Disclaimer: This information gathered in this post is not an official announcement from Firaxis. It is obtained from data mining from xml files of Civilization VI after every major update, which may or may not reflect future contents. Only read this blog post for information and discussion purposes.
(Most of the content from this post was gathered by Potworny, a Polish user on the CivFanatic Forum. You can read their full post here:
The Hidden and Unused content of Civilization VI | CivFanatics Forums)
The question on everyone's mind at the moment is what the final civilization for March is. There are largely two sides: one is for a Native North American civilization (for the sake of geographical completion), and two is for Portugal (considering how much of a fan service NFP has been). Firaxis has been surprisingly tight-lipped when it comes to the last civilization, especially considering all civs revealed had been leaked way before their release (with the sole exception of Gauls), most notoriously Vietnam/Kublai Khan and the Monopoly game mode were leaked in a readme 6 months prior to their official announcement. This blog post's purpose is to inform you that there are many pieces of content that are planned during the development of Civ6, but have never seen the light of day. That includes Genoa as a playable civilization and an unused model of a leader.
To save you a google trip, Genoa is one of many independent maritime republics before the unification to become modern Italy. Considering the inclusion of Venice in Civilization V was a massive success and Venice became one of the most well-received civ of the Brave New World expansion, Genoa seems like a decent potential replacement for Venice in Civilization VI. Genoa was included among the playable civilizations for the Vanilla Civ6, instead of being mixed with city-states:
genoa-png.566571 (570×651) (civfanatics.com)
This mention of Genoa exists until this very day. Notice how the Aztecs isn't included in this list? The list must have been planned before the plans for any DLCs that followed. However, that is not the only mention of Genoa. In both expansions, there are always some files that mention Genoa:
g2-png.566576 (1307×138) (civfanatics.com)
Now, does this mean Genoa will pop up as the last civilization of NFP? Not really. For unknown reasons, it was planned for the base game of Civ6, even before the Aztecs but never made the cut. It was considered again for both expansions, but still it has never arrived, so it is extremely unlikely it will show up now. However, it is worth pointing out that NFP has not had a naval powerhouse yet. We have had at least 1 naval civ in every expansion, including the first series of DLCs, but this overwhelmingly points at Portugal, considering how popular of a request they have been. This blog post serves as a fun read during the one month we wait for the announcement of the final inclusion, and a reminder that Firaxis may have a few tricks left up their sleeves and there could still be some curveballs left (if there are still contents to come, that is).