Quote Originally Posted by andrewt View Post
They said in an interview that the Roman Empire reached its peak size-wise with Trajan even though the empire really reached its peak with Augustus. Unless I'm mistaken, I thought Hadrian added a few more territories and they only started pulling back afterwards.

Looking at the faction list, I'm guessing Cappadocia replaces Pontus. There's no reason to put two major factions right next to each other with that large a map unless they plan on giving us 20 major playable factions.
Most likely all provinces at the start will be controlled by indepent factions just as in Empire and Napoleon. I guess they will decide later when the campaign is playable what minor factions will become playable and get some more love.

Hadrian just abandoned some of Traians recent unsecured conquests in the east. The Roman Empire had to fight a few major wars in the 2nd century. Marcus Aurelius planned to create new provinces after the Marcommanic wars north of Danube when he died and Septimius Severus finally added northern Mesopotamia and wanted to do the same with Scotalnd. The Romans als o expanded south in Africa, but in a more peaceful way. It's a rather interesting period, not as quiet as it is often portrayed, we just lack good sources detailing these campaigns.

But it would be hard to balance a game where you can controll the resources of the whole Roman Empire at its peak. Maybe we will see some of the more famous wars of the Empire as (DLC?)) regional campaigns.