Humankind: Consider a Civ Tree Instead of Free-Choice

I want to preface this by saying this isn't my own original idea and I'm not even sure it's compatible with the developer's vision, but I thought it had some merit and figured it wouldn't hurt to ask.

dr_boom wrote:

FYI I love this game and the era civ selection is part of why. However, there was a disconnect between the free-choice nature of the civs and my mental model that cultures are somehow related, e.g. Franks to French works, but Huns to French doesn't. 

would we consider making a civ tree? That doesn't necessarily limit choice (every branch can have similar civ profiles) and the trees can connect to each other (for instance, Spain -> Mexico OR Aztec -> Mexico). 

I'm sure there's a lot more to think through here, but I do feel like the civ selection process could better reflect the connectedness of cultures and make early choices more consequential to the late game. 

My opinion on all this is I feel that adding a "culture tree" like this could add replayability, and solve the problem that some people seem to be having of their empires always turning out the same way because they pick the same cultures every time. I'm not sure however if something like this is very plausible because I feel like it would go against the wishes and perhaps alienate a sizable majority of the fanbase.