Playing RTW EB 1.1, since I started crafting Roman empire before the 1.2 patch, I am determined to finish it.
Difficulty level VH/VH.
It all started in 272 BC - will not place the world map since everyone knows how it looks at the very begining...
The expansion of Roman Republic started heavily towards south - the wars were limited to merely sieges of eleuthroi towns plus taras - since the soldiers were too few and too expensive, actually shocking expensive, the Rome and its provinces were totally undeveloped and could field only one full legion.
The conflict with Carthage started pretty much after Roman army entered the Sicily. Carthage did not manage to achieve the Cannae succes despite I thought it will. In this epic battle Carthage used 2 separate armies with elephant units and in general the battle was very chaotic - the initial order of roman ranks disturbed after defeating the first army and then came reinforcements with elephants. Romans barely managed to make 2 separate battle lines of tired troops - first was routed after a long fight, but the other line managed to take out the elephant units and some of carthage cavalry and then again remaining forces clashed. By a mirracle it was the carthage's forces wich routed finally... It was a pyrric victory.. I mean not much left of my legion, but then again... Carthage forces in sicily and as later appeared the carhage - the capital was undefended too.
Romans quickly tried to exploit this, there were few heavy battles in nothern africa, but Carthage was doomed, since its sicilian armies were destroyed, and they lost their homeland because the rest of their armies were commited in conquering the western africa and struggling for spain. The homeland was totally undefended.
But not everything was that easy for Romans - during the war with carthage Romans tried to expand northwards, but brave Aedui nation had some gaisatae in their ranks, so the Roman advance after some heavy losses had to be stopped, but only when Romans finally captured Mediolanum. Gaisatae filled armies proved that expansion northwards is total suicide.
Luckily the peace was signed with Epeiros, so they forgot about their italian holdings, however the Koinon Helenikon decided that Taras is greek city, not roman - and invasion by force of 2 armies started - the romans had to use mercenary armies to initially defend the homeland and later destroy those greek armies, but could not punish greeks for thier actions - simply there was not enought army to make offensive campaign in greece. Greek diplomacy was very treacherous - Romans signed peace with them for 3 times - each time they were breaking it as soon as the garrisons from italy were sent to help fight in north africa. Here is the general view of roman republic and its enemies in 241 BC: