I love Alex AI!!!

I am currently playing an AS campaign. As usual, Makedonia got kicked out of Makedonia by Epeiros, but it could hold on to Thessalia. It managed to conquer all of Southern Greece from the Greeks, plus Pergamon. Being a good ally, I wanted to provide them with the means to tip the balance to their favour, since they were in a stalemate with Epeiros in Thessalia. So I started a little expedition.

I put together a small army in Ipsos (mostly Thureophoroi, light cavalry and some skirmisher support... and CHARIOTS :2thumbsup:) and marched to Byzantion to conquer it, RPing to seal off the Bosporus for enemy trade fleets. Worked very well. But as other matters demanded my attention, I decided to leave Byzantion to Makedonia as a bridgehead.
I wanted to give it to them as a present but they refused. Quite rational, as Epeiros controlled nearby Tylis and had a large and powerful army closeby. So I decided to give them some money so they could take necessary measures to defend their bridgehead. I presented them another proposal to give them Byzantion and an additional 1375 mnai to cover their first defense expenses. They accepted and established a foothold in Thrace.
Time went on as did the fighting in Makedonia and Thrace. I sent a spy there to check out the situation and - voilà - Makedonia had conquered Tylis and was marching on their lost homeland from 2 sides. Fighting was hard and bloody but a few years later they owned Makedonia again. Glad that my Ally was doing well, I sent a Diplomat there, RPing that my king sent his congratulations. I asked them for a map exchange (map information for map information). They presented a counter-offer to me:
A gift of 1375 mani. At first it didn't make any sense to me but then I realized that they were paying me the money back I gave them before.

This is my first campaign with Alex.exe and I totally love it.
Apart from the above mentioned event, Carthage is going Hannibal on Rome and has conquered the Mediterranian coast of Iberia up to Tolosa. Plus they even conquered Syrakousai.

I've never been so happy to hear something of this sort before! Perhaps that is because I haven't really heard something of this sort before, haha. I'm truly glad to hear this chain of events. I do wonder how Rome will deal with Carthage's aggresive movements. What about Epeiros? What will become of Pyrrhus' empire?

Rome is quite passive towards Carthage. After all Carthage took Tolosa from the Romans. The Romans are busy fighting Germans in the Alps and uprisings in Southern Italy. The Epirotes are going to clash with the Romans in the Upper Balkans, since they are in a state of war because of the uprisings (the Southern Italic cities rebel to Epeiros). Epeiros still holds the Lower Balkans, its homeland and Serdike, so they ain't gonna bite the dust all too quickly.

Ill try a AS campaign next, what units do AS get in their reforms? and how many reforms do they get?

Just one, and you'll get Cataphracts

Didn't they also move TABs to the Cata reform?

Never tried it, I wouldn't waste two fine armies for some silly horsies.

I've never played on Alex, but I just switched to BI, and I immediately noticed better AI. Carthage sent elephants to Italy on a boat. I've never seen that happen on regular RTW. Usually Carthage just sits in Sicily and maybe they take Messana or Syracuse after like 20 years.

Playing as AS when I had the largest empire on the map I received a gift from the Lusotann who had the second largest.

I had just invaded Macedon and was destroying their empire which had been substantial until I took Greece when a Lusotann diplomat approached Byzantion and offered me a gift of 10000 mnai plus a ceasefire for no reason except perhaps to get on my good side. I had been at war with them for 30 some odd years because of my hostility to the KH, their protectorate. I suspected they wanted trade rights with me as they prepared to attack the Romans who had recently regained Italy from Carthage.

Newest developements:
I marched into Egypt, beating the Ptolemaioi armies again and again. An adopted General called Thraikikos is their current faction leader... a military coup d'etat obviously. I then conquered Crete which seems to have been considered their spjere of influence by the Makedonians. As soon as my troops marched into Alexandria, welcomed by the population there, Makedonian fleets blockaded all my ports in the Aigian Sea which seriously disturbed my cashflow. Even more so, as a huge Ptolemaic fleet (with Huge Poliremes) still controlled the Eastern Mediterranian and I was not able to build up sizeable fleets to break Makedonian naval dominance in the Aigian. But since I conquered Memphis and was able to sneak an army to Salamis and conquer it, the Ptolemaic fleet has retreatet into the Nile Channel to protect the Red Sea from my increasing navy.
Taking Pergamon from Makedonia, I took a huge source of income away from them. The result being that Epeiros used the economical upper hand and after some seriously successful campaining in Northern Greece (lots of historical victories for Epeiros) was able to again occupy the Makedonian heartlands. Of course I allied with them, as they seemed to be a more grateful ally since our shperes of interest do not collide.

Carthage has been beaten back in Sicily (they only own their starting settlement there now) and Southern Gaul. However, Carthage has established a firm Triple-Alliance with Lusotania and Aedui. The Romans being fairly isolated diplomatically except for Makedonia. They gave me some 3000 mnai as a gift so I would be diplomatically benevolent towards them. We'll see how things will develop. Right now the absolute conflict hotspot is Gaul, since that is where the 4 top factions (after me of course) all meet: Carthage, Lusotannan, Aedui, Sweboz. That's gonna be pretty interesting.