There are a lot of old-timers contributing to this thread, and it's great to see them again, but I want to provide some background to the story of Vicky 2 that Johan didn't include. When the original Victoria came out, it was utterly brilliant in concept and kind of inscrutable to play -- which is why I loved it. I think it also sold pretty poorly, especially in comparison to EU and HOI, which were the games that were paying the bills. Despite its handicaps, though, for some reason Paradox decided to produce an expansion/update to the game, called Victoria: Revolutions in 2006. It was a tiny operation -- Pontus Aberg was the lead, Chris King was also there, and Johan worked in the background (someone at Paradox can correct me if I'm wrong about who participated). OHGamer and I worked insanely hard on it as betas, especially OHGamer, and there are other people I remember participating as well -- Pax Mondo, Johnny Canuck, Vulture. Others? I've forgotten now.
Anyway, that expansion was well received, and I guess it sold decently enough to convince Paradox that the game deserved a full reboot. And so -- here we are!
Over the years I participated in about half a dozen Paradox games as either an alpha or beta, but of all of those I am by far the proudest of Victoria: Revolutions. By far.