The reviewer stated: "Thanks to a friendlier interface and tutorials, Victoria II is a lot more playable and enjoyable than its predecessor."