the only way to build a good empire by 250 AD, with quite good research is:
Military part:
1) conquer cartagho, raze lyqui, conquer egypt with 4 prets. at least 2 of them promoted (city attack). You must be fast!
2)build some prets in rome and milan. use them for defense untill gauls spawns (4-5 is a good number).
Then you can easy control gallia conquering lutetia (it need few prets)
3)build some prets in egypt and bring them near jerusalem
4) greece is becoming strong? pick your 5-6 prets with few catapults if you have them near athens from italy(with 1-2 galleys). At the same time attack tyros, niniveh and hattusas (the toughest). You can conquer easily greece and constatinopoli.
5)this is the final part. you are under barbs pressure. (build many spearman in egypt and cartagho!)
if you can, conquer iberia (not really easy at this point), found spalatum and declare war on persia (babylon and ur are easy to take if oyu have at least 2-3 promoted prets..). My games always stops here... (camel archer spawns and raze my eastern part of empire..)
Civil/Technology part (i dont remember well all the tree..maybe some techs are wrong and in a wrong order)
Objective techS:
Sailing (lightouse in rome..)
Priesthood (oracle!)
Masonry (great lightouse in rome is a priority)
Code of laws (egypt needs many courthouses)
Late game drama is quite good for culture
When you have these techs plus some other basics tech (like archery ecc..) you are ok.
Now you can focus your research on what you really need.
Choose one of these 3 techs. These are really important (get them via Oracle. not always directly but via monarchy or metal casting)
1)Feudalism (good archers + serfdom) (vassalage too expensive)
2)Machinery (good crossbowman + watermill for egypt)
3)(late game) Civil Service (bureocracy,rome saves more money and build like mad, maceman are good)
Ok, the civil part. Built soon a lightouse in rome. Now You have built some prets in milan and rome (waiting for masonry/priesthood/code) ok.
Milan continues bulding prets while rome is building Great Lighouse.. then you can build the oracle (fast wonder researching a good tech (look the tech part). After this, no more wonder are really needed (colossus and parthenon helps a bit, not too much). Now you can spawn courthouses everywhere hoping that your cash resists
PS: national/military epic are too slow... i would not research for them
Conclusion on money:
Great lighouse in Rome is the basic wonder
Bureocracy saves some money
A great priest in rome helps
Courthouses in egypt(obv.)
Found a holy city. (late game: chiristianity is often founded in a barb city in iberia or gaul(lucky!). When you control that city switch to cristhianity, it spawns in many cities, and hope that rome build another great priest) This could bring your cash in good health (and with good research too)
bye
. This definately helped a lot. I went on to Greece, razed Sparta and sieged Athens which was a tough nut to crack. The screenshot shows my empire 200 AD. Still I didn't conquer Persia and Brittania but came close to it.
