Perhaps another game I could get better and blob faster but...
Eh, my point was you don't really need to blob more/faster. Player with united India + mil ideas can kick around Ottos, Ming, France, Spain, FranceSpain in whatever combo, Russia, etc. Probably even a couple of them at once. You do need to be up to date on mil tech, of course.
But yeah, it still won't introduce the sort of internal checks on expansion that you seem to be wanting. If you haven't already, maybe check out the Mods subforum? You might find some possibilities there, I think some of the mods focus on that sort of thing.