Aggressive factions are unrealistic

[Drunk Clown]

Well as someone who moves very slowly in my games, that doesn't reflect my experiences at all. The AI moves at a slightly-slower-than-blitz speed all the time if they have funds. I don't even play on VH campaign difficulty, with the bonus money, and they still move far too fast for my liking. Seriously, within 20 years of the game start, if unchecked either Koinon Hellenon or Makedonia will have destroyed the other. Parthia and Pontos will tend to have vanished. Baktria often does too. Either the Aedui or Arverni will have been wiped out. Look at virtually every map at 50 years after game-start that people post, and you have about ten super-factions left.

If there are ten factions the same, then no one is "super".

However, the Ptolemies intentionally confined their area of influence to what was sustainable. From their very inception they weren't expansionist, it was all about keeping a very firm hold of what they had, dominating (eastern) Mediterranean trade, and preventing any other power from rising to significance.

Sounds like a superpower to me.

[QuintusSertorius]

If there are ten factions the same, then no one is "super".

Course they are. After dealing with their local rival and absorbing the rebels nearby, you get a collection of regional superpowers, each the master of their area. They then spend the next 10-20 years duking it out til you're down to four or five.

Is EBI designed to basically be done within 200 turns? Because in reality that's what we get with the pace of AI conquest.

Sounds like a superpower to me.

But not one that behaves anything like AI Ptolemaic Egypt. Which not only tends to gobble up all the Seleukid lands, but in some games all of Qart-Hadast's territory too.