I've been playing a game called Old World, which is basically Civ with decent UI and AI. The UI is intuitive and uses a nested tooltip system similar to Crusader Kings 3. The AI is pretty decent at war, it will flank you, use its strengths against your weaknesses, and will retreat to heal units that you don't finish off instead of fighting unwinnable battles.
It's set entirely in the ancient time period instead of having multiple ages, which I find this to be a strength since units and technologies remain relevant throughout the entire game. Also, ethical sales practices: the base game is very complete and DLC only adds small changes unlike most games in this genre (looking at you Paradox). The game's also on GOG, which itself is a green flag in several ways.
The developers are active daily on all support channels (Discord, Steam, forums etc). I've seen people attach saves asking for help, and a dev always respond a couple hours later in great detail.
It's set entirely in the ancient time period instead of having multiple ages, which I find this to be a strength since units and technologies remain relevant throughout the entire game. Also, ethical sales practices: the base game is very complete and DLC only adds small changes unlike most games in this genre (looking at you Paradox). The game's also on GOG, which itself is a green flag in several ways.
The developers are active daily on all support channels (Discord, Steam, forums etc). I've seen people attach saves asking for help, and a dev always respond a couple hours later in great detail.