Fist of all, thank you for this mod and all the work over many years that has made Rome 2 worth playing way more than the vanilla version could ever have justified.

That said, I wanted to mention a few things as feedback from many recent campaigns that I feel would improve the mod and increase replayability.

1) Seleucids die way too fast every single game. 100% of games for me see them get crushed in the opening years of the game. Between rebellious vassals, Atropokan, Galatia, Arabian factions and of course Ptolomy they just cease to exist almost instantly leaving the near east to be carved up usually by Egypt mostly, leading to the second issue below. While playing as the Selecuids is fine and enjoyable the ai is clearly not up to the task and while the mass rebellion in the east causes movement over there, it happens way too fast and results in every game being the same. Maybe they need more units at the start to give the ai a better shot and let them at least hold onto Syria and Mesopotamia for a while. I think they lasted for at least 200 more years or so so their start position should make them at least viable when played by the ai.

2) Ptolomy rampage. Again every game plays the same, with Egypt crushing Seleucids and their other neighbours and flooding the map with stacks. Sure you can manipulate them into a war with Rome but then they quickly wrap up Africa and its even worse than before. It is nice to have a big enemy to fight and the first few times it was good that a faction had made such rapid gains but it feels way too consistent. Currently in my Macedon game they stretch from Carthage to Persia and as its main rival is a push over, its not a shock it happens so often. Not sure how to fix this but hopefully with a strengthened Seleucids it will help. Perhaps they need worse relations with Arab factions to at least have the chance to distract them from their drive north.

3) Macedon is too weak for the AI. Maybe my favourite faction to play currently, great roster and easy access to excellent client troops make playing them a lot of fun, if a bit demanding. The speed at which the barbarians build up and your lack of territory mean you usually face a series of heroic victories just to secure Thrace and then move on from there. As the above, while this is fun and doable in human hands, the ai fails miserably. Macedon struggles hard to expand even 1 province in a lot of games and as such becomes a non factor in Greece, rather than at least putting up a fight with the Romans. I would ask for more units for Macedons start so the ai has a credible shot at taking Pulpudeva before mid game and getting started to provide a decent power in Greece. I was thinking that if they had a slightly better starting army and relations with Seleucids, while Athens was given a boost with Egypt, that would probably generate a conflict and let Greece be united one way or the other while preventing any passing barbarian declaring on Macedon cus they are a single province with no friends. Maybe not historical but neither is Seleucids going extinct 200 years before they did either.

4) Rome, specifically the 1st and only Punic war. Allegedly there is an event that ends the 1st Punic war when Sardinia falls but I have never seen it and basically once that war kicks off its on till death, which seems to be the case for any war with Rome. Obviously a lot of this is the fault of the base game but if any way can be found to force a peace when Rome secures Sicily so that Carthage actually gets to do something in Spain and build up for the second final clash, I feel it would be a big benefit for the game, but maybe hard to do.


Anyway sorry for the long post but I feel these 4 factions are causing problems with replayability due to the same things happening every game and thus affecting large and important areas of the game. Perhaps a couple of scripts like the Romans get when Italy is invaded to give a stack to certain major factions could be a little more wide spread but it would be better obviously to avoid that if it can be balance another way. Thanks again for the mod and work and the many many hours of play time so far.