Heya

[MarcusAureliusAntoninus]

Try turning off the shadows option from the campaign map options menu to get some more speed.

[Celtic_Punk]

campaign map runs slowly because of the script.

I suggest you try Koinon Hellenon. That was my first faction. that or a celtic faction.

[Zeibek]

What faction you should start with really depends on you yourself. I started with a fairly difficult Pahlava campaign because of my interest in them, but as a rule nomadic/steppe factions (Pahlava, Sauromatae, Saka) are exceedingly difficult to play with and are only for players looking for a real challenge.

Rome and Carthage are both good factions for people still getting introduced to the mod, and especially Carthage has a very diverse unit roster through which you can get to try out and get a feelt to different unit types. I haven't played as Rome at all so I can't really comment on them but from what I gather they're flexible and not too challenging, meaning that you can really learn the fundamentals first without having to learn specialized combat (like phalanx or horse-archer).

If you're looking for good old-fashioned hoplite warfare then KH is what you're looking for. Their campaign isn't the easiest, but most philhellenes don't mind. The Ptolemaios serve as a good and not too diffucult general introduction to phalanx-dominated successor warfare, and Epeiros could be classified between the Alexandrian hammer-and-anvil armies and more conservative Greek tradition. Baktria is the most exotic (and by far my favorite) Hellenic faction but can be a tad too difficult for beginners. I'd personally recommend Epeiros since they're like like both Makedonia and KH except with some more interesting twists.

As to the "barbarian" factions the two continental Celtic factions, the Aedui and the Arverni, are the most easily accessible. They start at war with each other and are in close proximity, so you get to fight your way through enemies and debt in the beginning but after a while you'll balance out. I really enjoy most of my campaigns with them, and since they pretty much force beginners into debt they're a good intro for EB gameplay. The Casse or Britons are very hard to play with, and even for more experienced players they can prove out to be troublesome.

As for non-Celtic barbarians I found the Getai to be the easiest to begin with. Not only can you build a solid base soon and get access to some of the game's most deadliest units (Thracian auxilaries and Cordinau Orca) but you also get to wreck havoc on those effeminate Greeks. The Sweboz might start out a bit slow but I personally enjoyed playing with them out of interest. They might work fine for beginners, though I really wouldn't recommend them unless you're interested in them historically. And finally the Lusotannan can have a hard time economically early on, but once you get past that phase they might prove to be interesting, though a while ago the EB team removed their coolest units...

Hope that this proved helpful!

[Chris1959]

Decide if you want to "roleplay" or smash and grab, read the forum a lot and the FAQ, don't be afraid to ask questions someone will usually give a good answer.
The slow campaign moves are probably down to the background script, if you look in the technical help section there are some fixes which can help and another is turn off follow AI characters movement that speeded up my computer.

Have fun and never mention lorica segmenta