This is the ultimate history nerd's mod. I'm using actual tactics that I've read in Goldsworthy books used(most specifically, liberating hostile Celts and Dacians and making them buffer states against whatever blob confederation is attacking me) and they're working. Having to plan 10 steps ahead and actually having to be patient and waiting for the right moment to strike makes it so much more satisfying to me, I've easily put 50 hours into my first playthrough and I spent most of that time fighting off Germans and having multiple wars with Carthage. At turn 250, I finally had enough naval power to actually take Cadiz and finish them off. I haven't even been to Greece yet and most of Anatolia and all of Syria is still fogged out. I was super underwhelmed when I first played this(the game, not the mod) and I erased Carthage completely by turn 20 and with this, I actually had to grow my nation to feed the war machine(just like in real life) and had a proper slugfest and its what I've wanted since I got back into these games. The fact that I have to deal with whatever local forces are given to me made the game so much more colorful. I'm not just throwing 20 stack legionary armies at everybody and I have to learn how to use troops that I'd never have to use in the base game. I love the fact that you start out as a phalanx army, and as you progress, you get to the proper manipular system and have to learn new tactics, then you get to the Marian reforms(which Im not sure is a dynamic event or has a hard date, but it fired about 100 years early, which is a shame because wanted more time with the maniple system) and I presume it switches over to Imperial at some point, but this is the kind of nuance I crave. The biggest gripe I have with this, is I'm sure it's going to be hard for me to go back to the other games. 3K is gonna feel like a cartoon after this.

Hats off to you guys. If fully historical Total War is truly dead, you guys did right by it. I hope you get bored and do this again. Can't wait to crack open Alexander.

10/10