u/_HGCenty

Just thinking about what historical battles I would have liked to have seen in the game, in a faint hope that maybe one day they might get added in an update.

• Magnesia (190 BC). Honestly, if there's any battle that gets to showcase the depth of the Seleucid roster, it's this one. Antiochus brought war elephants, scythed chariots, cataphracts, companion cavalry, his royal Agema cavalry, Galatian mercenaries, elite hoplite phalanx, as well as the usual assortment of skirmishers and archers (including Dahae horse archers). More than even Raphia, it would let the player experience the full Seleucid roster. And on the other side you also have an interesting case of two opposing factions in Rome and Pergamon bringing Roman infantry, auxiliaries and cavalry, and another Hellenistic faction with their pikes and cavalry.
• Carrhae (53 BC). Bring this Rome 1 battle in Rome 2 with Rome 2's Parthia and horse archers. You probably don't even need to change much from the Rome 1 presentation. Would be a great introduction for newer players on how to deal with a horse archer faction. Alternatively, flip it around and have the player control Parthia and teach them how to micromanage horse archers.
• Thermopylae (279 BC). No, not that famous one between Sparta and Greece. The one between Brennus' Gauls (who would become the Galatians) and a collection of Greek city states. Not only is it an interesting factional battle (Gauls versus Hellenistic), you can recreate the same tactical flanking manoeuvres.
• Rome's Expedition to Marib (25 BC). Before Varus there was Aelius Gallus. An incredible number of parallels here and early warnings for Augustus: Gallus was somewhat misled by his Nabatean guide as to the ease of the Arabian expedition and despite defeating a Sabaen force, ran out of supplies and was beset by disease (likely scurvy) trying to besiege Marib. At least his fleet got to sack Eudaemon on the way home and he survived. Shame about most of his 10,000 troops. This again is an incredibly interesting mix of factions, pitching Rome and Nabataea against Saba somewhat justifying why that corner of the map exists on the Grand Campaign map and having a battle in the desert with the ability to greatly explore the fatigue concept for newer players. Also if you're going to add the Desert Kingdoms faction pack, they deserve a battle, especially given how popular it was with fans. This campaign has two of those kingdoms involved.

There are a bunch of battles from the Wars of the Diadochi that could all be fun but I fear require expansions or mods to the game to realise:

• Ipsus (301 BC). Like above, the various Diadochi factions deployed a ton of elephants at this battle and you possibly have a scripted early elephant versus elephants battle before the remaining standard Hellenistic forces can deploy. Obviously given how unbalanced elephants are, it might be difficult to have that many elephant units in a battle without it being horrendous but again could be a fun way to introduce elephant battles.
• Siege of Rhodes (305 BC). Where Demetrius deploys the Helepolis, the largest siege tower ever constructed at that point. It could be represented in the game by lots and lots of heavy siege towers and you could incorporate naval elements too. Obviously the risk here is siege battles are notoriously bad in Rome 2 to do this battle justice.
• Perdiccas' fording of the Nile (320 BC). In reality this was barely a battle because it was such a disastrous river crossing with thousands drowning or being eaten by the Nile crocodiles. Just the sheer silliness of having river crocodiles could make for a twist on your traditional river crossing battle.

>And in true Marshawn Lynch fashion, before he filmed his portion of the video, his most important questions was "Can I use the "F" word?