I try running this on Linux; I remember being able to run an old version of the game (physical CD) on an older version on Wine (and an older machine), so this should not be completely hopeless.

There are some instructions online for the Steam version.
However, while I got some inspiration from them, they are not exactly applicable to the GOG version — for instance, this comes bundled with .NET 3.5, so that installing `dotnet20` is not a good idea.

So far I just succeeded in displaying the very first loading screen (the one with a locomotive) and then I get a crash (related to `devenum.dll` — I cannot find anything related to this on the Wine forums yet).

Has anybody been more successful?

Hello

It's been some time since you posted this, so you might have already found a solution but I'm going to post my findings just in case.

I have the steam version, so I dont know if there's anything different between that and the GOG version, probably not.

Victoria 2 - you need a 32bit wine bottle + d3dx9 + vc2010 (optional) - tested on system wine (version 4.0) on POL with just a 32bit bottle and d3dx9 runs fine [try v2game.exe and victoria2.exe either or one is going to work], look in the game's folder for these redistributables (at least in the steam version there is the dx9 redistributable in the game folder which I also tested and it works just as well) + steam also has some common redistributables in ~/.steam/steamapps/common/Steamworks\ Shared/_CommonRedist

This is what I've recorded some time ago. I never tested the game extensively but it seemed to work as intended. I know I did that through POL and you were talking about pure wine but it should at least give you a few ideas, if it doesnt work.

There is a DX version and a VC version in the game folder for me and there should be something like that in the GOG version too. You seemingly only need to install DX9 in the wine bottle and for me it's in .../Victoria 2/dx. You can never go wrong with the proper version of DX9, you know, the one that's packaged with the installation files of the game but of course you can try all sorts of versions with winetricks.

Good Luck!