Paradox is really good at illustrating how history happened the way it did and why through game mechanics, like in European contact with Asia alone there’s “China is basically impossible to break into when it’s united but when it splits it’s vulnerable”, “Japan is valuable for trade, dominanble by blockade but very tedious to conquer from outside, given the reward”, “if you have a superior navy but no ground force you can still take Sri Lanka, Macau, and the archipelagos”, “the Indian subcontinent is a mess but once you get dug in you could sustain a good spot on the coast”, “Ayutthaya is the empire that could have been”, “the Portuguese colonies were just a series of friendly ports to extend trade range into Asia”, “the British Empire held critical naval chokepoints"…