I’m interested to see if they go towards this direction in the proposed “Collapse” mode. Actually destructive Crises that are more focused on saving what little you can coupled with longer Ages sounds like fun. New Civs and IPs can spring from the remnants of your empire in the following age and you’d have the option of fighting for the land back. Almost like a simulation of the fall of Rome or the changing of Chinese dynasties.
I think they need to go in more than one direction on Age Transition/Civ Collapse.
Age ("Collapse") Transitions where you have No Choice but to change Civs because your old one is simply no longer viable (like, Your Civ Has Become An IP: start another game or change Civs) would 'force' the Civ Switch Narrative.
On the other hand, there has to be another potential outcome, because the current transitions where you have no choice but to switch is simply not viable with the majority of gamers.
This is why any Collapse mode has to also have a "Struggle Through" mode in which, although possibly seriously crippled, your Civ survives in some form.
I would go so far as to postulate that survival could include elements of the current Transition Model.
As in, you might change various Uniques and aspects while keeping the Civ title and graphics - a sort of Extreme Legacies imposed by the way you coped or failed to cope with the Crisis.
Another potential outcome would be changing to a transitional Civ - as in, the current model of having 'historical choices' (as warped as some of them appear to be) like Normans from Rome or Chinese Dynastic transitions. Made actually transitional (Rome OR Greece to Byzantium, Han to Tang Dynasty, Norman to Britain, etc) this should give the gamer many aspects of his 'old' Civ combined with new and more Age-appropriate Uniques with the 'new' Civ.
And finally, a complete change of Civ in (almost) all aspects. This is what we frequently have imposed upon us in the current game, but change Imposed to Choice and it becomes more palatable. Basically, this is saying I got hit by every imaginable Crisis, lost X percent of my population to plague, another percentage to Emigration, lost my capital, my army, all my trade routes. The only thing left of my Civ is Legends and fuzzy memories - but I'm not out of the game yet, I can still continue playing as
Insert Totally Inappropriate Civ Here
The point being that it might not be your preferred choice, but it is a choice, not a mandate from the Developer Gods . . .