Do you bring your absolute best troops, the second best or some worse troops? As the romans, I think I'll bring a few legionary cohorts this time instead of the Urban/Praetorian cohorts. They are just too damn hard to retrain! Their upkeep is also huge, as opposed to the relatively cheap legionary cohorts which aren't that much weaker (almost the same armor/weapon).

I also have a question about the Brutii. Do you recommend taking Syracuse and Labaeum in the first few turns? It looks like a great idea because it opens up southern trade for you early on (and you know how great Mercury temple is) and those settlements generally finance your early advance through the poor/worthless rebel settlements along the coast east of Italy. Plus, there is the added bonus of greatly weakening the Scipii. As weak as Carthage is, I can't believe how difficult it must be to have the first settlement that you take be located across and island and across a sea and the capitol of Carthage. So you also weaken the Scipii, who will end up the most powerful faction that you will have to take on during the Civil War. I managed to acomplish these tasks. Unfortunately, I lost that first settlement across from Italy because it was taken by the Greeks. Still, this was obviously because I decided to leave the settlement protected only by peasants instead of militia (big mistake).