Rome: Total War Gold Edition

[Darkness]

This weekend I bought Rome: Total War Gold Edition for 2,50. Seemed like a nice bargain. I needed a new game to play anyway, now that I have most of the CiV achievements (134/138, and 2 of the remaining ones are bugged anyway)....

Very interesting balance between turn based strategy and "real" battle simulation.

But quite complex too, with the balance between economy and military appearing to be the key component for success in this game.

Now I already got some pointers from Shabba about burning pigs , but I am sure I will run into more issues that I could use pointers on in the future.

I tried the Imperial Campaign as the Julii last night, but when trying to conquer one of the cities in Northern Italy my army literally got sandwiched between two Gallic armies... Ouch...

So obviously that "strategy" didn't work all that well... Does anyone have some tips on how to get a good start to the Imperial Campaign?