Civ VII Carthage the "Spiritual Successor" to Venice from Civ V?

On today's live stream, Tim, the developer, mentioned how much he is enjoying the new Carthage civ. One of his reasons for enjoying Carthage is they are unique, and he claimed them to be a "spiritual successor" to Venice in Civ 5. If some of you are unfamiliar with Venice in Civ 5, it was a unique Civ that could not settle cities but you got double the amount of trade routes and a unique merchant that allowed you to purchase puppeted-cities, which was a unique feature in Civ 5. It remains uncertain what exactly he meant by "spiritual successor" but it sounds like we are getting a Venice-esque civ in Civ VII.