What faction should WE play as?

[Molinaargh]

Ah, I see.

As for the shadow faction: check out this thread. Setting one faction to shadow another is easy, but to avoid bugs you need to make sure they have the same units (and culture, if I am not mistaken). Also: there is still a maximum of 20 factions (+ the independents), so must use an existing faction. Setting the eleutheroi as independents is possible but buggy.

Thanks Ludens. That sounds hard to do and CTD-inducing, so I think I'll stick to force-gifting cities to an AI faction if I ever need to simulate a civil war.