Well first of all: I just recently got Rome TW and BI - yes I know I'm very late ;)

Well I played some campaign of the original before going to BI where I tried out the huns first.. but didn't quite grasp the concept of hording and settled down too early which made me lose the campaign... anyways... I then did a saxon campaign that succeeded, and was great fun too AND when I took Londinium and the Romano British showed up I instantly wanted to play that faction, so after I finished the saxon campaign I decided to look around for possibilities to play the RB and found my choice in the Rebel Commander Mod.

The RB campaign was the most fun I had with ROME yet but also the most frustrating, but let's begin at the beginning...

I didn't lay siege on Londinium right away. I wanted to beat and weaken the Celts in the field, before I had to start paying upkeep, so I waited 2 or 3 rounds until a saxon invasion army showed up (they were quick it seems... although rather worthless with just some levy spearmen, two archer units and a warlord...) the celts reacted and sent a full stack after them - their mistake... before they could engage the saxons, I attacked the celts and beat them in the field... although they were even a little more men than my army it wasn't too hard to beat them, my units were just way too overclassed for them. I then smashed the saxon army and finally laid siege to Londinium. Took the town and disbanded most of the units... only kep 1 archer unit and one of the graal knights unit... the graal knights had gained so much experience they were 1 silver chevron (started with 2 bronze) and idk.-.. i just liked them :) - so I kept them and some spearmen. Shortly after that I saw, the celts had moved almost all they had into Eburacum, so I marched around and took Dal Riada with almost no effort, which started to help me balance my finances and then I merged two armies that finally bet the celts outside Eburacum and then took the town. So... what now? I thought... I disbanded any units I didn't need right away... leaving VERY small garrisons in my 3 towns, but finall my economy recovered.. in the same round I sent a diplomat over to the celts and offered them ceasefire and they even paid for it! :) Which was my luck, because now I could trade with Tara AND had some money from them when in the next round the saxons laid siege to a highly underdefended Eburacum... This time their army was a little stronger than last time and I had maybe 1 spearmen, 1 archer and a general in the town... quickly I moved my best general down from Dal Riada and before engaging the saxons I made him buy any mercenaries that were available with the money I got from the celts. I beat the saxons with this army and they ran away, back onto their ships - never to return... because here started the fun... It was so fun to just watch what happened in mainland Europe. Of course I disbanded the mercenaries right after routing the saxons... couldnt afford the upkeep.

Then I needed time for my economy.. started building trade buildings... better ports and stuff like that... I had a spy and a diplomat in Europe... I allied with WRE early and wasn't betrayed yet... I guess it helps that they all had their own problems in europe and noone cared about this little island in the north :) - got trade rights with anyone on the coast and watched the money restore... while I did that I was lucky because the burgundii wiped out the only force that DOES care about britain - yes, the saxons were destroyed ^^ - I celebrated, while the sarmatians entered as a horde and took belgica, germania superior and inferior, alemanni, franki frisii and built up a really big empire in northern and central europe, bordered to the east by the burgundii and the alemanni, who lost their capital, but had two provinces east of tribus allemanni... the WRE didn't have time to recover from that sarmatian invasion, right after that, the Vandals came and took all Gaulish provinces from them, the WRE REbels took over spain, so the WRE was really down to the italian peninsula... so much fun! ^^ of course they didn't settle with that and first took back what the vandals took... hording them again, so they took some WRE settlements again... but this time just the 2 provinces in southern gaul... oh yes... the franks who were sent into being a horde by the sarmatians took the region in southern eastern gaul and are still there... the WRE lost northern gaul when it rebelled and became WRE Rebel territory... i always just tried to keep trade rights with the important coastal forces - I had to declare war on the rebels (pirates) because they always blockaded the ports of my allies on the coast which crippled my trade... after my economy recovered I built a little army (couldnt afford more.. this RB units have ridiculous upkeep!) to finally kill the celts - which I did, so I had all of Great Britain. Started to buld up on trade again and finally my economy started to flourish and the cash just came pouring in... I could literally swim in it... still I had to be careful, because any high grade unit I built could severely damage the economy... i had to build up a good flet of quinciremes to deal with the now hostile pirates and then I realized that my faction might just die of old age... none of my stupid family members had breeded, although they were in town all the time... when I thought all hope was lost... one gave birth to a son.. then another adopted one... and this adopted guy adopted another guy right away and I was happy again... another daughter and my empire had survived the crisis... so there I was... massive amounts of cash... I started to build up my army to move to mainland europe... the WRE had taken back some provinces from the sarmatians, but these yellow bastards were still strong... I planned on taking Lugdinensis from the WRE rebels before the WRE took it back, so I wouldn't have to declare war on the WRE right away. So I had to be quick.. that was last night when I realized it was 3:15 a.m. and I wanted to go get some sleep.. ok let's just save and WTF??!!??!! - I can't save... the save button is greyed out, quicksave isn't working and I realize the last autosave was done 45 minutes ago...
I tried everything I could think of, but it didn't work so finally I had to quit the game and I'm backto my last savegame...
Has anyone ever experienced anything similar? If yes, can you tell me how to avoid that in the future? - because I'd really like to avoid it... the frustration level was somewhere between "I'm going to blow up my cumputer" and "I'm going to kill someone, and I'm not talking ingame..."