Like many historically minded people here, I've despised the Egyptians in RTW for their ahistorical attire and rather pumped up stats. Consequently, I've shunned them - even deliberately avoiding battling them when playing other factions. However, as Scipii, I was finally drawn into a full-blown war with them and it was such fun, it made me wonder why can't more factions can't be like them. Only Roman civil wars in RTW have provided a comparable challenge.
Specifically, the Egyptians tend to have large armies and large resources which almost no other non-Roman AI force can muster. Moreover, on the battlefield, they have units that can pose a genuine threat even when marshalled by their AI. However, ahistorical, it is rather exhilarating to face the lightning fast strikes of their heavy chariots, crashing through multiple lines of your men in crazy hit and run attacks. Their massed archer units, elite infantry, invisibly armoured axemen, infuriating archer chariots etc all mean that if you face them, you are going to lose men - unlike many other match-ups when you can escape almost unharmed.
I don't see why other large non-Roman factions could not be pumped up like this, at least on some difficulty levels. Carthage is the obvious example which historically was formiddable but in the game is underpowered when played by the AI. But Gaul, Germania, Greece and some others would also be plausible candidates for an injection of steroids. I guess what I'm asking is for the AI to be allowed to "cheat" more often - which I seem to remember was what makes some other strategy games (eg Civ2) challenging on higher difficulty levels.
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