I’m looking forward to the African DLC as everyone else, but I hope the entire aesthetics and the design for the “older” civs are updated as well for better consistency (TWC did this well, while TAD didn’t add anything new to the old civs). To name a few:
Mid-late 19c entities: I brought this up when the US DLC is announced. The design of most civs are from ~16c to the Napoleonic Era. The US however is from 18c to mid-late 19c (civil war). Stuff like steam ships could be added to other civs, with limited accessibility, as well. Not to mention several important events in the colonization of Africa happened in the late 19c.
Imperial models: Only the newly added units have imperial models (some fortress age units like skirmishers and halberdiers actually have an imperial model, but the difference is negligible). This also relates to the “Mid-late 19c entities”, like having units with typical victorian era uniforms. Some Royal Guard units could have unique skins as well.
Customizable home cities: There are several home cities that are still not customizable.
I hope these could be updated along with the African expansion, or in the near future.
I come up with something new, as I said in another post:
Some very underwhelming/underused cards and techs can be updated to get more flavor and effects, just like the fantastic job with Spanish Gold (which even evolved into a new meta). This would not interfere with the well-established old metas.
It is even possible to add some more cards that open up more options like the grenade launcher.
Agreed. If the devs are reticent about age ups then tweaking some cards or adding some would be the next best thing.
A cut feature from vanilla that they could implement is black sheep at livestock pens granting you gold instead of food. Livestock pens are underutilized and adding this could be really cool.
Make some of the mercenaries available to each civ trainable much like Sweden.
Church cards for all Euro civs could use a rework.
Native alliance cards like the Inca and USA civs have would add another dimension and promote the usefulness of native civs that many people ignore.
This is a good idea, it seems the new civs have been focused on a slightly later era, not necessarily a good or a bad thing but I think it makes sense to give other civs a similar feel.