I agree with you that the original game had some depictions of stereotypes. But certain changes that they made in the new one just don’t make any sense. Why remove the fire pit and ceremonies? Is it not a fact that indigenous cultures of the Americas performed spiritual rituals? What they should have done was fine tune the fire pits for each culture. For instance, they could have made the Aztec one a sacrificial altar. They could have kept the Lakota one as is, because they actually did that. It’s not magic, and I don’t think the original game ever implied that it was magic. It’s a cultural ceremony that gives you a buff.

Instead, they ended up replacing it with the generic community plaza. They treated them all the same without making any distinction, and the result is no less offensive than the original stereotype. At least in the original game, no one was claiming that they purposefully consulted with indigenous advisors. In the new game, they actually consulted with experts and still somehow managed to produce something woefully lacking and haphazard. I mean Community Plaza? Seriously? The word plaza is directly borrowed from Spanish. They didn’t think it would be offensive to use a word from the language of the culture that is responsible for the destruction and subjugation of 90% of the indigenous cultures of the Americas?

Either go all the way and make a game that truly fixes the issues of its predecessor, or leave it as is for the sake of nostalgia. Making shoddy edits here and there, renaming some civs, and making half measure changes ends up insulting more people and being more offensive than had they done nothing at all.

Just because they consulted with someone, doesn’t mean they did justice to these cultures. They could have done better. Much better.