I have been playing the roman factions a lot and I replied to this thread before, But in honesty i dont think there is IMO a hard roman faction each has its good and bad but in all they are pretty equal, The Julii, they have a slow start and seem harder cos you get such a huge culture penalty and unlike the southern factions only get dirt road enemies so it actually takes longer to get get from A-B so its not hard just long winded, The brutii have the advantage that all the helenic cities are close together so you really ony need on or 2 full stacks and bunch of peasents in each city to patrol all of the southern cities, so yes you do get money quuicker than anyother faction but then i found you spend so much time having to micro manage the cities and get huge cities quicker than you can upgrade them(unless you use Massacre as a rule) even if you enslave them your just making life harder on the other cities. The scipii are secure on the mainland and take syracuse fairly quickly and even have head start when the civil war starts as all they need to keep the julii and brutii at bay is a strong navy to stop them transporting troops to syracuse and north africa, but agian like the brutii they will suffer big problems with Squalor, corruption (due to huge distances between cities) and the problem of taking cities in the deep desert, ie the numidian lands, but if you dont take them you leave a dangerous foe at your back and sandwich yourself between them and the sea. so if you wanna play following the Senates rules then a quick start and the ability to steam roll/blitzkrieg any enemy near by the Brutii are your first choice, if you like a long fairly balanced game them Julii are good at being constant, and if your wanting a game where you may are may not lose the game in the first few turns but will also played right be quick to expand but slow to a snails pace once your in control of the north african coast choose the Scipii. but if you like me and start your game without the senate in control and all alliances cancelled Ie neutral then no are harder than the other, as you will need to conquer italy before you can do anything else.

G