most powerful faction

[ReluctantSamurai]

Splaaaat!

What I would do differently is have the Cats charge to a point behind the...well, whatever you wish to call them That way most of the unit clears the enemy formation and is now behind them. Wheel around and finish the job, or move to another target.

though cases can be made for Seleucia, Macedon, and Armenia

Very strong cases, I might add

the most powerful non-Roman faction seems to be Egypt

If you run a campaign with all factions controlled by the AI, Rome will always triumph in their sphere of influence, and Egypt will always come out on top in the Middle East. IMHO, this speaks of roster imbalance, at the least. It's the main reason I removed a bunch of units from both factions because it became borderline monotonous to see the same outcome game after game (playing a faction not in the Middle East and watching Egypt run amok, or playing a ME faction and watch the Romans exterminate everyone around them).

Without the silly Pharaoh's Guard/Bowmen, Desert Cavalry and Egyptian Bowmen unit size reduced to standard, I've actually seen the Seleucids hold their own against them, and other factions like Pontus or the Greeks give them tough battles and actually win a few instead of getting trounced every time.

Same with the Romans. No Praetorian anything, no Urbans or Cohort II's (and when I play a Roman faction, same roster applies). Gaul can actually make some noise, for once. Had one game where they booted the Julii out of Segesta, and sacked Ariminum. If it wasn't for the intervention of the SPQR doomstack, they might have reduced the Julii to a lonely outpost at Caralis. It was refreshing to see. Oh, and I removed the SPQR's ability to build ships. I mean really? There's already three Roman factions building navies (and one could make an argument that three factions is too many), adding a fourth means Carthaginian and Greek City navies get crushed, and those two factions need powerful navies to thrive. Without the unrealistic SPQR navy, I've occasionally seen the Greek Cities do what they're supposed to do...fight for control of the seas near Apollonia and Thermon, and make it no cakewalk for the Brutii to land armies anywhere they please in Greece.