Who remembers this old game, Centurion, Defender of Rome?
Many features of Vanilla RTW bring flashbacks of the old Centurion game, from the shape of the maps to everyone always likes to attack Rome.
I always loved that old game... It had the greatest quotes on the diplomacy screen, like "Your tribe wear clothes. That not right!!!" to "I spit on stinking Roman dogs! PTTTOOOIII!!"
Sadly, the AI was smarter than the RTW AI. At least whole enemy legions wouldn't sit there and do nothing on the battle map...