Although video games are little more than a simple hobby of mine (as such I'm not very good at them), I would like to say a few words about my experiences with this campaign.

Since I was a woefully inadequate strategy game player when I first received this game, I looked on various webpages as to a concencus of what would be the *easiest* faction to play as. With the tutorial I only went so far as basic controls, and I felt I needed more hands-on experience.

Upon taking a concencual vote that took quite some time, I arrived at the insurmountable conclusion that this, Egypt, was by far the easiest faction to play as. I quickly modded my game so as to immediately unlock all of the individual factions, chose Egypt and set the game on Easy/Easy, and began.

Oh, how easy it was. I was able to wholly ignore my west side for the first 75 years of gameplay. With absolutely no skill involved, I managed to subdue the Selucid Empire within a matter of a few hours. I quickly began expanding into Asia Minor and finished off the kingdom of Pontus, again, with absolutely *no* skill involved. I took a brief break and consolidated the Middle East before pressing the assault into Russia. The Parthians and the Armenians quickly fell to my legions of diplomats and peasants as my Egyptian juggernaut (made entirely out of money) steamrolled Asia literally into powder.

About the time I finished off the Parthians, a new threat encroached upon my doorstep, this time from the west. Out of literally the blue, a large Scipii army approached my HQ at Alexandria. Suddenly, it struck. Luckily, I had one of my countless diplomats on hand and managed to bribe this strange army for the reasonable price of 100,000 gold. I brought out the army from Alexandria, which, likely as not, only really knew how to unscrew a few cabernets and twiddle their thumbs, and struck out into the Saharan desert. When I saw how weakly Siwa was defended I laughed in mirth at the pitiful fools defending it. I had a strange computer pull off a crushing victory for me, as by this time I had almost forgotten about the actual commanding of troops, since I had my money houses. I approached Lepcis Magna with that same army (consisting entirely of Pharaoh class units), beseiged it, and gave command to the strange AI. A shocking piece of news came back to me: my armies had been lost! Quickly and easily I formed a new army while my wall of diplomats kept the Scipii armies at bay. This time, I commanded my army of nearly 1300 men against a paltry 400. I was sure my victory would be swift and sweet. However, I lost. This loss showed me a painful reality I had been blind to up until that point: I had forsaken the basic points of the game. The bright gold color I so easily procured from my vastly wealthy cities had allowed me to bribe everything, taking away a part of the game that is critical.

However, I did manage to procure a more-than-basic knowledge of advanced units through this campaign.

In closing I would like to say that, even on Vhard/Vhard, I'd imagine this game to be terribly easy. If you don't want a challenge, knock yourself out with this campaign.