Interesting...

[Mikeus Caesar]

Just recently fired up a campaign as the Julii, and have finally conquered all of Western Europe after destroying the last of the British in a hard fought campaign. I now control all of Western Europe from East Germany to the shores of Portugal, as well as the British Isles.

But there is one rather odd persisting thing - as usual the game has worked it's way down to only a few factions remaining, and as usual the Roman's persist, with the Brutii having conquered Greece and the Balkans and gradually getting control of the Steppes, but the big winner in the Middle East and Asia Minor and North Africa, that is causing trouble for the Scipii is, oddly enough, the Greek Cities - the last non-Roman faction.

Which is unusual because every game i've ever played (which is a lot, to say the least) has resulted in the Greeks being destroyed by the Brutii. Instead they've gone and played nomad, relocated to Asia Minor and subsequently destroyed Pontus, Armenia, Seleucia, Parthia and (gasp!) the Egyptians!

Currently the Scipii are fighting back, after having done a sudden push and conquering the Sinai peninsula, but still, this is rather bizarre - i'm fighting the Roman Civil War with Greece as an ally. They help me blockade Brutii ports in the Adriatic and Aegean.

Anyone else ever had the Greeks become a powerhouse?

[Omanes Alexandrapolites]

The Greeks Expanding east isn't too rare in my campaigns - they use their "outpost" city of Pergamon in Asia Minor to take over their fraction of the crumbling Seleucid Empire. Once they've finished fighting the Seleucids they typically end up grabbing a small amount of the other factions in the area (Armenia and Pontus). Although they usually do well up to that point with no "uber" factions (Egypt or the Romans) in their way of this expansion, their lands always end up colliding with Egypt which generally means out and out war between the two.

This is always the bit where the Greeks usually start to suffer. Although they are relatively powerful, and still have a large volume of land, Egypt is always bigger, better and richer. I've seen the Greeks make a little headway into Egyptian lands, but they always get dramatically pushed backwards towards their starting regions. Quite simply it ends up been one region forward and then two regions back.

Once though I did have an exception to this rule. The Greeks had expanded East as usual, and were actually in a sort of "deadlock" with Egypt. In this case though, the land balance between them was broken by my Scipii invasion, so I couldn't really consider what happened next, a divide of that area between me and Egypt, accurate.

[Mikeus Caesar]

In my case though it's odd as they did actually break out of their Egyptian deadlock, with no help the Scipii - the Scipii were still in the far West quelling rebellions. The Greeks managed to take on the Egyptians alone, and completely crushed them.

Things aren't currently looking too good for them, but i'm trying to send an expeditionary force to help take back their cities.

[Shieldmaiden]

Like you, I've seen the Greeks conquer Asia Minor few times - though not for long.

A suprise in my last Julii campaign - an Alliance between the Greeks and Parthians led to them conquering the entire East together, bar Egypt.

Why I don't know, but the Brutii never got a foothold in Greece, they conquered the Balkans and ground to a halt

The Greeks and Parthians never did destroy Egypt, and turned on each other. They were the only non-Roman Factions left by then, apart from Dacia.

AI Wars and Alliances can turn out interesting...

[Moosemanmoo]

I remember playing as Scipii, massacrering hopeless gauls that the Julii hadnt managed to crush. Anyway, i got bored and removed the fog of war to see the seleucid empire gone (surprise surprise) and woud you beleive it Greece had taken asia minor, most of Eygpt and thrace. The brutii had destroyed macedon but where being swarmed by dacians and now greeks!

Next thing you know little marius comes along and soon the entire world is roman, at this point i quit, unable to bear a civil war only to be fighting rebels for the rest of the campaign afterwards

[Hound of Ulster]

The Greek phalanxes in vanilla RTW are tough to beat, especially if they have missile support. Considering how nasty the Egyptians can be, I wouldn't be surprised if they bit off more than they could chew in that campaign.

[Senatus Populusque Romanus]

Well, in my campaigns, Greeks are actually fight back the Brutii and Brutii can not even land on Greek Peninsula anymore.

I think it depends on the situation