A veteran joins the ranks

Hi guys new to this forum but definitely not new to the game. I've played all 3 series, STW, MTW, RTW though i never played viking and barbarian invasion even though i had them (barbarian sounds boring as almost everyone is a barbarian or roman).

Currently playing RTW (Gold Edition) using brutii on VH/VH. I must say that romans are the harder to beat if you are a fellow roman. Please allow me to elaborate.

1)For the entire early to mid game, the other roman factions were practically stagnant. After i conquered the whole of the greek peninsula (took about 6 years) the julii and the scipii are still stuck with their starting towns. I tot there was some bug going on or something. I was way ahead (according to the chart) in every aspect, the top faction was me, followed by egypt, germania, carthage and pontus, my friends of Rome were no where in sight.

2)Then suddenly during the end of mid-game, they jump-started. Within a few years (time i took to crush thrace and take the main coastal towns on pontus's land), they rushed to the top 5 faction list. Gaul was like crushed overnight by julii's 2-3 full-20 unit armies which appeared out of no where, while scipii crushed a full-20 carthagian army taking libya and 1 full-20 greek armies near syracuse (they ran out of movement points to siege syracuse so i moved in the same turn with an army and bribed the 2 remaining hoplites for 90k and took the city) and is now on africa with 3 full-20 armies.

3)I have just received the message that i finally have enough support to attack rome. Julii has taken over the whole of gaul, with an army numbering 6 full-20 armies filled with 3 bronze troops while Scipii has 3 full-20 oso 3 bronze troops.

The restriction on attacking fellow romans certainly works well at least to the AI's advantage.

Welcome longbowmen. When I play as one the roman houses sometimes I force the senate to outlaw me early in the game, so I can take the italian peninsula right away.

Welcome to the Org.

In my opinion BI really does improve RTW, it's almost a RTW2 it's so different. When you have finished your Brutii campaign start a BI one. If you want a challenge go for WRE, if you want a good challenge but it's fun play Alemanni or if you want just some good barbar sacking then go for the Huns and rampage your way to Rome and setup camp.

I basically did the same thing as longbowman, played BI once and then just went back RTW. Not really because i didnt like it, but it ran a lot slower caused some problems with RTW. Otherwise it was alright i guess, I would of liked some more variety in the faction choices though.