Fellow Roman Cyrillus, be warned, this forum is full of Roman-hating barbarians. Just ignore their taunts, and enjoy expanding the power of Rome and bringing Roman law to uncouth barbarians like them. ;)

In EB 1.2, the only way the glory of the Roman Empire can be recreated is with a human at the helm. Under AI control, if not wiped out by the human player, the Roman faction is almost always slaughtered by the AI Lusotanns and AI Carthaginians, who unfortunately are able to build too many elite units. EB II will hopefully fix this problem by limiting the number of elite units that can be built in a specified time period.

Difficulty level: Recommend M/M for newcomers to EB. That way the AI factions don't receive more financial help than they need, and also leave the mercenary pool available for you to use as allies, which is helpful since Roman recruitment is limited in the early game. Also the AI does not receive an artificial bonus in battles.