there is no P2W, it’s hard to balance a product perfectly before release without heavy player feedback.
The balancing of the last civs that were released was mostly random. Burgundians were OP, Cumans were very OP, Bulgarians from memory were always roughly balanced from start, Sicilians released in an underpowered state, Poles were slightly too strong, Bohemians are overall fine just too strong on Arena and the new civs seem balanced except maybe Gurjaras who are clearly underpowered… it’s literally random, the devs try their best and I don’t see a pattern of making OP civs under DLC, put your tinfoil hat away.
Possibly Hindustanis are too strong also (but not immensely so), and maybe Dravidians are underpowered also (I personally think they are fine but no mobility + no BBC combo could mean trouble).