A Confusing Issue with VII

[Zeppelin]

Hello, I've been enjoying Rome: Total Realism for quite some time and recently remembered it from the good old days of playing it in University. Eager to relive the experience, I was quite excited to find that VII had been released.

I haven't played in a while and some things have changed that have confused me, so I'm certain that I may have done something wrong to cause this issue.

When I start the game, on the first turn I cannot click on the faction symbol to bring up, for example, my family tree. I also cannot click the "end turn" button. It seems that neither of these options come available for me-- except for one occasion, where I played the Getae, and the action suddenly warped to a region in Italy where it showed the AI moving to attack another unit. After this, I was given back control and could operate as usual-- allowing me to check my family tree, diplomacy, end my turn, etc.

How did this fluke occurrence that allows me to pursue the game occur? I would very much like to replicate it.

Is it something to do with the "script" it tells me to activate? Because I've followed the instructions but I can't be sure if I've done it correctly. I have even clicked on the "start the script" button underneath the portrait of the talking head, but that did not appear to work on my most recent attempt as the Spartans.

I'm sorry for rambling a bit, and I really hope it does not discourage anyone to read the post.

If anyone could help me with my problem, I'd be incredibly grateful.

Thanks in advance.

[fireblade]

I'm not a real expert in this field, but when you start the campaign, the first thing you should do is activate the script. This is done by clicking on the advisor portrait and then on the "show me how" button

After that the action should shift, as you said, to southern Italy for the battle between the romans and pyrrhus, and to sicily for the battle between rebels and Carthage.

After that, you should be free to move.

Hope this helped a bit, if not, I'll be happy to let a more knowledgeable person speak

[Mausolos of Caria]

I think fireblade already said what needs to be done there, you just have to click the advisor and then a settlement. Then you move to Italy and have to click the advisor again a few times, until the battle of Heraclea and the one on Sicily are finished. All this is explained to you by the first ''welcome message'' and then the advisor anyway, just read through all the stuff
After that you just have to choose another settlement and then play normally. When loading a campaign, or at least when starting a new one you have to delete the old script first, though. You can do that in the menu