Yeah I'd highly recommend Tokugawa or Ba Trieu next time you play for an anti-imperialist experience, along with Sukritact's mods for extra wonders and ocean resources.

i still can’t get over Civ VII shooting its foot by copying civ change on epoch - worst feature of Humankind which is by itself rather crap game.

I can't get over it either! Civ 7 was free to play for a week recently (desperate much?) and I had basically the exact same experience the first time I tried it; I played for 3 or so hours and was so confused but also bored stiff that I just stopped playing. People are all like "erm Civ 6 wasn't playable on release either just give it time 🤓" well I gave it 1.5 years and it's still fundamentally broken and deeply unsatisfying even if it does have a couple of good ideas like navigable rivers. Civ 6 DID hook me from day 1 even if it took some time to get used to the mountain of new mechanics. I'm a massive Civ fan and it's heartbreaking that the game is FR unplayable. It's just so disjointed and like... unsatisfying?? Nothing clicks, at all. And the wonder building animations are SHOCKINGLY shitty compared to 6. What a disaster.