I don't suppose it's really possible to play 'realistically'. The way the game portrays the Romans is highly inaccurate in the first place.

Recruiting 'accurately' wouldn't be even remotely possible-- legionaries can only be drawn from the Roman propertied class-- meaning, for the most part, Rome, which doesn't belong to you at the start of the game. Even if you get past that, you don't have the infrastructure to build principes, let alone triarii at the start of the game. =(

It's just not possible to recruit lke the Romans actually did-- in the game, you can only train two units a year from a city, whereas in reality I'd say that entire legions would have been raised in that time.

Hate to be the spot of rain, but....