I was not a pvp player but I thought Romans were fine. Now I get what I deserve.
The signs were already there since DE: we acquiesced Burgundians and Sicilians, then no stratification or refinement of Italians and Slavs when more detailed civs were added, then mini-games as DLCs, then small stretches like Romans, then the whole “variant” nonsense from other games, because they were borderline “fine”——now it all peaked. They are now free to dump anything without any mental effort. You got more trivial variants lasting a few decades as civs, mini-games forced into the main game, much bigger stretches, and the umbrella Chinese sitting next to its subfactions.
The moral is NEVER support mediocrity under the belief of “they’ll do better next time”. You are only going to send them messages that mediocrity is acceptable.