The essence Victoria 2 – This is population control. Everything else represents economic development, politics, war and other aspects of strategic activity aimed at improving the quality of life of the people. To this end, the nation is divided into SOZ – groups of people who share culture, religion and type of work. Each unit has at least 17 properties: size, job type, nationality, religion, location, militancy, consciousness, ideologies, problems, unemployment, cash reserves, living needs, lust for luxury, likelihood of rebellion, height and literacy.

In the game “Victoria 2” the industrial revolution is just beginning, so players must make the country's industry work. There are many types of raw materials, production settings, interdependencies between capacity, consumption, wages and skills. If the gamer has control over the economy, he can build factories manually or order materials and then use them for construction.

It is also necessary to play a political game. There are all sorts of reforms, both social and political, that can be carried out to shape a nation (unless the upper house will allow it to happen). Regardless of what type of government the gamer controls, he will have an upper house in his state. If its members do not support the reform, it cannot be carried out. No matter how badly the people themselves want this reform, or how many rebels rise up and destabilize the country, it is impossible to reform anything here without the approval of the appropriate authority.