I think Roman troops should be of a lesser quality in the beginning of the game. During the 1st Punic war Rome continued to send soldiers to Sicily and eventually removed Carthage, but it took 23 years and coming back from many set backs to do it. It isn't until the end of the 2nd Punic war that Rome starts to show military superiority over Carthage. In the 2nd Punic war Hannibal repeatedly defeats the Romans. His brothers Mago and Hadsrubal even defeated the Scipio brothers in Spain in 212 or 211. The major reason that Rome persevered through the 2nd Punic war was her ability to continue to raise new armies after defeats and to learn from those defeats. I wish the EB campaign would reflect this a little bit better. It would make the Romani more difficult to play until the Polybian Reform, which would be more historically accurate. Once Rome took Sicily and defeated Hannibal, she exploded with expansion both to the East and West.

Any thoughts?