For me Europe is like this:
1- THE BIG SEVEN: England, France, Germany, Spain, Rome, Greece and Russia.
2A- GLOBAL EMPIRES: Portugal and Netherlands.
2B- REGIONAL EMPIRES: Poland/Lithuania, Sweden and Bulgaria.
2C- "ALTER" EMPIRES: Macedon, Byzantium, Italy, Austria and Francia/HRE.
3- BIG STATES: Denmark, Russ and Hungary.
4- MINOR STATES: Anything else.
I could be happy if CIV7's Europe is done with just tier 1, 2A and 2B anything else is non playable material, but of course we all know Europe would get a lot more since is the biggest market.
Italy should be part of big seven, I'm sorry, big eight. It's not, in any way, 'worse alternative' to Rome. It is a separate civilization which in many regards way superior to Rome.
It's a separate civilization, culture, language, identity etc from Rome, it had gigantic importance for the entire European and global civilization all the way since early medieval era to this day, had temporary period of decline in 18th and 19th century (but who didn't at some point), became united country and remained it for last 150 years, for this entire time was among top economies in the world even if behind UK/FRA/GER, at late 80s it was like 5th largest economy in the world etc. Even besides the fact it has ben a united country for 150 years, with Garibaldi being among its obvious leaders, the fact it was divided before should mean nothing when we have Greeks every game. Sure its ww2 reputation is terrible (which we should be thankful for considering its allies) but it has valiantly fought for its independence from Austrians and on ww1 front, if we desperately yearn for military stuff.
Enormous Italian innovations in theoretical science and philosophy devastate almost complete lack of those accomplishments in non - Greek (Latin speaking) Roman empire*, Italian literature is as magnificent and 'classical' as Roman literature (Dante, Petrarca and Boccaccio alone can take on Roman litearture and it's uncertain what side would be a winner among critics and audience), Italian architecture has beaten Roman architecture in every artistic and technological regard, Italian painting and music are global top tier in comparision to Roman which barely survived (no matter how glorious they have been), Italian urbanization and economy reached Roman levels by late medieval
(except city of Rome itself which relied on African and Egyptian grain in the ancient era), Italian cuisine conquered the world, and Italy is like third most popular global country for tourists mostly not because of its Roman remnants but because of its post - Roman culture (plus landscape).
Italian civilization has produced Leonardo da Vinci, Giuseppe Verdi, Galileo, Enrico Fermi, Dante Alighieri, Caravaggio, Giotto, Marconi, Michelangelo, Petrarca, Marco Polo, Pavarotti, Volta, Monteverdi, Brunelleschi, Fibonacci, Galvani, Thomas Aquinas, Machiavelli, Umberto Eco...
How can people look at those people and the look at Rome and say 'yes, this represents them, we don't need Italian civilization in the game' is baffling to me, and how 30 years in those series the civilization which has been probably among top dozen most important cultures in global history has never appeared in those series, but
with all respect Canada and Australia did.
* - I have studied philosophy as my bachelor's and the consensus treats Roman philosophy before Augustine as a patch and compilation and few comments on the Greek one, with zero major theoretical innovations until very end. As for science, there is not a single recorded Latin writer of the entire Roman era who left a single manuscript innovating something in theoretical mathematics and associated sciences.