Yeah, I recall the old one (though TBH I thought it was not particularly great). I think it'd be fun to have a modern spin on it for sure, I just don't know how you put together the actual game and make it work. I tried to spec one out not that long ago and getting bogged down by trying to adequately represent, if not everything, then a reasonable subset thereof. The winnowing down of models of government and religious aspects into a more manageable few after the Western Roman Empire "fell" helps a lot from a design point of view.