Just trying to find some other challenge in this game, I decided to go off and try to beat the game as quickly as possible. Mygoal was to win in 40 turns or before 250 BC using the Greek Cities. I actually had my 50 settlements by 257 BC. The key I think was learning that I could take Sicily in 5 turns having to only really go through one battle. Rome fell by 261 BC to the combined forces from Sicily and Greece.

On to the fun stuff. Here is a map of the direction I took and what year I reached each city.

Final Map

If anyone happens to want the original of this map that I made you can download it here.

Original Map

If you want to see my little journal that I was writing while going through this campaign, check out this site.

Journal

This was all in good fun and I must say I really enjoyed it. I think that it can still be done faster by at least 3 or 4 turns, but I'm not going through that hell again. I spent about 45 minutes to an hour per turn just analyzing everything and going through the battles.

This was also my first attempt at playing Version 1.2. I wasn't all that impressed because it was actually made slightly easier due to some particular changes. The Egyptians used to always land in Southern Turkey in Version 1.1 and caused me troubles. The Julii and Brutii used to always land by Thermon and Athens to pick a fight. Even the Rebels never caused me any trouble and the one time I had one of my settlements seriously besieged by Dacians they just got up and walked away after one turn. I was free to do whatever I felt like on land and even my extremely limited navy went unchallenged.

I also want to note that I don't think that any other faction could beat the game as fast as the Greeks are capable of. The Seleucids and Egyptians are probably the next fastest, but I'd say the Greeks have the upperhand due to how spread out they are.

Anyways, I was wondering if there were any other speed demons out there who have given this a shot.