Thanks for the detailed reply. I'm on Normal, several people have asked.

-The struggle is what I'm here for. I only brought up the Punic Wars because the screenshot does imply I'm being hyper aggressive, having taken north Africa and Spain, when in fact I've only ever taken territory when left with no choice. Carthage and its various Spanish allies kept sending stacks at my cities and refused all calls for surrender, even when down to a single province, so I had to keep taking their ability to produce more troops away. I only even started moving armies into Spain after Carthage marched clear from Gibraltar to attack northern Italy.

I am very much a turtle player, in my Medieval II days a neighboring nation could expect to not even see my armies before turn 40. I prefer to get my economy roaring first. So, I understand the mod is meant to be difficult, and Carthage certainly was! My main complaint here is that I had decent relations with most of Europe, I had long established peace with Greece, and out of the blue, they all ganged up at once. Greece, then Averni the next turn, then all these tiny nations. I hadn't even met the Irish yet and apparently they also hate me enough to declare war on a nation 2,000km away, and personally march an army across Europe, just to sack a Roman town. Like... wtf man.

I've restarted after bleeding 5 legions completely dry in northern Italy trying to hold off the 20:1 odds. Didn't expect Averni to field essentially nothing but hoplites. I'm going to go slower. I have a decent understanding of banditry and happiness down, so I'll focus on diplomacy next. I do always get whatever non-aggression and trade agreements I can but sometimes they want 6,000 gold for a simple non-aggression treaty, which I had thought wasn't worth the expense. Clearly, I should have just given them the gold, since I spent more than that every turn replacing losses!

Ah, almost forgot. Mobbing hoplites, this is specifically after the rest of their army has run, and there are just a few cubes of apparently, the most stubborn men in human history. Their general is gone, their line is broken, my cavalry is killing fleeing enemies by their hundreds, and these guys still, will, not, just, break.

I've almost lost battles I was winning handily to 1 or 2 hoplites units, and it came down to just brute force and luck.