1) Return from Constantinople. Theodoric must return from Constantinople and claim his place on the Gothic throne. On route he finds both enemies and allies in the woods, and his competition for the throne attacking his city upon his return. Once there he needs to build up a small enough force to take out a small, but well fortified, outpost of the enemy Strabo.
2) Death of Strabo. Strabo dies in the beginning of the scenario (with a cinematic made out of triggers that I'm really proud of ;-)), but the forces of Constantinople have been pursuaded that he should be the proper Gothic ruler. You must then enter the city, find the body of Strabo, and take it down the well guarded route to Constantinople to regain their support. Even though Strabo knows that Theodoric must be the rightful ruler, his son wants the crown too, so once again you must seige his city in order to collect the body.
3) Expelling the Usurper. There has been an uprising, and the leader of it is being put into exhile when his sympathizers ambush the party of knights, slaughtering all but one, who returns the news to Theodoric. The problem is the winter has been long, and the food resources of the city are gone, farming on the frozen lands are impossible, and all the sheep of the city were secreted away by the usurper. Eventually he must attack the forces of the Usurper at the Nonsa river, and, once again, attack a city, this time Verona, and the strong inner city that I created housing a wonder that must fall.
4) Battle of Ravena. Historically, the usurper fell back one more time to the city of Ravena, where one last city seige must take place to finally kill him, and prove that Theodoric is the rightful ruler of the Goths. I'm thinking of creating the city (this is the point at which I haven't started the scenario) with a suicide front that would be impossible to seige without huge casualities, but maybe a soft underbelly that can be slowly eroded away.
5) Mastery of Italy. This will probably play like the first level of Ghengis Khan, but with better fortified towns, and the need/ability to gain resources and more troups. Again, this will probably involve several smaller seiges, but no single big city.
After all of that (thank you for reading this far), does that sound like enough to keep a player interested. I know they all follow "kill the city, win", but I'm hoping there is enough difference in the subplots to keep the player interested, or should I attempt to alter the way Ravena must be won (maybe by trying to set off an internal revolt).
Any opinion on this matter would be very much appreciated.