Share your stories of leading a faction outside its historical zones of expansion. I'll start with a few of mine
1. Epeiros destroying Rome in 30 turns. Pyrrhus developed PTSD from personally approving the initial slaughter of Italiotes. Later on his son Ptolemaios sustained the long-term genocide of Italiote culture through seizing land from Italians and redistributing it to Greek settlers from Syracuse. Ptolemaios then conquered the entirety of the Adriatic coastline and garrisoned the sea with patrols, ushering in a peaceful era of maritime trade free of pirates and Romans. The Helleno-Italian kingdom flourished, with Rome becoming nothing but a distant memory.
2. Sarmatians invading the Causcus. In a brutal campaign, the Sarmatians out-riddled the Armenians with arrows and seized a strip of land from the Capsian Sea to the Pontic Sea. The Sarmatians gained access to the rich Causcus oil fields - I mean mines, at the cost of legally declaring the popular raiding grounds of Kutatsi a protectorate. Young nobles must pursue their Baal elsewhere...
3. Ptolemaics hellenize the Arabian peninsula. In the ShoeBopp Alternate Universe, while the Epeirotes were civilizing the unwashed barbarians of Italy, the Ptolemaics were bringing the niceties of Hellenistic culture such as freedom for landowners, and oppression and slavery for everyone else to the backwards inhabitants of Arabia. Of course this involved repeated rebellions and extermination campaigns by Ptolemaic Basileus desperately trying to gain some street cred before their PTO away from the royal court at Alexandria expires. Mauryab in particular keeps doubling in population (and instability) every 3 years or so despite an anachronistic early invention of condoms and parental planning programs. Nevertheless by seizing land from Arab landowners, destroying Arab cultural monuments, and installing brutal, despotic satraps, the Ptolemies were able to make the Arab natives quite happy. They would even over time volunteer in droves to Ptolemaic military training programs. Of course, the Ptolemaics are also keeping Arabian nobles hostages... but this friendly gesture was appreciated. In 210BC a massive army of state-sponsored Thureophoroi, Machairaphoroi, Thorakitai, Euzenoi, Thureopherontes Hippeis, and Aspidotai Hippeis corps recruited from Arabia - I mean South-Eastern Alexandria, set sail from Gerrha and invaded the Taksashilan Kingdom. They were promptly slaughtered by Armored Indian Elephants. The official story was that WMDs were discovered in and launched from Seleucia, which created the carte blanche needed to fund a war against the Seleucid heartlands. Thus another Helleno-Arabic army was comissioned, and the second chapter of the Arabian Expeditionary Force unfolded, which also ended in its complete destruction by Armored Indian Elephants.