There might be a bit of a lull in the late 15th century, though I'd class that as part of the early game (no gunpowder, no Reformation and little colonisation make the first century very different from the others). But the 16th century has a fair amount going on, with the Teutonic crusades, the Reformation, the Egyptian civil war, Scotland's union with Norway, a colonial land grab that's a lot more varied and rapid than in vanilla and key decisions of strategic direction for many powers (Brittany, Byzantium and Hungary especially, IIRC).
However, I also have a few criticisms of the current setup in the middle game:
- Granada's default actions after the reconquest of Iberia are pretty dull. I find that AI Granada never fully recovers from the turmoil of the 15th century, and becomes a second-rate power, usually too strong for its survival to be threatened by the French, but too weak to achieve anything of note, often even failing to trigger the reconquest events properly (which messes things up for Savoy, if nothing else). I think there's been an overreaction to earlier versions of Abe, where Granada was too strong, and we need to find some middle ground. In particular, I think Granada gets too hard a time of it in terms of BB.
- Burgundy v Savoy: these two are terribly unbalanced in the current setup, with the result that either Burgundy DAs Savoy and becomes a virtual France, or Savoy turns Reformed, leading to it getting brutally crushed by the Catholic Burgundian army. To make things worse, while Savoy is meant to mostly content itself with French culture (which is after all a great culture to have), and possibly gaining Basque, Burgundy gets the mighty German culture without having to achieve anything and with little justification. Balancing Burgundy and Savoy is a difficult matter, but at the least we could make it very difficult for Burgundy to get German culture (eg they must have most of the Rhineland before they can do so).
- Scotland inheriting Norway: nice idea, but it's never, ever going to happen unless Scotland is under player control and takes an active interest in protecting its inheritance. People say Scotland is overpowered in Britain, though, so I suppose these things balance out.
- Egyptian civil war: also nice, but unfortunately its consequences for the AI are even more devastating than they should be, and whichever side wins never becomes as strong as the early Mamelukes. This may be deliberate, but it would be nice to see a strong Egypt in the later stages of the game.
- the Kaliphate: I'm all for an AI Kaliphate going on an insane rampage in the early period, but when it continues until they have large swathes of India, a presence in the Balkans and a major role in Africa, all at the same time, something needs to be done in the form of more damaging events, and also it should be harder for the Kaliphate to get peace and security on the Christian borders. The power of the Kaliphate relative to almost everyone else in the world seems contrary to the Aberration spirit of having many medium powers vying for supremacy, rather than the giants that emerge in vanilla.
Don't take this as a complete rant - overall I really like Abe - but there are a few things we need to sort out before it becomes a really great mod.
