I like Microsoft Excel: Tabulating data, writing formulas, designing graphs--it's work, but for some reason it can be fun work. Still, it took some time and had to be spurred by that random moment when I discovered that typing in an "=" into a cell opened up a new world of possibility. Strangely (or, depending on your familiarity with Paradox, maybe predictably) enough, this is also the case with Victoria II--and I'm not sure when it happened, but sometime in my first multi-day game playing as secondary-power Switzerland, the game went from an obtuse jumble of the arcane to a compelling composition of depth.
In typical Paradox fashion, the game initially feels completely unmanageable. A maze of menus, graphs, maps, and numbers, it's anything but intuitive. As someone who has played Europa Universalis and Hearts of Iron, I had the advantage of understanding basic interface setups, map control, and military management. Nevertheless, it still took multiple hours to figure out the basics--I'm over twenty hours in and still feel like I've only recently hit an average level of understanding. I have yet to actually complete a full run through of the game and find myself continually restarting to try out a different strategy, or explore a different layer of what's offered--be it trade, military, colonization, or citizen management. But I keep restarting, I keep trying those new strategies, and I keep visiting the Paradox forums to read fan AARs (After Action Reports--basically game diaries written by fans playing through campaigns). Victoria is an experience that requires homework and it feels worth it.
I'm really not sure how a complete Paradox novice could stand to get started with V2, but the person who remains interested in the game after looking at screenshots is likely to be the same person with the patience to read the Paradox forums and the 100+ page strategy guide. With enough time, they may even find it to be more fun than Excel, even though you may never be able to run a Pac-Man macro in Victoria II.