Looked for a thread on this but didn't see one; could have easily missed it.

Would be nice if the empires were referred to by their leaders name, or by the empires color, and not by the current culture -- it becomes confusing to follow who was what and who is whom currently, and breaks the immersion in the game.  As someone else said earlier, it also makes you feel less connected with the AI leaders.

agreed

Agreed

And maybe renaming the nation names for something like <Current Culture> of <Player name or first region/capital or colour> for even more clarity.

This would be big and is a small change but would go a long way. It's weird to see your neighbors go from Olmec to Rome. Would rather just see the name of the leader.