That's what I'm expecting as well. Linear routes make sense for China, India and some other places, but there are no clear predecessors or continuations for civilizations like Babylon, the Hittites, the Dutch, and many more. At most you can draw a regional link, but in some cases even that is difficult.
For the Dutch I can give you a continuation (and as short as possible)
Doubt it will be implemented though, but there is a definite continuation possible in the Low Countries area.
Antiquity: In the North and North-West were the
Frisians ; or
In the rest of what now is the Netherlands and Flanders the
Salian Franks came to be during Roman times who were a combination of all the Germanic tribes (Salians, Batavians, Chamavians, Tubantes etc) who lived in the Area.
they would later conquer what is now known as France as the Frankian Empire but the Frankian people kept on living here in the Low Countries but stopt calling themselves the Franks later on.
Exploration: The
United Provinces as they were known (there was no Netherlands yet) came into revolt as their lands fell into Habsburg hands and they revolted to form one nation
(They included Holland, Friesland, Brabant, Utrecht, Flanders, Gelre etc. The North succeded and would later become the Netherlands, and the Southern parts did stay under Habsburg rule (first Spain and later Austria) and would become later Belgium (after being reunited with the north for a while).
This is the time of Dutch Explorers, the big Trade Companies (VOC and WIC), the first proper polder makers and many well known Artists (like Rembrandt etc), and is combined known as the Dutch Golden Age.
Modern: the
Netherlands proper and the building of the colonial empire (until halfway the 20th century, the big trade power and the industrial and technological revolution (especially after WW2).
In game though I only expect that in one of the expansions the Dutch area only will be represented in the Exploration age under the name of the Netherlands as they did with Spain (instead of naming them Castille in the Exploration age to keep room for Spain in the modern age).
If they do so then for the Modern age the Netherlands will have to go into the
USA (the New Netherlands colony incl. New Amsterdam/New York gives a reason for that) or a
Boer republic in South Africa as they were decendents of mostly dutch/flemish colonists. They even could make
Belgium a modern civ to give them some ingame representation too (though that would be a bit weird as modern Netherlands has more people/land/power/higher economy etc).
).
