I really enjoy the beginning of the campaign when you're actually struggling against your neighbours. However, I find that by the time I've actually made it to the bigger and better units (30-40 turns in) then I'm just dominating my neighbours who are still on lower unit tiers themselves. Like my last game as the Seleucids. I conquered the entire east, from Siwa in the SW to Pergamum in the NW to that line of Armenian/Scythian/Parthian cities in the north on VH/VH in about 50 turns. When the first roman army showed up the bulk of my army was 4th tier to their 2nd.
I know you can get into descr_strat.txt in the imperial campaign directory and edit what factions start with, but this sounds really tedious. Has anyone already done this, or is there an easier way to accomplish this?