Rome Total War- Battle strategies

[Epictetus]

I just had that problem. I had a force of infantry-only moving to a different city and ran into some brigands which were all skirmishers. I chased them all over the freaking place and eventually carefully caught some in a corner to demolish them. I was running out of time but eventually trapped enough to make the whole lot of them rout. But I was quite worried for a while. High mobility can be quite useful.

Later edit:

Has anyone ever managed to force another faction to become a protectorate? What happens? I was ordered by the Senate to do this, but the faction refused to submit. When I failed, the Senate said that I should have been more forceful, or something like that. So later I waited until this faction only had one town left, which I was beseiging. I raised the seige to ask them to submit and they still refused. hock: I don't know how much more forceful one could be! What's the trick?