Keep on conquering, the plebs love a winner.
The senate will start to get testy with you when you conquer about 26 provinces. I suggest you take time to build up your economy. Slaughter the rebellious cities and try to take over some populous cities to slaughter them for money. This will give you capital to build up economy assisting buildings. Concentrate on prioritizing building up small towns with farms. While in the large towns in Italy and the Aegean with good trading potential, prioritize building Ports, Markets, Roads and temples to mercury in that order. The Brutii have great economic potential; just build them up for a while. Like I said earlier, don't hesitate to slaughter rebellious cities for money.

What the hell are you doing, going after Themiskyra!! Get Greece! Richest area on map, it controls the Aegean trade, and you'll need it to invade Asia. Keep 2 two full stacks to expand further. If you're tired of waiting, get an assasin and let him botch an assasination against a Senate Family member. You'll get outlawed. This only works if you have 1.2.

Also to add to the discusion, watch out for enemy armies situated in your provinces. if a rebel or any army for that matter are just standing there in one of your provinces, then it is bringing down your popularity or whatever you want to call it. So make sure your territories are enemyless. Hope it helps

Quoted from Undefeatable:

Its called Devastation, and it shows up in the city status detail. It takes time for it to slowly go away (imagine the land being plundred and razed... it takes a few years to fully recover). The longer you let the army remain stationary in your territory, the greater the devasation (greater economic impact on that province) and the longer it will take to recover. Towers are especially good at watching for rebel squatters in corners of some provinces.

I'll post an image of what I have ( BTW, I have all of Macedon and Greece and Scythia etc ). Yea there was this period in time when I had 90,000 Denarii and it kept going up and up so I kept building stuff all around my Empire ( Construction Wise ) every single town/city/village has all the basics they could get and what they require. And yea I know the old trick with slaughtering about 4 cities to catch up, but note I was in -20,000 Denarii. So the rebellions kind of helped me make my men run in circles to kill them off so I wouldn't have such a large Military Payment. Anyways, let me fetch that screeny.

EDIT -

Here is the link to the screenshot -

http://img451.imageshack.us/img451/9315/brutii2sg.jpg

NOTE - Cheats Enbaled : Toggle Fog of War Off

[This message has been edited by Josef von Damme (edited 12-01-2005 @ 02:33 PM).]

The slaughtering of your own citizens is like a two edged sword. You get the fast money at once but you will loose considerably more money the following turns before the city is at its previous state of population. Taxes and trade will diminish for a very long time.
Good city management is not that difficult and makes slaughtering your own cities unnecessary. Replace expensive troops with peasants in the cities. Always manage your cities yourself, don’t put it on auto manage. It will take more time for each turn but the game is much more playable if you do. Look into the details scroll of every city to see what is causing problems and deal accordingly. You will be surprised how many spies you will find causing a lot of unrest. Build the government and temples first at each growth stage of a city; economy buildings are next (farming upgrades are only necessary if you want a fast growing city or if you need the extra money from farming). Don’t take to much inland territories in the first stages of your empire, see trade is much more profitable while the buildings are equal expensive.
If you need more tax money just set taxes to a higher level, those green faces aren't that important, yellow ones don't rebel, even blue ones are no big deal. Lower the taxes only if the faces turn red or if you need a faster growth in a ciry.

Friesian

[This message has been edited by Friesian (edited 12-02-2005 @ 08:09 AM).]

Quote:

Spies, causing unrest? How?

If you put a spy in an enemy settlement, they decrease public order.

My recommendations - piss off the Senate until they tell you to have your Faction Leader commit suicide. Say "Hell No" and civil war breaks out. Go conquer Rome and exterminate the population. There go your money problems, and then concentrate on fully garrisoning your blue settlements. Then slaughter the Scipians and Julians, and continue on your more pressing business.

And if you take Rome, you can train first cohorts.

Why is Greece so big? In my campaign the are greece has was occupied by Pontus a few turns back but now I have almost broken their power.

Oh yeah take your best govenor into Athens. It's the biggest trading center.

[This message has been edited by shadowarmy75 (edited 12-02-2005 @ 03:18 PM).]

Ah, I shall try that.

Yea I didn't know Spies did that, do they just cause squalor? I know how to capture a spy, just put a spy in one of your settlements. Infact, I was going to put a spy or two in each settlement before I lost money. Anyways, I took the concept of actually making resistance futile in Athens. To tell you the truth, it was over 2,000 Citizens sleign >_>. Also, my Northeastern Regions are blue because of the population thing too - I had a plague break out which claimed over 10,000 lives in all, 1,500 or so Soldiers and the rest being Citizens. Surprisingly I lost no family members or spies stationed there.

Anyways, I'll work on this right away. I figured going to war a lot was causing the Squalor but guess not :-/.

EDIT -

Here is the list of each individual town I own and the ammount they pay for my combined military forces, ( btw I do have spies in my settlements, I can tell by unrest especialy in my 24,540 People City of Tanais which is trying to break off from me. Too bad, no money to train any new ones as the old ones are long gone. )

Croton - 3,253 Denarii
Tarentum - 4,035 Denarii
Apollonia - 1,508 Denarii
Thermon - 2,604 Denarii
Sparta - 1,985 Denarii
Corinth - 1,040 Denarii
Athens - 738 Denarii
Larissa - 1,710 Denarii
Thessalconia - 3,127 Denarii
Bylazora - 2,876 Denarii
Porrolissum - 1,445 Denarii
Campus Scythii - 2,314 Denarii
Chersonesos - 1,520 Denarii
Tanais - 4,002 Denarii
Campus Sarmatae - 779 Denarii
Campus Alanni - 541 Denarii
Campus Sakae - 112 Denarii
Palma - 579 Denarii
Lovosice - 117 Denarii
Vicus Marcomannii - 119 Denarii
-------------------------------
Grand Total - 35,368 Denarii for a Military Expenditure

Fun Fact - I control 20 Provinces/Towns, wee!!!

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Another thing - Distance from Capital is playing a major part in Tanais as well as a possible enemy spy. It is also have a ethnic problem as well, being as there may be about 2,000 Roman settelers and 22,000 non-Romans lol. Also, I believe building enhanced roads fixes my Capital problem but what fixes the ethnic problem?

[This message has been edited by Josef von Damme (edited 12-02-2005 @ 11:49 PM).]

Try to disband as many high quality units as possible, and if you have anything else than peasants as garrison, disband those units and replace them with peasants. F.e., disbanding just 5 praetorian cohorts will save you over 1000 denarii/turn. When you start getting enough money again, concentrate at happiness buildings (so you can raise taxes and make the garrison smaller, thus giving you even more money) and economical buildings, primarily ports.

PS. if you upload the save, we can take a look at it and be able to help you easier.

The distance to the capital can be reduced by making a more central located city your new capital. This can be done in the city details screen. Thessalonica should be a good choice I think. If you change the capital towards the east watch the cities in then west, they will have an increase of distance.

Friesian

The main problem here is you conqured scythian lands. They got very low income and dont help more then they help. Best bets would be to start a war with egypt as they get stronger and stronger the longer there on the map.