Turn 1:

1. delete all armies except one in the south, and one in the north. This means all the garrisons.

2. delete all military infrastructure except in Rome and Butuntum.

3. maximize taxes as much as possible

4. build temples of saturn where you could get +1 taxation level due to it

5. reinvest rest into farms > ports > roads > markets

Turn 1-10

Repeat step 5 and expand.

General strategy:

Make alliance with everyone and try get as much money from each deal, sell everything!

Whenever you conquer a city, Exterminate it. Reinvest the money and move on with all forces to next target, ignore a turn or two of unrest if it allows you to get the next city quicker. Avoid revolutions though.

Expansion requires long-term planning. You need logistical hubs where you can replenish Roman troops and recruit new ones as they are very efficient compared to mercs (which are expensive, cowardly trash mostly, except cavalry).


First sphere of expansion:

In south:
Conquer Rhegium, then take that army to take Brundisium. Your next target is an invasion of Epirus and Butuntum will be the logistical hub (recruitment/replenishment) for the conquest.

In north:
Complete conquest of rebels on west Adriatic and try grab Sassinia. I would avoid Liguria as it can aggro Massalia to attack you. Your next target is destroying Boii and Insubres as fast as possible and total conquest of Po valley. Build up Verona or Atria as a logistics hub for further conquests.


Second sphere of expansion:

In south:
Conquer Albania and Epirus. Do not overextend into Aeitolia/Macedonia. Epirus and Albania will net you nice money, but this is merely a springboard.
Build up Albania (all the settlements) as logistical hub for future conquest of Macedon and Greece. This will take you 20+ turns easily, but when it is running, you will be able to produce a stack every 2 turns which is brutal.


In north:
Strike from Patavium towards Danube, race for all the rebel settlements. Once rebels are complete, wipe out Ardiaei. Conquer the province of Dalmatia with a pincer attack from north and south (Albania, once complete).


Third sphere of expansion:

Around this part of the game things will start heating up with Carthage/Syracuse, or Antigonids/Aeitolians. Depending on which AI stabs you first, act accordingly.

Best case scenario is peace with AI in Greece/Macedonia, in which case:

In west:
Buy Aleria from Carthage (dont mind the cash, you should be getting +50k per turn easily). Conquer the rest of the rebels in Sardinia (Carthage usually ignores them until mid game).

In south:
Build up Rhegium as as a logistical hub for conquest of Sicily

In east:
Send a half-stack of good troops to Crete and gradually take it over. You will need allot of time since the logistics need to be localized, i.e. Pollyrhenia needs to built up (20 turns probably). Meanwhile, use mercenaries if you can afford it. Crete should be used a base for the future conquest of Rhodes for the wonder, and Cyrenacia (easy 3 rich settlements).

In north:
Build up Mediolanum and surrounding cities into a logi hub capable of building armies in 3-4 turns. This will be used in the future for trans-alpine expansion and Massalia.


Further game... You should be very powerful and capable of strategic offensives in two cardinal directions (this mod is amazing, you are still limited in your action).

Time to cash in your hard preparation and cuck the significant ai powers before they snowball and get their eco/military industrial complex going. Scorched earth, armies rushing headlong into enemy heartlands with balistas attached, insta capping settlements, demolishing every building possible and moving to the next city while leaving one trash unit as a garrison to deny it to the enemy for as long as possible.

You need to cripple Carthage and the Antigonids primarily.

Once you do one scorched earth pass, in the next pass take land and consolidate.

Enjoy, good luck.



If you notice I never had much luck with a Western expansion strategy. I find that Gaul is very large and hard to defend and requires a much stronger empire to conquer. That said, the city of Glanum iss one of the best income ssettlements in the game, so if you can manage to take out Massalia, while keeping peace with the Gauls, this could be substituted instead of expanding into Panonia and Dalmatia.

The game gets really overwhelming later on when you are active in 3+ strategic regions, it is good to have a journal to help you keep track of your empire. I do it with OneNote, with a tab for each strategic theater.


Metagaming:

Architects:
Some characters can develop strong construction related traits, which when paired with some ancillaries, can cut construction costs upwards of 100% (yes, you can have a governor which builds buildings for free!).
Utilizing these as travelling builders is EXTREMELY improtant for efficiently growing your empire. Try avoid building big ticker buildings without discounts.
When moving around with a architect governor, you can queue up multiple buildings at that discount and move on.


Naval transport:
One of the reasons for my chosen strategy is being able to utilize naval transport for expansion and minimizing land borders. E.g. a trip from Rome to the Danube is half as long when you march to the Adriatic, ship over to Salona, and continue through Bosnia. Also, the AI is less likely to backstab you with an army over sea, compared to a land border.
You need to chose your wars, not the AI, peace is a priority up to the moment you attack.



Auto-resolve:
Roman troops seem to be really strong when auto-resolving, while barbarians are trash. Especially later on when the Marian reform hits and legion recruitment becomes easy, make your life easier and do not tryhard except for fun /huge battles) or if it is obvious the auto-resolve was unfair (save scum for this). E.g. 2 enemy meele units somehow killing 500 troopss while in reality you pin them with 2 meele units and then procede to melt with missisle/cavarly from behind before you lose even a 100 troops.