Recycle a faction?

In the Mak campaign I recently I started, I made a small blitz of greece and had taken most of it by 260bc. After weaing down the epeirotes I decided to try a little experiment, with a little move_character and force diplomacy jiggerypokerey, this was the result.....

http://invain-clan.com/images/ep01.jpg
http://invain-clan.com/images/ep02.jpg

They started with just Messana and Syracuse but their mercs seem to have taken a battering and they've started a war with Rome (to retake Taras?) so we'll see what they can do with the AORs :inquisitive:
KH are stuck on Rhodes with a fullstack and some eletheuroi territory nearby too, hoping for a comeback from them ;)
Thought I'd stick it up here for you all, oh and if a mod feels this is more suitable for gameplays & AARs please move it, I'm not quite sure myself :dizzy2:

Cheers

in my current campaign as makedonia, something similar happened "naturally". I blitzed mainland greece and had it conquered in about 2 years, give or take a season. The Epeirotes were left with Taras, and I turned my attention to the North and East. 6 years on (or so) strategy led me to start growing into the West and it was then I discovered (I have fog on) that Capua, Arpi, Rhegion and Messana had all fallen to Epeiros, and they were beseiging Rome. The Romani hastily allied with me as I took Taras, and now the Epeiros, who should have left the game about 269 are finally getting their comeuppance.

But yeah, similar situation. Satisfying to see they are so tenacious.

In my last campaign on 0.8 I (playing the romans) was disappointed by the weakness of Hayasdan and Pahlava (both being reduced to one or two territories by the Seleukids), so I made a so called "long march" with an army consisting of a bribed former Seleukid-General, mercenaries and local levies from the east. I conquered the Caucasus region and all eastern parts of Seleukia with this army in about 10 years of gametime, bribing some more generals to rule my new conquered teritories. Parthian and Steppe horsearchers finished of whole stacks of phalangites in the east, while in asia minor roman legions marched forward. It was like playing rome and pahlava at the same time (pahlava with only a minority of its diffeent troops of course). After having conguered all seleukid territories from Hayasdan-Media up to Gedrosia (and by this having made contact between rome and my seleukid-rebel-empire), I gave those areas away to Hayasdan and pahlava. So both factions were reborn, and I had a quite amusing (and historically accurate) borderconflict with Hayasdan and Pahlava in the end.
Roleplaying situation: Rome supports uprisings in the east, weakens the seleukids - but when there is a common border, the guys rome has supported are not willingly becoming client kings, so there is war.

I always manipulate Makedonia when they get reduced to Pella and/or Mytilene, giving them back a mighty empire. In my Arverni campaign I gave them Asia Minor, now in my Romani one I've given them Thrace and Ionia, upon which they backstabbed me. Makes for some pretty fun fights.

The same thing had happened to me in one of my past campaigns as well playing as the Maks on 0.81av2. Epeiros was reduced to Taras and I gave them every turn about 5.000 mnai presents until they conquered Arpi, Capua, Rhegion, Messana, Syrakousai and Lilibeo. I was having quite a lot of fun, I moved through Illyria to the northern Romani lands and we (me and the Epeirotai which I forced to become my allies) kind of ''sandwiched'' them. They attacking from the south and me with Alkyoneus leading one huge army attacking from the north. I soon took Roma and ruled over the northern lands of Italy, till cities turned blue due to my impatience in installing proper governments and governors to those cities...

I also try to minimize my interventions in the game by using spies and assassins. As the Ptolemies conquered all of Selucid holdings, my agents caused revolts in Halicarnassus, Ipsus , Byzantium ans Anykira. Now its Pergamon and Mazaka the targets. The problem is that the Ptolemies take these lost cities quite easily, but in North Africa they are losing land to the kath-Hadast, their armies are over stretched.

Cheers.