>>45880
>Also maybe they are making it so that everything is more passive, making it more about watching your country progress while you change laws or change production to try and sway it to do what you want.
That's what Victoria 2 did for almost anything and it's a splendid design choice for simulation. But it had exceptions, allowing (but not demandeding) micromanagement of factories and demanding a traditional military micromanagement. Victoria isn't a war-focused franchise in the Europa Universalis or Hearts of Iron sense, but it still is one of the main mechanics and late-game world wars cripple empires. It isn't about map-painting, at least within Europe, as direct annexation there is too costly, though European powers certainly have to map paint in Africa.
Victoria 2's war system is basically the same as EU's but with mechanics for rising personnel counts and military spending and the transition from Napoleonic to trench warfare. Its problem is that it works fine early on but by World War I there's too much micromanagement because you're still moving around corps like you're a Renaissance-era monarch. Most importantly, the EU system of armies doing battle within provinces is maintained, rather than the HoI system of battles taking place across province boundaries (move = attack).
So a proper overhaul of the combat system would have to implement a transition from inside-province to across-province-border combat within the game's timeframe, it'd be challenging but I don't think it's impossible. Or they'd figure out how to use the HoI system for 1830s warfare. In addition, the micromanagement issue would have to be solved. Maybe with players defining standardized divisions for their armies instead of having to piece together dozens of regiments and/or with a HoI 4-style frontline system, though I'd rather have the end result look like Darkest Hour.

>>45881
In CK2 and in any other Paradox game there are on-map armies and you decide which provinces they invade and where they get to fight. Victoria 3 gutted this, the player has no input on the geography of war.