The first video about Zheng He is actually an argument in favour of europeans. Zheng He sailed by the coast. Take a look at the routes that he travelled. Always by the coast. And the routes where he stays away from the coast, in the Indian Ocean, were well known and explored by the Arabs before. The innovation of the Portuguese and the Spanish was the ability to sail across the oceans, against the currents and the winds. I don't deny that the chinese made tons of discoveries before the europeans and were technologically more advanced in several fields by the early 1500s, but sailing in particular was not one of them.
Still on the subject, Leif Erikson also discovered America 500 years before Columbus, but again, he sailed near the coast, and what was long term impact of his discovery? None. So this is not really about Europe > World, but the fact that technical developments themselves are necessary buy not sufficient. Institutions and incentives are fundamental for progress, and that's what the game tries to model. The fact is, Europeans in the XVI century had the right institutions and incentives to lead further technological developments, and it created a snowball effect which culminated in XIX century imperialism. To throw all that away and to say that anybody else was equally likely to achieve it, as if this process was random, is to spit in the face of history.
Again, this has nothing to do with the intelligence of individuals, or the sophistication of societies, it is simply to acknowledge the fact that there were reasons why Europe dominated this period in history, and the game should try to model that. If all the nations in the world always end up with the same institutions by the end of the game, or technologically on par, something is not right. And this is not railroading either, because a player in a different geography should have the capacity to change history, but that should not be simple to achieve. If anyone can do it, you're not so special, and it decreases the player reward.
