I am ashamed to reveal my ignorance of ancient history, but am so curious I have to ask: what happened to the factions in RTW? Some of the factions - Seleucia, Pontus, Thrace etc - I know virtually nothing about.

Ok, being a Brit, I have a vague ("1066 and all that") understanding of some of the Western ones:

Romans conquered 50+ provinces, then sort of declined and fell. Split into Eastern and Western Empires, with the former - Byzantium - surviving until the end of MTW. One naive question - are modern day Italians mainly of Roman descent?

Britains after Rome withdrew, were invaded by Anglo-Saxons. Arguably pushed into the Celtic peripherary (Cornwall, Wales, Scotland) although apparently some DNA evidence suggests a lot of inter-breeding?

Gauls conquered by Rome. How did they fare with the fall of the Western Roman Empire? Is the conventional wisdom that they were marginalised by incomers (Franks, Normans etc), sort of like the Britons? Maybe concentrated in Brittainy?

Germans unconquered by Rome, but I wonder what was the relation between these people and the Goths, Vandals, Angles and Saxons? Did these latter people spring from RTWs Germans or encroach on them from the east?

Greeks conquered by Rome, are contemporary Greeks mainly ancestors of the ancient Greeks?

Parthians defeated by but not conquered by Rome? I read somewhere that they fell to the Sassanid Turks or some such?

Carthaginians conquered by Rome, city raised and disappeared from history?

Spanish conquered by Rome, later subject to Moorish influence but perhaps still perhaps lingering on today?

Numidians conquered by Rome, what relation do these people have to the "Almohads"/moors? Basically same North African people, under Islamic religion?

Egypt conquered by Rome, became Islamicised - I am a bit vague on the nature of Arab conquest; I have the impression it was a conquest proper like the Norman conquest of England, with outsiders taking over leadership of a subject people. Is that right? With the big difference that they converted them too?

Dacians conquered by Rome? Do they live on in any recognisable form today?

Scythians no idea about these folks - I have an impression that there have been waves of fairly aggressive steppe warrior type peoples moving east through the steppes - from Huns to Mongols, so they may not have endured.

Macedonians - well, given other threads, perhaps best not to go there.

I am even more vague on the following, although I suspect they were probably all conquered by Rome at some stage?

Thracians

Pontus

Seleucia

Thanks for any responses!