How to cause the "epic battles"

[Marshal Murat]

Taking the Brutii, I conquered most of Greece. I then built forts and garrisoned with some levy troops, defending all my borders. I then began raking in cash, and building up my cities. Building two armies, one for Italy, the other for Greece, they were set for the big ones. I then began laying money down with the Julii, the Scipii, and for fun, began giving money to the Germans. Soon, Gaul was being torn to shreds by the powerhouses of the Julii and the Germans. I then began giving money to Egypt, give them more then they would ever need. In twenty three turns, they began pushing up Anatolia. Its like steroids! Blown up armies! Anyway. I begin building my fleet en masse, something to cover the Bosphorus, and the Italian Adriatic. Once done, I still had some money to spare, so I gave some to the Scythians. However, the other Roman powerhouses began to get more power, so I began to prep my Italian army. Soon enough civil war broke out. Taking my Italian army, I began to draw in more troops, and soon had three full stack troops. Marching in sequence, the battles were awsome.
My strategic battles, were this. At the begining of a turn, my first full army, mostly heavy and light cavalry, attack the enemy force. I strike for the enemy cavalry first, and then retire to minimize casualties. I then take the second stack, (full of legionarries) march in to find a weakend, force of heavy troops. Taking the cavalry that is with the heavy troops, I swing the flanks, and hit with heavy troops. Heavy fighting whittles away at thier strength until they are almost gone, but can still fight. Retiring, I then move my third into battle. Mostly green recuits, they earn brownie points for fighting, enemy troops, almost destroyed.

Anyway, Germany invades Julii territory, and Egypt is getting stronger. doing my sequence, I add mercs sometimes to give a little skrimish action. I can alos keep moving my troops up. However, a Scipii fleet slinks over to Taranto. And my new fleet. In a heady battle of !132! ships, the Scipii somehow manage to scrape a victory. Sailing in, they land a sizeable army. Terribly angry at the turn of events, I call up a small army of legionaries, and mercs, and then fight the Scipii. In a fierce, and large battle, my troops managed to take a victory. Man what a day.

[Slaists]

Playing Brutii, I tried to support Julii effort giving them 10,000 to 30,000 per turn after my greek provinces (4 in total) started to rake in money... I have been doing this for more than 70 years now. It's 190 BC now and Julii still own only the original two provinces + Corsica and the Gauls are breathing down their neck with huge stacks in Northen Italy... Weird... What's even more weird is the Senate has started to send me "do it or you'll encounter our displeasure" missions... Even though I own only 6 provinces in total...

[Darius]

Yea you have to wait for the right moment to start providing them the funds. I've begun to get the timing down pretty well since it seems the AI factions go through cycles of activity. First they build up their infrastructure, then they build up their military, then they conquer, then they consolidate. Not all factions start on step 1, such as the Brutii who tend to start off by immediately heading into the greek peninsula. As soon as you see them getting their armies together, send over some money. The sudden influx means that they can extend the army build up time, which in turn forces them to conquer more, which results in them gaining a far greater income and troop production areas. However should they get the money during the infrastructure or their consolidation phase, they will instead take more time to develop their cities with the money rather than their armies. So while they would be able to eventually launch their assault, it will take a while longer before it occurs.