I was thinking of a way to work ourselves around the limit. A pretty unique way:
You said there are no more than 18 civs in a game, so you make 9 civs. These 9 civs when having a revolution split into 2 revolution civs if the civil
war is not resolved. Here's the unique part, let's say one civ is England, and it's post revolutionary civs are United States and Great Britian. The English empire collapses and now the two revolutionary civs are born. You pick whichjone you want to be. Also one revolutionary civ will be dominant over the other. So you can pick Great Britian (dominant) over America (non-dominant) if you think it will be too hard to take over America.
Btw, that was my idea I had in the shower the other day.
My proposed civs are:
England- Great Britan & United States
China- Mongolia & People's Republic of China (?)
Rome- Italy & Byzantine Empire
Germany(?)- France and Germany
Greece(?)- Greece & Macedonia
A native American civ- 2 native american civs
Russia- Russia & Former Soviet States (?)
Muslim Empire- Arabia & Spain
Egypt- did Egypt ever have revolutions????
Obviously historically a lot is wrong with the proposed civs, but most of them are placeholders. For instance I put Germany and France together to save space, and in the middle ages, I believe they were closely related.
Agian just a proposed idea though.