best faction to turtle with?

[Quintus.JC]

And why does everybody abandon Syracuse? It's so easily defensible! Stone walls and hoplites are all you need agaonst those hastati, and those are both already there!
And either way the Romans go for Lilybaeum first and they leave Messana lightly garrisoned with just faction leader, 1 or 2 hastati. So pretty quickly Sicily becomes a Roman graveyard.

In my Greek campaigns the Scipii always attacks Syracuse first, and instead of stone wall I probably would of prefered wooden wall because of fighting on wall top with hoplites will make them fight with swords instead of spears. It is denfensible but in my different campaigns the AI is actually smart enough to starve me out, and my hoplites are no match for the Romans (outnumbered).