If this game -supported- the long game then sure but it doesn't. You really think you can play Hungary and wait until 1940 to finally decide...
"Hey... I want Austria. Let me go just.... Oh. It's... part of Germany? Whelp... I only have twelve divisions... 100k manpower in reserve.... CHARGE!"
"Sir! We forgot that Italy is a part of the axis and with Germany!"
"What do you mean! We only want Austria! CHARGE!"
One day later. Hungary has been capitulated and annexed by the combined forces of germany and Italy who didn't even have to take much off their attacks of the soviets and Africa.
This game does not and will never support a minor country taking until 1940/1 to actually -start- getting war goals and going to war.. And keep in mind, this is the bare MINIMUM of time for Turkey as this is completely ignoring their military focuses in order to remove that debuff. It will not work in Multiplayer and if you have to CHEESE the game in order to do something. It's bad design. Turkey having an earlier ottoman empire DOES NOT AFFECT YOU if you are a historical buff. Click the historical AI focus and let everyone else enjoy their fun.
I repeat. It does not affect you. Someone else having their cake does not stop you from having your cake. You are trying to deny someone else their cake because you think you're the only one who deserves cake.
Maybe I wrote it incorrectly. I prefer to play ahistorically and hence my comments.
It has an impact on my play. By playing ahistorically (90% of my games in the last year), I want the implementation of ahistoric goals of countries to be more realistic (more grounded in history). Hence the suggestion to simplify it, speed it up, facilitate it as a bad direction spoiling my fun. Of course, it's subjective, but I have more fun having a more difficult game when consciously choosing a weaker country (and yes, I like the Dark Souls series very much and I think that the difficulty level of the game is not as deadly there as the memes say).
Therefore, I would rather rebuild the Ottoman Empire until 1942-1943 and with higher penalties for it than now, and then try to do something about it. Of course, something would be great during this period, but decisions, the need to deal with unrest (fundamentalists, Kurds, factions in Greece or Bulgaria) and interactions with other countries (such as the demilitarization of the Bosphorus) is a really cool direction in the development of the game for me.
I agree that many minors have some things too easy (Austro-Hungary e.g.) and for my subjective feeling of having fun with the game, I would prefer it to be more complicated. For example, defeating Germany's AI Austro-Hungary in single-player is, in my opinion, too trivial. Of course, in most cases, it is the fault of AI deficiencies.
However, when I play multi, I would like the weak countries to remain... weak. They still have some possibilities, be it development or influence on war, but they are smaller.
For this reason, I like some form of interaction with majors in the path of Bulgaria or Greece. We ask them for some equipment (for civilian factories), we give PP for something, we ask for a decision on some matter or help in our local conflict. This is what it should look like for me and I hope for more interactions like this.
Especially it would be more profitable for minors to buy equipment or licenses from large countries instead of creating their own models. I'm far from banning it, it should just be more difficult. Again, in the new focus trees, I see the beginning of this - my own industry (profit in the long term) or immediate profit through cooperation with foreign countries (it's great for me!).