I finally finished a conquest of the entire map as the Julii (1.0 H/M) at 182 BC Saturday. Even though the world was Red, there were still a few stacks of pesky ships left over from the remnants of the Parthian navy on the Caspian Sea. So I started building a navy there to take them on, since I have a tidy mind if not a tidy home. After about 2 turns of owning everything as I prepared the final stroke, suddenly all hell broke loose. Seven provinces revolted without warning, and I had riots in at least ten others. My corruption blossomed to the point that I was losing 270,000 to corruption on an income of 340,000, even before taking into account my substantial expenses! Lowering taxes and increasing games did little to help. Things were immediately and massively into the red and disaster was striking on every side, with family members, spies and diplomats croaking right and left. That was multipled by the fact that most of the cities that revolted had been garrisoned with cheap peasants, who were utterly useless to retake the cities, and since I was in the red, I couldn't hire anyone new, meaning that I had to strip down existing garrisons elsewhere to try to retake cities, reducing contentment in those spots even further. And to top it all off, two of my most faithful cities near my capital came down with the plague!
Whereas the campaign proper had been a snap, trying to actually hold the Empire was proving to be a much, much bigger challenge. By the time I got the ex-Parthians destroyed and the seven cities retaken (and exterminated, thank you very much) and back in the black, three more territories had revolted! Ai yi yi yi yi! After I got them back under control, I saved and called it a night at 174 BC, with the map once again all red. I think I may not go back to that one....pretty nerve-wracking!
Anyone else played on well after the end?
