What a shame. It seems they continuously set overly ambitious goals that they fail to achieve, which leaves a broken product. I wish they could have just stuck to the formula and gave us a modern rendition of what we already love.
For whatever reason they seem to have challenges with 3rd party publishing.
I am not in the industry, so this is just rumors and speculation; allegedly Paradox senior management has been suffering from hubris in recent years.
In the early 2010s Paradox’s management successfully developed their in-house grand strategy series into gaming powerhouses and had solid success with publishing (specifically Colossal Order’s Cities Skylines). In recent years, it seem that this success has gotten to them and they’ve become more insular and responsive, especially with their 3rd party studios/partners.