Basically the game requires the Paradox Launcher to run. Based on the errors you get on install steam attempts to install the paradox launcher into the prefix but for some reason the installation is failing.

I'm starting with looking at the C++ re-distributions and Java. If those don't work I'll swap to my windows laptop and hope that installing the paradox launcher on there will give a hint as to what it's missing.



Ideally one of the dev's sees this thread and tosses us a bit of a technical bone to point us in the right direction. If anyone does figure out what's missing I'd private message one of the devs directly so that the missing component can be added to the steam install process. That way the majority of users doesn't have to fiddle with protontricks.