I pretty much hated the RTR mods after 5.0 or so. Those guys went way overboard in their attempts at realism.....its not real, it's a game for crying out loud.
Different strokes, I guess... I just think they (RTR team) nailed the feel of the battles fairly well... Out of all the mods I tried, it seemed to best capture what the texts suggest battles of the time were like.
That being said, once you conquered Greece the game was pretty much over. If you tried to follow the Roman conquests in approximate order, it could be a challenge. I sometimes wonder if this is how they playtested it.
SPQR, on the other hand, was a great, fun mod that stays fun throughout the game regardless of how you play it, but its battles are a little overboard on AI advantages IMO.
Neither's perfect, but I found the two the best options.