Hmm i reckon
Romance of the Three Kingdoms start off at the break up of the Han, as one of the three kingdoms, (shu, wei and wu) and try to be the founders of the next dynasty.
Mongol Invasionno empire has ever grown as fast and as far (contiguously) which would make for an awesome sprawling game, or possibly try to defend against the horde (as someone said earlier it could get a little boring waiting around for the mongols to show up >.<)
India Company i think this could be a really cool mechanic, which would allow you to go to war against native populations and other europeans, to start you choose one of the colonial companies, and expand for the glory of the motherland and the wealth of the new world.
Cold Wari know it has been said many times, but i think it really could work well, and would really show off city states, as you try to get more client states, (this was done really well in rise of nations: thrones and patriots), would need lots of 'events' to work properly though
Meiji restoration play as one of the tokugawa samurai clans as they modernise vie for control of japan and eventually fight plenty of wars (sino-japanese, russian-japanese, civil wars and could end with ww2)