We shouldn't expect all the "major" European civs to get modern era representation, and that's okay.

[Evolena]

That‘s how I remembered it: the other civs are playing and competing for wonders, but you cannot meet them. There was another „official“ source (I don‘t know where) saying something along the lines of „the map literally expands.“ So, I think it is safe to assume that it is factually impossible to meet these civs in Antiquity.

Yeah, I think the confusion comes from this "literally", which is not to be understood literally here. What expands is your ability to reach already existing parts of the map that you couldn't reach before (thus the ability to meet the civs there), not the actual hexes of the map.
Thus, these other civs are yet on THE map, but not yet on YOUR (mini)map.

 

[gdr_willter]

I‘m also not convinced 56 wonders in antiquity will ruin the balance when the goal is to build 7. 7 wonders are a lot (and you need to fulfill all requirements to build them in the first place), it’s a big investment nonetheless. The only thing that changes is that there is less competition for each wonder. But if we had 12 wonders and we would need to build 7, then in most games no one would reach a cultural golden age. And I don‘t believe the number 7 is going away until I see it.

Highly agree with this. Requirements to unlock wonders and the settlement cap will prevent wonder spamming in early Antiquity age. And there will be more hostile rivals who'll try to burn down my constructive empire to reach their militaristic goal.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Highly agree with this. Requirements to unlock wonders and the settlement cap will prevent wonder spamming in early Antiquity age. And there will be more hostile rivals who'll try to burn down my constructive empire to reach their militaristic goal.

Not to mention the fact that Wonders are Popular. I'm not the only "Wonder Hog" in the fan base or customer base, who will build Wonders just Because They Are There.

Which means, overall, if they have the resources to devote to them, having more wonders in the game is almost always a good thing from the standpoint of both gameplay and marketing. IF there seem to be too many Wonders (as posted before, my Historical/Prehistorical Database now lists 61 Wonders up to 400 CE, the start of Civ VII's Exploration Age) then simply include a mechanic for limiting the number in play randomly in addition to those associated with specific Civs, possibly by difficulty level.

So, for instance, on a standard map with 5 Antiquity Civs, there might be 10 Wonders in play in addition to the associated Wonders with the playable Civs at an 'Average' difficulty level, but only 6 Wonders in play at Diety - meaning that the competition will be ferocious to complete 7 Wonders. as it should be at that Level, but it doesn't matter to the play of the game what size 'pool' of available Wonders you are allowing in a given game set-up..

 

[Xandinho]

I believe they have feedback from their surveys indicating that a large part of the fan base enjoys building wonders, which might be one of the reasons there are so many of them. Speaking for myself, I really love building them and appreciate the vast variety from all over the world. Even though it might seem like there are a lot of wonders, it's worth remembering that more civilizations will be added, and eventually, at some point there will be more than 10 antiquity civs, so the competition for them won’t be as loose. Plus, we’ll have to deal with inconveniences like giving up building them to defend against an invading army. Building 7 wonders will not be as easy as many think.

 

[chaosprophet]

So, for instance, on a standard map with 5 Antiquity Civs, there might be 10 Wonders in play in addition to the associated Wonders with the playable Civs at an 'Average' difficulty level, but only 6 Wonders in play at Diety - meaning that the competition will be ferocious to complete 7 Wonders. as it should be at that Level, but it doesn't matter to the play of the game what size 'pool' of available Wonders you are allowing in a given game set-up..

I don't think it would make sense to change wonders available based on difficulty. The legacy path are supposed to be of similar difficulty, Would they make then less resources available on the map on higher difficulties? What about the codex one, would they increase or decrease the number of mastery for tech and civs depending on difficulty? Also the wonder thing is likely only Antiquity, so they would decrease the number of wonders available on that era but keep them in higher numbers on the later eras? I don't think it makes sense in many ways.

if difficulty affects legacies in any way, probably would be to increase the amounts needed for each bonus, and for all legacies. But even that seems not very likely when the codex one has a hard limit. Chances are difficulty just make the AI better, so the AI is better at doing the legacies themselves, so you need to do better on them yourself to not get behind or to get a better advantage there to counter other bonus the AI may have.