So much delayed here is the next update. I actually played this on the 26th - 1½ weeks ago - so memory is a bit hazy and my screenshots are, as per typical, somewhat lacking.
We start off in 470 with our first ruler getting back into office.
Then I suddenly get a message about barbarians reducing my civilisation value by 10%. It turns out that Barbarians have sieged down Olbia, and I was entirely ignorant as I was looking elsewhere and didn't get a message about it.
Cursing the default messages I pause the game and muck around with the message settings, and then send my army to march north from Chersonesus to Olbia. They catch the barbarians on the way and crush them - and I end up getting a slave out of the bargain. All in all not bad, and disaster averted.
I wait a few more years, and then decide it is time to attack the Bosphoran Kingdom. This time I have the support of the Senate, and declare war with no additional tyranny. Honestly I have very little to say of the actual war. Part of that is memory, but also because there was not, in all honesty, much contest. I ambused a couple of regiments early on. My new fleet (I had built a fleet of six ships) crushed their fleet. Their subject - Heniochia - was non-contiguous and unable to intervene. In the end I seized the province of Taurica - leaving the Bosphoran Kingdom a small poor strip of land in Maeotia (along the coast of the modern-day Sea of Azov). I also took gold and cut Heniochia free.
In the peace I start to get a few technological advances. A new ruler comes along. I also get gifts from Paphlagonia and the Sarmatian revolt - all very nice I am must admit I am unsure of their motivations. A wee bit later - whilst they are being attacked by Scythia - the Bosphoran Kingdom also gives me a gift, which does cause me to contemplate the AI logic a little.
I end the session in 480 with another new ruler and my second Greek Military tradition.
Along the way I have decided to shift my slaves around. Rightly or wrongly I have ensured I now have one slave pop in every province, and otherwise I am now concentrating remaining slave pops in either Olbia or the provincial capital of Taurica. The idea here is to (a) increase the chances of a slave pop growing, by having slave pops in all my cities; and then (b) getting a province to whatever number of slave pops it is (15?) to generate an extra trade good. Or that's my theory anyway.
And with that, I may actually now play some more, presuming my game works under 1.01.