The write up in the opening post is very complete. It may be a little bit too complete and complex. I‘d put it simpler on a continuum between Empire Builder versus Board Game Player. So everything that follows are about archetypes with lots of leeway and mixtures inbetween.
I prefer Empire Builder as a term to Roleplaying, since in civ you don‘t control an individual like in other RPGs, but the usual goal here is to build a bustling empire. Kinda like other economic builder games such as Settler, Anno, even SimCity. Whether that has a tilt towards conquering like a Mongol, missionarizing like a Spanish or building Wonders like an Egyptian is just varieties of the same aspect.
On a board game though, time is limited, victories are clear and the question is way more who is better at the game strategically. This playstyle fits way more into Multiplayer, but you can do it in single player as well. Just up the difficulty to Deity and see whether you can catch up to the boni the AI have been given. But once you have, the game gets tedious again. At least to me.
Civ needs to decide for its next itineration which way it wants to go as you can’t really have both (easily). My assumption is that most casual players, probably the big majority of the buyers, are Empire Builders whereas „Play-to-winners“ are more loud on reddit, this forum and the internet. I personally hope for a pivot to Empire Building that would mean to continue their focus on the Visuals, but also find a way to keep the number of decision roughly equal through the ages by reducing micromanagement (capped armies instead of 1upt would be one possibility).
But I do find it important to bring this topic up again, so thank you for that thread