Haixi can bumrush to Qing now with some sick moves, Ottomans as easy game or castile/portugal for the colonization. I never played france or england because i didnt have a sense of focus on it. Of course my favorite opener was Aragon no CBing byzantium and kicking ottoman's ass with austria/poland and taking a bunch of land for myself and eventually diploannexing byz and becoming byz myself. probably easiest roman empire start.
teutons are also good if you can get into HRE to go full prussia