The setting of the game are the Middle Ages, and it is going up to the beggining of the Renaissance, not the “early modern period”.
There is no hate towards Europe at all, but the image that people have about the European history is often based on myths and lies.
Spain “by far the most important nation of this period”, you can’t say these things seriously. Nationalism is still strong in Europe.
You can’t even have a civ called “Spain”, the Iberian was settled by Visigoths, a Germanic tribe, then conquered by the Arabs, and for most of its Christian period it was fragmented in individual Visigothic, Christian Kingdoms. Which one you want? Aragon? Castille? Asturias? Catalonia?
The situation is similar for Medieval Italy, It was part of Byzantine, Frankish or Holy Roman empires, then Venice? Naples? Sicily? Tuscany? Papal states?
Unless the devs find a way to put all of them in one bag, (which wouldn’t be very accurate historically) I don’t see the point of being so demanding and overestimating the importance of these states on the expense of others.
You should realize that there are many, many other nations around the globe that have been more powerful than that and also have the right to be represented while keeping the amount of civs at a reasonable number.