BHC,
There must be something about these Neareastern factions that give them a bad temperment - the heat, no doubt. When I started with the Roman factions - none of my adversaries, whether the Gauls, Brits, Germans, Greeks, was jumping at the bit for an immediate confrontation with me. But when I started with the Seleucids; Armenia, Parthia, Egypt - they all wanted to face off with arms right away, and in a sneaky way. They'd sit across the border from me with an army - large, small, indifferent in size - and then move at me without advance notice. The Egyptians I found were the least intimidating. Having plenty of cavalry skirmishers kept the Egyptians in their place. But, . . . my experience is extremely limited at this point with the Seleucids. So, I defer to your judgement on these issues.

I did validate something in Aescuplius's advice on governors. I just finished my Julii campaign - winning 50 regions plus Rome, and had about 190,000 denarii in the bank at the end. Aesculpius is so, so right about the corrupting influence of these large bank accounts over 50,000 denarii. I didn't have one faction member, as I recall, who wasn't corrupted by the large amounts of money. I think I had 24,000 denarii being skimmed off every turn just in corruption. That's a lot of dinaro lost to wasteage. Aescuplius recommends that you go on spending sprees when you approach the thresholds. The large bank account gives you some security, but it has its drawbacks. I've noticed too that when bribing - if possible, negotiate down the bribe. One other interesting thing I noticed in one bribe scenario. I sent a rather large army to Cyrenaica to seize that port from rebels. I had offered them a bribe earlier and the amount was exorbitant that they wanted. The next time I offered them a bribe, I had a huge army parked just outside the city. They took a whole lot less. I wonder if the AI was smart enough to associate the intimidation factor there. Interesting. Good luck BHC!