Laws and ministers sounds very interesting, and a much better way of adding national historical flavour that just "+10 manpower modifier". But I am curious as to what you would define national spirits as?I'm surprised people would say that for national ideas and not focus trees...
So we're all on the same page, by national ideas I meant laws, ministers and most of all, national spirits. The decisions in the focus tree, I call national focus. And I don't see how ideas railroad could railroad your game.
(obviously, I don't mean we should use exactly the same system, but some of those mechanics would be relevant in a Victoria game's context)