Why does EB start in 272 b.c.? The Pyrrhos-Question...

[marodeur]

Planning an epeirote campaign next, I have researched a few dates and facts. Pyrrhos started the invasion of italy in 280, called to help by the city of tarent. In 278 he went to sicily and got involved in a war with carthage, too. Rome and Carthage allied against him. In 275 he had to return to epeiros because his phyrric victories had left him without hope to win the war. His samnitic and greek allies continued to fight in southern italy, but they were defeated and finally in 272 tarent (taras) was conquered by the romans. Pyrrhos himself was killed in a battle in greece in 272. After Pyrrhos death epeiros lost its importance. So all the events that made pyrrhos famous happened before the game starts.
In my opinion, the starting army of epeirus, with indian elephants and lots of other good quality troops looks like the army pyrrhos took to italy in the first place. If I start my campaign, I will first go to italy and sicily, following his historical steps (I am quite interested in finding out what happens if I try to fight a war against rome and carthage at the same time - I somehow have the feeling, I will follow the historical reality regarding the outcome, too...).
Now, here is my question: concerning the starting positions (troops, taras is epeirotic, no war with rome), the early death of Pyrrhos and the quite interesting story of his italian endeavours, why does EB start in 272 and not (for example) 280 or 278? Are there other reasons? From a purely epeirotic point of view, it doesn't make much sense to start in 272. Honestly, I don't know what has happend in the year 272 in other parts of the world, especially in the far east. But i am curious, because the starting date has been changed from 270 (vanilla) to 272 - but why not to an even earlier date.
Don't misunderstand me. EB is a fantastic mod, and everybody can see that the makers put a lot of energy and especially of thoughts concerning historic realism in it. So I guess there is a good reason to start in 272 - only I don't know it.