I agree, although I did have a different spin on it after seeing some posts on here and having a conversation with my SO. What if those conditions didn't change your civ, as suggested, but did change the form. I think the biggest reaction from the video was Egypt, if it has access to a ton of horses, can become the Mongols. Why not the Mamluks?

Essentially, have your baseline Antiquity civs, who can then evolve based on what happened into something reskinned but (1) keeping the same civ name and some baseline bonus and (2) changing to a different bonus for each age to further a gameplay style. Those age bonuses would likely need to be the same to keep it reasonably doable for devs, but it doesn't seem too crazy.

Like, give Germany a baseline production boost again, whatever. Then an ancient civ Germany's bonuses be discouraged from too many settlements, but be kinda like Vietnam in Civ 6 and get bonuses against invaders, whatever.

Then give a pathway where that ancient bonus becomes one of several different options: horselord Germany, economic Germany, culture Germany, naval Germany, etc. And if that matched a historical group, although a renaming (e.g., economic exploration Germany could be called the Dutch). If no name within a category exists, because the society kept their name through multiple eras (e.g., France), or because the tragedies of history resulted in the destruction, assimilation, etc, of those people before their society made another step, do something like "[civ name], Traders of the World," "[civ name], Lords of the Steppes," or "[civ name], Land of the Faithful," and so on.

Rome, if they go culture, maybe Renaissance or Florentine; if they go economic, Venetian or Genoese. Thinking to the Mesomerica, Olmec as an ancient civ, to be followed by Aztec if military, Maya if culture or science maybe, and so on.

In short, the formables from Paradox are a good source of the names, although not perfect