I (used to) play this game a lot and that is precisely what is interesting in it imo. In the game you can have some influence on events/characters by doing specific actions: choose the warden of your children with care, try to cultivate alliances with your neighbors through alliances (dynastic alliance etc...) but this is inherently a dynamic system in which the sheer number of factor make it really hard to have a total control of "history".

I frequently find myself playing the game at regular speed and watching events unfold in the neighboring kingdoms, plotting how I could take advantage and by the time my plotting is ready (whether it is engineering a casus belli, assassinating somebody or something else) more often than not the target either changed / disappeared or some more interesting event is taking place (crusades !). Also playing in "watch mode" let's you take the time to read the bios of all the "interesting characters" and learning a lot of stuff.

The learning curve is my gripe with this game. In a 4-5 hour session, I learnt very little of how to actually play the game.

A second 4-5 hour session yielded the same result.

I bought it on sale to play with my SO, and we are both avid gamers, but this was rough. I doubt we'll manage to get into it one day.

Stellaris on the other hand was a lot "simpler" to pick up.

Give a try at playing one of the minor single-county Irish nations, and for your immediate goal, just try to conquer the rest of the island and form the Kingdom of Ireland. It's probably the most toe-in-the-pool area on the game map, since you've only got your immediate neighbors to worry about for the first few hundred years.

While the mechanics are certainly complex, I think a big part of the learning curve is the lack of a concrete objective to focus everything around. It's not just that the game is complex, but that it doesn't even really point you in a particular direction.

Brilliant game, though.

Paradox games are notoriously difficult. I remember, when I bought Europa Universalis 4, I went through 6-7 hours of tutorials on YouTube only to get started. It's still really difficult and I don't understand everything.

I found watching let's plays the best way to get into it and learn the mechanics. There are quite a few streamers who put out newbie guides for it.