Just to add a bit more to my personal experiences of the mod...

It is now 240BC and the last 10 years have been dominated by one thing, the war with Carthage.

I had landed two full legions on Sicily and quickly took Messana with one while blocking the northern pass with the other. By manouvering the legions into the narrow passes I reduced the numerical advantage of Carthage's armies as they could only attack one army at a time. The fact that Greece and Carthage where at war as well created a three way conflict on the island. But while we where at war with the Greeks officially there had been no actual conflict in many years (just the odd naval skirmish). So while Carthage splite it's forces to besiege the Greek cities we concentrated on solely on fight Carthage.

The other step in our plan was the rapid construction of large fleets to dominate the central mediterranian and prevent Carthage reinforcing the troops on Sicily (which it was activily do at the start of the conflict). The result was thousands of Carthagian troops being drowned on their way to Sicily and the development of a large and very experience Roman navy. The destraction of Carthage's navy was so successful that we are now actively blocking Carthagian ports rather than simply defending our coastline.

The final move was to grant our Iberian allies 10000 denarii to aid them in their conflict with Carthage (and hopefully divert some troops away from Sicily).

Now I can take back what I said about "rolling in cash", war it appear is the big money drain. Constant fleet build and reinforcement had made money pretty tight. We are never broke and can keep up with contruction and reinforce costs, but only just. I remind you that we are fighting only one war again an enemy we share no land border with (yet!) and we are at peace and trading with just about every one else!!

I have a screen shot of one of those decisive battles that Darius mentioned:

https://photobucket.com/albums/y30/B...ent=battle.jpg

plus:

https://photobucket.com/albums/y30/B...inter244BC.jpg