The two best civ games are the ones that had era-appropriate clothing and civil wars. It’s been downhill since.
The two extremes of CivVI play seem to either be an accessible grand-4x game or a min-maxing race to beat deity AI to your target objective. I had a lot of fun with the accessible 4x when I was learning the game, and I still find the occasional urge to take on deity puzzle game.
But in between those two extremes is a conceptual quagmire. Focusing on 4x approaches like mixed arms and economic synergies is less important than rushing the tech tree and timing production to maximize chops. A big part of playing on the higher difficulties is the discipline to ignore marginally effective systems and just lean heavily into the mechanic you’ve chosen to win with.