Great money churner. I'm using diplomats to bribe any enemy armies wandering around, gaining some nice new officers. troops bribed tend to come over as peasents, which i route to villages.

My main invasion force is a stack of cavalry. Mounted archers, with light camels. Send in three spies, and attack the city. The spys are gaining exp fast, as are all the cavalry. I have a small stack of 8 spearmen which I use for garrison duty once the city is taken. Rebuild, retrain, and off to another city. The cav attack stack is good because the infantry you're given are rubbish against the better roman inf types.

Had a huge problem with religion, since i didn't convert from christianity, but in the end I let the populations build up, rebel, and the massacred. Gained 20-30k per city, and brought the populations all down to abt 10k. Perfect.

Only problem so far is with Roman Navies, but I'm building two armada's of 2nd gen ships which will go prowling. As with RTW take cyprus. Its a huge money earner.