Vanilla EUII was not very "deterministic", when it came to game play and outcomes. Only the events and monarchs were pre-determined, which did often lead to absurd outcomes, such as monarchs dying in battle when there was peace or a OPM Austria or Spain getting events that were clearly meant for a large empire. What "determinism" there was (such as Burgundian inheritance or Unification of Castille and Aragon happening pretty much every game) didn't really ruin the game experience in my opinion - there was still more than enough room for "sandboxing".
When EUIII first came, my impression was that they were trying to contextualize events more, instead of simply having them fire on a predetermined date with the single tag of country existing. So I was more than a little disappointed, when it seemed the game actually lacked most, if not all historical events. As a result, I only bought EUIII last year, with a serious discount.
Instead of contextualizing events, they had been generalized: instead of a realistic event with long and exiting description, most events have little more than a general description of what this style of event does. This seriously diminished the game's ability for story telling. Though at the same time, EUIII has improved many little things, when thinking of its story telling capabilities. For example, rebels with an agenda was IMO a huge improvement in this regard.
I look, more than anything, for a Story Telling Machine when I buy a game, so I would love to see more historicity in the game: more realistic outcomes, more flavour in building and guiding your state.
Needless to say, I greatly preferred EUII soundtrack
