Thanks Maksimus, I wasn't aware the new thread existed.
I like the way LGK et al are thinking.

In my opinion there is no problem with the way the game goes for a Human Player, but the AI really needs a major revamp to prevent insane expansion. Historically Alexander the Great/the Romans were highly unusual in the speed they expanded at, generally it was not unusual for two cities to fight each other for hundreds of years with no concrete outcome (refer Greek Cities in particular).

I would also like to reiterate the idea of rebel city based generals being immortal, or replaced upon death. Otherwise the stack ups and wanders on death of said family member leaving the city open to easy conquest. This is particularly a problem in the east with the Indian cities being easy picking for AS or Baktria at that time.

I am also no great fan of having all factions being able to recruit all troops everywhere with time. Hats off to the EB team for doing a great and realistic job on where troop types are located in the world. Main problems imho, in no particular order:

1/Shoddy AI that backstabs Allies with no provocation or reason (coded to attack human players whenever possible or if said player has not been at war for a certain amount of time). I realise modders have little ability to control it however we can only dream

2/ AI ability to recruit Elite troops instantly upon conquest of new territories i.e. Ptoly/Selucia in particular, leading to unstoppable superpowers.

3/ Crashes. I seem to get more crashes under Alex than RTW or BI, generally after a heroic battle. Needless to say that is frustrating after a 2 hour fight.

Those are the glaring weaknesses that I can see immediately, compared with the vanilla game shows just what a brilliant job the whole EB team have done. They certainly can be proud of this game

Please don't see any of this as being criticism.. if I didn't like the ideas or this game I wouldn't take the effort to post (I am at best a lazy git)