For more news actually relevant to the thread title... (I have only myself to blame for that ofc):
I should clarify that despite my sales pitch, the campaign doesn't start with a couple of small towns (and, say, Romulus and Remus as co-rulers). It starts with the Republic already pretty well 'started', with the local Latin expansion more-or-less done, but the Italian expansion still to do. The first sacking of Rome by northern barbarians has just occurred, so Sulla? (if I recall correctly) is being called back to Rome as Dictator of the Republic to try to salvage the disaster and recover. Or that's the main campaign story anyway. The video above illustrates the Samnite campaign instead.