Let’s be honest, the data from this survey has been extremely abused by making such extrapolations about things that are far outside the scope of the poll. If anything, this poll likely overstates the support for a Slavic or Balkan DLC by only offering a “yes or no” choice. It’s very likely that the “yes” vote has been padded by people for whom a Slavs/Balkan DLC wasn’t really their first or even second choice, but were okay with the idea of such a DLC before too long, and chose that over the “No” option which presents no immediate prospects or enticement.
If you don’t believe me, here’s a poll from a month after this one was made in which people were actually given the freedom to choose from a nearly exhaustive list of regions and given up to 5 votes, meaning if they had any interest in the next DLC being Slavic, Balkan (or anything else), that was likely to be reflected in the poll. An important caveat is that for whatever reason the poll had fewer participants, but otherwise it gives us a lot more detailed information. Let’s look at the results.
Top choice is East Africa. A continent that you said “wouldn’t even get 20%” as a whole has a single region sitting at 35%. Next up is South America at 25%, and various other regions around the 20’s. We finally encounter the Balkans when we get down to 10%, and Russia at 6%, for a grand total of 16% of people who voted for a Slavs and/or Balkans DLC as one of their top 5 choices. Hardly the preponderance of support that you keep implying here.
If you think I’m being unfair, perhaps it’s time for a new poll. It’s been a couple months, and perhaps opinions have changed. As a bonus, we might even get our friend @DairyChimera759 to reappear from the æther he vanished into immediately after making this thread.
I understand that you’re probably referring to the absence of writing in South America, and the lack of iron smelting generally, but apart from that I want to push back a little against such an imprecise generalization. But yes, there are some information and technology gaps that present some difficulties for some American and African civs relative to many Eurasian civs.