Civ IV had a very nice mod called Rhye's and Fall of Civilization that "simulated history" up to a point until the starting time period of your chosen civilization, and it had "historical forces" (random and scripted events) that destabilized old civs and sometimes caused new ones to appear. It also had "historical victories", in addition to the usual victory conditions, that were thematic in relation to the chosen player civ (imagine things like (made up, because I no longer remember) "control all of the Mediterranean by X" or "never lose a city to the Mongols while building 6 academies).