[Gameplay] There is much more to the game than building armies, conquering provinces

I see complaints about how slow the game is, when you have to spend time assimilating a new conquest, rather than just moving on with your army to the next target. Along with suggestions that there's nothing to do but click on the next turn button and wait until things calm down. Which just demonstrates a lack of imagination, and worse ignoring an entire aspect of the game. You should have plenty to do, if you are more active than just conquering settlements and use a little imagination.

That requires you to take an interest in what's going on around you even aside from where you're going to conquer next, and having an agenda about how you want the AI factions near you to develop. This might be preparing the way for your eventual invasion, or just stirring the pot to prevent anyone getting too strong. You might want to ensure nearby factions remain weak and divided, or play favourites with some you want strong over others. It's statecraft.

You have agents; there's an entire "shadow game" you can be playing without ever using an army.

Spies should be keeping an eye on what's going on in your locality, and watching for the rise of powerful potential enemies. It's useful to have a spy in every foreign-controlled settlement that borders you, just to cause opportunistic civil unrest. Perhaps even a revolt which will keep that faction busy. You can do long-range scouting by sticking a spy on a ship and coasting about seeing what's happening around the place.

Assassins can accelerate that process (through sabotage), or hamper their attempts at diplomacy by killing their diplomats whenever they try to engage with a faction you want to keep them at war with, or prevent from making an alliance. You've also got to keep their assassins and spies out of your patch, too.

Diplomats for bribing away enemy stacks and funding the enemies of your enemies to make their lives more difficult. If you're waiting around anyway, you have the time and energy to look at creative ways to use diplomacy to advance your interests.

Then there's use of your armies for things other than conquest. Helping your allies defeat a mutual enemy, by destroying their armies, without taking any land. The odd punitive expedition where you send a mercenary army with a disposable FM deep into enemy territory, engaging as many of their armies as you can along the way. Maybe you take a settlement here and there, but you don't keep them, you abandon them shortly after. You let it revolt so that it's a problem for the AI to deal with as your army moves on. Or intervening in a distant war that has no chance of blowing back on you, just to stir things up and keep the AI factions weak, preventing a victor emerging stronger from the conflict.

There's lots you can be doing when you're waiting to assimilate a place.

I'll second that! Granted there's a lot of work to be done so that this type of gaming goes smoothly but next releases should oblige. Other than that... it's dead on.

To wit, in a Taksashila campaign Alexandropolis and Paropamisadae remain untouched by me as buffer states for Baktria. 80 turns in Baktria stroms them both. All the while I've been consolidating the Indus making sure I have the best government installed (Direct Mauryan Gov, where I am the Mauryan :) ). Now I have family members with literally tons of BGs and money to spent on army and mercs to go on the offensive. The last 30 turns or so though were basically a nation/empire-building game. And i loved it! Still culture conversion buildings mysteriously lost their boni and a 2.5K corruption expense appeared in Girnar when my total budget was about 5K at that time. The FL had to spend some time there just to get it back to 1.3K. Now I am building law in hope of turning that corruption down... and it's a fight all right!!

​
Just my playstyle! I do M/M because unlike many players I detest the proactive AI (as well as player ~D) and try to have things happen as quasi-naturally as possible. Into 300'ish seasons in my SPQR campaign I've hardly expanded beyond chasing off the Epeirotes, inciting Messana and decades later Syrakousai into rebellion prior to picking them up, consolidating the peninsula south of the Po and shamelessly spamming add_money/move_character/force_diplomacy to check the AI factions in a reasonable balance of power, all the while keeping an alliance with the Qart Hadastim. My most imperialistic adventure has been capturing Massalia but immediately restoring peace with the Areuakoi, who were the previous captors.

In the meanwhile cities and provinces were developed, generals run through the cursus honorum, trade ties established with surrounding peoples and gradual Romanisation of the extended homeland given the utmost attention.

And reading! EB1 was a wealth of educational material; EB2, yet only in beta is a treasury! Some pieces of in game text are true literary gems. Well done, again and again EB team, and thank you! :bow:
​