I have done - sent 4 armies into southern greece to take out athens, sparta, corinth and another one. All sea trading is now blocked so income for the greens and blues is zilch (remember they need to pay their army). Obviously my name is now mud - but I had to take out the Brutii before they got too far ahead of me. (The game is in the balance - I am weaker than they are militarily but I can recruit and they can't.

Probably going to send my assassin to take out forums, which will further hit trade. It's a pity you can't see exactly how badly they are doing (income is down to virtually nil while mine is at 10K.)

One interesting event - The Blues were sieging a town, so I joined in and then attacked first. At the end of the day the blues had all sorts of casualties and I had the town. Does this always happen or does it depend who gets the central square?

One thought - the Scipii are now stuck in Africa (no ships and they'll have to fight all the way round the black sea to get home.) Has anyone tried letting a ship be created in a Mediterranean port e.g. Sicily, let it go and pick up an army and then sink it on the way back?

Final note - re re-training. I can re-train troops to make them stronger, but not recover their numbers - am I doing something wrong that can obviously be corrected?

Further to the scorched-earth policy : probably be a good idea to leave in the port since you can always blockade it if you lose the city.