Please depict the Gauls accurately this time (duplicate from TWcenter)

[wangchang]

I went to total war center and made this long thread. However, there was some misunderstanding, and they banned me (thinking i was an alt).
This thread is the only one to actually defend the northern factions cause, and if we keep it alive as much as possible, CA may notice the matter and take the problem into consideration the Rome 2 TOTAL WAR.

They banned me from their forums under false accusations, and i'm afraid that since i'm banned, people may not continue posting in the thread and keeping it in the first page.
the thread is here : http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=548834
If you have an account in TWcenter forums, you can go and participate in the thread, post suggestions or argue over the matter.
If you can, you can also inform people on my situation, since I can't do it myself (banned). You can also try to put some sense in the moderators so I can be unbanned and participate in my threads.

If you don't have an account, then you can participate here too : Here i'm not banned so I will be able to answer :)

Overall, on this forums or the other one, let's defend the northern faction cause (in the case the Gauls) :)

Now Here is the OP :


I have decided to register on those forums after I learnt that they were making a new total. I'm ususally not very found on posting sugestions or advices for games, since devellopers almost never read them, but I found out this wasn't the case on those forum and that CA is pretty much more attuned. Also the community seems great and really enthousiatic when it comes to discussing stuff like game design.


Ok so now to the point: I simply loved the first rome total war, but some stuff disapointed me in the vanilla version : mainly the many historical inaccuracies in the game. It could go from simple details to a whole factions depiction. And about depiction, four factions were particularly affected : The Egyptians, the germans, the Britons AND the GAULS.

Now I saw that a thread about the egyptians was already made in the section, so i'm not going to talk too much about them. I'm not going to talk too much about germans and britons, since I think that the Britons, germans and Gauls are all an unique case and should not be put into the same basket.
Since i've been an exchange students in france during 2 year, I had the occasion to learn a lot about this old culture, and I had access to historical reconstitutions and the latest archeological findings.
In rome total war, the gauls were basically depicted as a generic barbaric culture, and really had that hollywood barbarian style : hordes of unwashed, primitive savage, barely equiped and living in hovels.
This depiction was reflected in every aspect of their design : from their town (who could'nt even have stone walls) who looked like a bunch of hovels and huts put together and linked with dirt roads, to their unit design, who like I said, were the generic barbarians units.

Now evidence, mostly recent, shows that they were in fact a pretty sophisticated civilization, and had a level of advancement comparable to the romans. Of course, they were indferior in some fields (the most notable one being engineering, the roman being pretty much the best of antiquity in that field), equals on other and even superior in some.

I can list those fields were they equalled and even surpassed the romans :
-philosophy & theology : the druids weren't only religious leaders. In fact, like many civilizations of that time, the priest and scientist class were the same, look at the egyptians, the persians, the mayans... They were great philosophers, even the greeks and the roman praised the deepness of their thoughs
-Litterature : the fact that they didn't write doesn't mean they had not complex litterature. In fact their poems, essays and stories were transmitted orally. Even today most people have heard of the bards, which is a testimony to their prowess in this fields. They capable of Literary techniques that would have put sometimes some of todays writer to shame. Their litterature wasn't just instinctive.
-Craftmanship : it's one of those fields were they were often (not always) surpassing the romans. Everything ivolving smithing or building objects (made of woods, or other materials). They were by far the finest metal workers in antiquity, smithing being very complex in nature, this is a testimony of their overall level of advancement. They invented the mailcoat (that revolutionized armament ), the plow (that indisputably revolutionized agriculture) and had left a lot of very fine artworks, most of them having only been recently uncovered. They also invented the barell, one of the most ingenious way to transport liquids and other goods.
-MAthematics : yeah, now i know most people are surprise and often don't believe it when they hear this, because it's really the antithesis of today's cliche image of the gauls. But the druids did travel a lot, goign to place like alexiandria, the capital of sience at the time (great library) to discuss and exchange theory with the others sicientist (greek,romans,egyptians sometimes even indians). What we know for sure is that they had the same knowledge of those people. What we don't know yet is if they discovered theorems themselves. Since they did not leave any written notes, it's hard to tell. So I'm going to assume theey didn't had a big impact on mathematical theories and were just educated, just like the romans : the romans didn't really liked abstract thinking themselves, so both gauls and romans are probably equals in those fields.
- Art : it's difficult tho judge art, and I think you can never say one painting is superior to another. You can't judge creativity But, you can judge the level of complexity, the level technique used, and the overall finesse . In those two, the gauls were equals to the romans.They made extremely fine piece piece of art, mainly using metals and wood, while the romans prefered marble and stone. I've many books with lots of pictures about the art of the two civs, and myself i can tell they they are both equals when it comes to the finesse.


In the fields of architecture, the romans surpassed the gauls, like they surpassed everybody anyway.
But that doesn't means the gauls had a primitive architecture. In fact they had a very unique style.
Again contrary to the popular belief, they did build more than just huts and longhouse. Their cities were fully paved, like their roads, their road systhem was one of the most develloped and well kept of those time, with every roads being made of stone or woods. Only the poorer lived in huts, and most of them had big houses, improved from generations to generations, with fine artwork all around the house, low relief, sculptures, and paintings. The cities had big administrative buildings, again with lots of artwork and decorations, large public facilities (even baths, although not as extended as the romans ones), large central places...


If you want to picture one of their largest oppdiums (cities), just imagine any other big cities of that times (carthage, sparta, even rome) just a bit smaller (there was a bigger rural population) and replace the stone and marble by a wood/stone combo and metal working : you have your gaul oppidium, the same grandeur, the same imposing feeling (or almost, let's not exagerate ). But DEFINITEVELY NOT a small town with dirt roads, simple house with little to no art or style. So they should NOT be portrayed like they were in rome total war 1.
Bibactre, one of the biggest gallic oppidium, had over 150 000 inhabitants. Which is still kind of big for that time.
I could go on and one, about how the gauls also invented soap (they weren't the only ones, germans, phoenicians, syrians... did), were master Dyers (they had very colorfull cloth and gave a lot of importance to their clothing, more than the romans did) (which also means most of them (at least more than 50%) did not went naked or bare torsed in battle, but actually put some nice cloth)...



So it was a pretty long demonstration, you can check every point in various sources, I even encourage you to do so, not just wikipedia (even if wikipedia pretty much approves what I said, it's just incomplete on some part), but also the works of some historians and some pictures of the gauls art. I also recommend you ''l'univer des formes'' it's a famous french collection on civilizations, and it was translated in english (i think, but anyway it's mostly pictures of artworks no need translations for that ).

I wanted to break most of the préjudice and the comon lie that sticks to the gauls image, even today.
So the point was to provide a more accurate overview of this people and get rid of this stereotypical view.




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Now how it should reflect in-game compared to the previous rome total war :

-Units shouldn't be generic and shouldn't be the same as the germans. They should look well equiped (at least for the medium and high tier), and well clothed (for most of them, yet some should be naked or half naked, since SOME gauls did fight that way) and should have that gaulish look.

-Big cities should look neater and more refined : stone roads, imposing facilities, stone walls, fine architecture, presence of pieces of art, scultpures low relief, big temples.... Basically it should have that ''grandeur'' that the other civs cities are going to have. And and also, it shouldn't be the same cities as the germans : they were both different civilization and should not be put in the same basket.
In the end, in the game, if one look at a gauls cities, he ewon't say : ''Meh, this city looks pale in comparaison to the carthaginian/egyptian/greek... ones'', it should look as develloped and as fine as those cities. It should have this ''magnificient'' look the other will have, or at least at a comparable level, in the same scale.

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So yeah, that's about it. My hopes is that a CA employee will see this and that it will help, along with many other things (i'm not pretentious ), make him consider some more options for the design of the gauls. And anyway, I'm also curious to hear your people think about all this, what's your opinion on how CA should stick to historical accuracy and some design ideas you can come up to. I'm also eager to see the debate that will come out of this thread.



Thanks , certainly have fun debating

PS : I can't edit anything (don't have permission yet), so if there are grammatical errors I won't be able to correct them. Thanks for your comprehension


PS : on TWcenter my nickname is Akarnir.

[quadalpha]

RTW was not known for its historical accuracy, and there is reason to hope it will be better this time round. Part of the problem may be with time and money: one large city in the Greco-Roman style is on many levels pretty much the same as another, whereas it would take more work to build up the assets for architecture in wood, especially as we have no surviving examples.

You don't want to be with that rabble at TWC anyway! We all know this is the real TW community.

[Arjos]

I find these threads useless and at fault comparing what CA used to be at the time of RTW, to what is now (I didn't see such generalizations or stereotypes portrayed in later titles)...
Not to mention, basically all you are asking for, has already been addressed in the few interviews...

[Vuk]

I find this threads useless and at fault comparing what CA used to be at the time of RTW, to what is now (I didn't see such generalizations or stereotypes portrayed in later titles)

Did you not see M2TW then? How about TWS2?

[Arjos]

They have to work on that edge of hollywood style/accuracy and the former is the one that pays big bucks...
And S2TW wasn't as bad as don't know arcani XD

[wangchang]

You don't want to be with that rabble at TWC anyway! We all know this is the real TW community.

Hahaha yeah I agree. The community here is smaller but i prefer it. Especially since I was banned from TWcenter for no reason. Yet, TWcenter is a bigger community, so CA has more chance to notice the demand.

[wangchang]

RTW was not known for its historical accuracy, and there is reason to hope it will be better this time round. Part of the problem may be with time and money: one large city in the Greco-Roman style is on many levels pretty much the same as another, whereas it would take more work to build up the assets for architecture in wood, especially as we have no surviving examples.

You don't want to be with that rabble at TWC anyway! We all know this is the real TW community.


So, to make a map of the city of Carthage; to resurrect a dead people; to recreate a historical battle told only by the victors; these are all huge research challenges. Creative Assembly has overcome them by... reading lots of books. They have spent thousands of pounds on old books, they’ve pored over satellite photos, they’ve studied the nearby tombs of the Carthaginians (which were based on the city’s buildings) and they’ve looked at nearby cities that surrendered to the Romans. The cities themselves feel far more lived in than previous games; the streets of Carthage in the demo were covered in graffiti, and lined with litter and garbage. The streets were narrow and winding, dirty and grubby, the harbour contrasted mighty stone piers with dingy wooden fishermans’ jetties. The whole city felt like an ancient maze.


From an interview of CA here : http://www.pcgamesn.com/totalwar/total-war-rome-2-preview-every-question-answered

I think it would be unfair if they didn't put the same effort for the other factions. What I don't like either is that they constantly refer to the northern factions as barbarian while they refer to the other factions with the words ''exotic'', ''eastern'' , ''empires''...

[Alexander the Pretty Good]

Of course it'll be unfair, and of course that's what they're going to do. The people they need to sell games to (that is, a larger market than just people who know the Gauls weren't all shirtless maniacs with war dogs) don't care if the Gauls in game are all shirtless maniacs with war dogs. So it's not a priority.

Carthage will look great, and might even be passingly historical. Don't expect that kind of level of detail on (say) the composition of the Carthaginian army, because the target audience doesn't know and doesn't care.

[wangchang]

That'S what I fear the most.

the biggest problem is the cities : even if the game is decently moddable, I doubt it will be to the extend of custom cities. ANd even if it is, no modder will be able (becomes graphics and modders are more complex than before) to reproduce them in their full grandeur. The amount of work would be too Big.

But I have hopes, that if the whole community ask for it, they will consider it. The point is to educate the community, and to do that, the thread need to be in the first page.

[Graphic]

Did you not see M2TW then? How about TWS2?

I'm fine with the stretches in vanilla Shogun 2. If they didn't have hero units, a bunch of warrior monks, ninjas etc. and it was all realistic, you'd basically be left with a handful of generic spear, bow and cavalry units. Even the idea of a group of samurai charging the enemy with their katanas was fantasy.

They did go back to reality with Fall of the Samurai though because they could, which is a pretty down to earth game along with Empire and especially Napoleon. I think CA wants to be down to earth whenever possible but will stretch things if reality isn't enough for varied gameplay. With all the totally different cultures in Rome 2 I don't see them being forced down the road of fantasy again. I think they've grown out of fantasy units for fantasy's sake.

[latinos]

OH HAi WAngchang!

Lol I've already seen this OP in TWcenter. Fully agreed with what was said BTW. I, like feel, feel that the celts are too often stuck with the generic barbarian design, and that their town are unfairly depicted, and don't get the proper attention. And didn't knew if I should made a thread or not.

But then I saw that you already did one, and that you exposed the matter way better than I could have possibly done. I just don't want to see this thread burried under the other threads, and it seems that since your banned, this tread may have some troubles to be kept at the TWcenter front page.

It's unfair, the gauls don't get the attention they deserve on the forums, your the only one so far to have stand up for their cause. So I wanted to congratulate you. And I fully support you. I would really like to help too, so if you want I could try to talk to some moderator on TWcenter.

what do you think?

PS : BTW my name is latino in TWcenter, u are akarnir right?

[Andres]

Hello and welcome @wangchang (https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/member.php?u=95773) ~:wave:

An interesting OP and as a descendent of the bravest of all Gauls, I can only hope my ancestors will be depicted more accurately and not as a bunch of unwashed savages like the previous time.

You seem to have a genuine interest in history; if you want deeper historical debates, then I'm sure the guys over at the Monastery (https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/forumdisplay.php?16-Monastery) will be more than happy to welcome you.

[Catiline]

You're descended from Asterix?

[wangchang]

Hello and welcome @wangchang (https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/member.php?u=95773) ~:wave:

An interesting OP and as a descendent of the bravest of all Gauls, I can only hope my ancestors will be depicted more accurately and not as a bunch of unwashed savages like the previous time.

You seem to have a genuine interest in history; if you want deeper historical debates, then I'm sure the guys over at the Monastery (https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/forumdisplay.php?16-Monastery) will be more than happy to welcome you.

Haha , I guess you are a Belgian. Am I right?

[wangchang]

OH HAi WAngchang!

Lol I've already seen this OP in TWcenter. Fully agreed with what was said BTW. I, like feel, feel that the celts are too often stuck with the generic barbarian design, and that their town are unfairly depicted, and don't get the proper attention. And didn't knew if I should made a thread or not.

But then I saw that you already did one, and that you exposed the matter way better than I could have possibly done. I just don't want to see this thread burried under the other threads, and it seems that since your banned, this tread may have some troubles to be kept at the TWcenter front page.

It's unfair, the gauls don't get the attention they deserve on the forums, your the only one so far to have stand up for their cause. So I wanted to congratulate you. And I fully support you. I would really like to help too, so if you want I could try to talk to some moderator on TWcenter.

what do you think?

PS : BTW my name is latino in TWcenter, u are akarnir right?


Oh :daisy: i haven't red that post until now. WOW of course i'm interested. If you could explain my situation to the moderators I would be more than happy. Because each time I try to create an account to explain me, they just ban me without warning and without replying.

Ok so here is the whole story : If I remember correctly, my first account was zozor. I did some pretty pertinent participation, wrote some post and ideas for the mod third age total war. One of the ideas was to have single men unit for the heroes of the mod. Anyway. But at some point I left my room, with my brother inside (we share the same room). And that's when he decided to go on my account ( i had not log off) and post a lot of spamming : he literally spammed 10 threads with repetitive and immature post. When I returned, he had left the room, and I could see that I had been banned. I tried to create another account, to explain the situation to the moderators, but they banned it again, because it was an alt. But it makes no sense because I had no other than to create an alt to explain the situation.
They should have understand that there was a big incoherence between the pertinent threads and post I made, and this nonsense spamming. They should have doubt that there was a problem, and that the guy who spammed and the guy who made the good participation were two different person. It was obvious that someone else was using my account.

So then I tried to create another account, which they again banned, without even replying to me . Then I made another one : this one wasn't banned, so I continued to post ideas and stuff. But then they must have noticed that the ideas were the same as my previous account, so they decided to ban this one too : JUST BECAUSE IT POSTED THE SAME IDEA AS ANOTHER BANNED ACCOUNT. That just shows you how fair the moderators are one these forums (sarcasm, they aren't fair at all).
Then I created another account, and again, because the writing style and participation was the same, they banned me again.

They never realized that I was insisting to return to those forums to post my ideas and discuss them, not to spam. It should be obvious, since each time I recreated another account, I made comprehensive demonstrations of my ideas. So it was clear that the spamming incident was just an isolated incident, and was probably done by someone who had stole my acount.

Yet they still don't want to hear anything. I actually know the two administrators that keeps banning me and ignoring me : Gigantus and GrnEyedDvl. Those two should be reasoned.

So yeah , if you can do this for me, you will have my gratitude and the gratitude of the Gauls :P.

Thanks for helping me. I really look op to you to defend me :)

Again, thanks a lot, you are like a light in te darkness for me (how poetic :P).

[quadalpha]

Well, you know what they say about a people getting the government they deserve. The state of the mods over there just goes to show all the more you're better off banned.

[wangchang]

Well, you know what they say about a people getting the government they deserve. The state of the mods over there just goes to show all the more you're better off banned.

Yeah, I agree on some point, I prefer totalwar.org.

Yet I think it's good to keep this thread in the 3 big forums, so that all the three communities can be aware, the views and reply there are, the more there is chance of it getting noticed.

Add to that that TWcenter is the biggest community and that it's there that craig and jack lusted come the more often. SO even if I dislike it, it's better if this thread is also on TWcenter, because it is there that it's the more likely to get noticed.

But anyway, here i'm not banned and the community is cool, so I will try to keep this thread active with debates and ideas :) .

[Catiline]

Chaps let's keep this on topic please. Anyone for CA reading this is going to get switched off and give up pretty instantly by a discssion of alt account history and the politics and moderation policies of a different forum.

[wangchang]

Chaps let's keep this on topic please. Anyone for CA reading this is going to get switched off and give up pretty instantly by a discssion of alt account history and the politics and moderation policies of a different forum.

You are right, let's keep this on topic :)
If anyone else is interested about my account situation, PM me instead of posting in this thread.
thanks.

[Zim]

I'm hoping the Gauls get a better deal in this one as well.


Ultimately I know some compromise will have to be made. Most players probably aren't too fussed on accuracy and are just buying what they think looks like a cool strategy game. I know that was me way back when RTW came out. I didn't even appreciate many of the little things they got right (like having Hastati and Triarii and not just starting off the bat with legionaries in Lorica Segmentata). It wasn't until after I gained an interest in history (partly due to the game) and got into mods like IBFD and later Europa Barbarorum that I really began to appreciate how silly troops of guys throwing heads or attack dogs were.

Not only are many players unconcerned, but I don't doubt that they knew full well which that some units in the game were on the silly side but put them anyway to add character to factions, or because they were cool. I think I recall them saying as much way back about the decision to give Egypt anachronistic units. I know this worked for at least some players. My father and best friend thought the war hounds (or whatever they call the dogs) were among the coolest units...

All that aside, I hope the Gauls get some more attention this coming game. I remember them feeling very generic, like they were designed just as a barrier to expansion by the Romans. By contrast the Carthaginians and Allemanii, who could easily have suffered from the same thing, at least had varied and interesting unit rosters. I'd like to see the Gauls at least get that much, and feel like a real faction. Greater historical accuracy would then be icing on the cake.

[wangchang]

That is why I try to keep this thread alive in 3 different forums : I want to keep the community aware of this matter.
If the community begins to ask for more accuracy for the Gauls, then CA will take the time to depict them that way. Also, the developers of europa barbarorum could propose their help, so CA can remeber they can use EUropa Barbarorum's huge work.

[andrewt]

To me, RTW is easily the least historically accurate out of all of CA's games so far. It's not even close to second worst. I find this period interesting so I'm hoping it would be a lot better this time around. Even just average accuracy for a CA game would be a huge improvement.

[wangchang]

Yep, but what I fear, is that I don't see CA taking any special attention when making the gallic cities. I'm also afraid they will give the gauls and the german the same generic cities. And it would be even worse if they forbid gauls to have stone walls.

The problem is that cities aren't as moddable as units : unit inaccuracy can easily be compensated by the mod, while the cities won't.
That's why I wrote this in many forums : to have a chance to get CA's attention on the matter, before it's too late.

[Fisherking]

Several things on Celtic fortifications and other matters:

Celtic settlements, described by Caesar as Oppidum, were protected by walls of earth and timber and faced with stone. They were topped with wooden palisades to enhance the defense and would often be ditched in front of the walls. Some sites have inner and outer walls and other defensive works.

They were immune to ramming and fire and usually of a height of 4m or more. The gatehouses were further protected and difficult to assault.

It is no wonder that the Romans usually took them by siege as the only other choice would be by escalade.

Nor was this the end of the matter. The interior of the settlements were laid out in blocks that were also ringed by palisades or fencing. This would not be a happy prospect for Roman Soldiers trained to fight in formations.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Oppidum_manching_osttor.JPG

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Muros_de_San_Cibrao_de_Las.jpg

http://marisoccidua.wordpress.com/2010/07/09/hillfort-of-san-cribrao-de-las/


We know the Celts built excellent roads, as Caesar said so himself, which aided his conquest’s speed.

It is also interesting to note that after the Roman Conquest of Gaul a much wider area of Celtic settlement were abandoned, due to economic collapse.

As to the backwardness of the Celts, one fact speaks volumes.

Prior to the conquest of Gaul it was the habit of the Roman Elite to use Greek Slaves to educate their children. Afterwards however, it was Gaulish tutors who were the most sought after.

http://wildfiregames.com/0ad/page.php?p=10839
Until fairly recently it had been taken as fact that the Celts left no written records whatsoever. However, recent advances have not only uncovered examples of Celtic writing, especially the Gaulish dialect, but also have allowed us to decipher it to an extent. While no historical writings have been discovered, if they exist at all, existing examples of Celtic writing have significantly added to our understanding. While no full alphabet has been uncovered in any of the known scripts used (for Gaulish: Etruscan, Greek, and Latin) it is now a misconception to say the Celts lacked writing.


I remember the Celtic settlements from RTW. They were flimsy little things of no account. There was never a siege. Just build a ram or if you had an elephant, charge!

It doesn’t hold up to what archaeology tells us.

I guess we will just wait and see what CA gives us.

[Shigawire]

Celtic settlements, described by Caesar as Oppidum, were protected by walls of earth and timber and faced with stone. They were topped with wooden palisades to enhance the defense and would often be ditched in front of the walls. Some sites have inner and outer walls and other defensive works.

They were immune to ramming and fire and usually of a height of 4m or more. The gatehouses were further protected and difficult to assault.

It is no wonder that the Romans usually took them by siege as the only other choice would be by escalade.

Nor was this the end of the matter. The interior of the settlements were laid out in blocks that were also ringed by palisades or fencing. This would not be a happy prospect for Roman Soldiers trained to fight in formations.
<snip>
Prior to the conquest of Gaul it was the habit of the Roman Elite to use Greek Slaves to educate their children. Afterwards however, it was Gaulish tutors who were the most sought after.

I remember the Celtic settlements from RTW. They were flimsy little things of no account. There was never a siege. Just build a ram or if you had an elephant, charge!
<snip>
It doesn’t hold up to what archaeology tells us.

Yes, thank you for the post. The "Murus Gallicus" of the Oppida was even mentioned by Julius Caesar in "De Bello Gallico." He is impressed about the wall's qualities to withstand: ramming, artillery, fire. Hell, I'm sure undermining it wouldn't be easy either, on account of the timber lattices.
There was only ONE way to conquer the Murus Gallicus - over the top. And as they reached the top, they would have to contend with spikes like barbed wire fences, not to mention angry celts.
Thankfully the Romans were experts at brute force over the top. The Romans had learned siege warfare 200 years after everyone else in the Mediterranean. All the way until ca 200 BC, the Romans weren't using siege towers or siege machines. They had ladders, they built ramps of dirt over the wall. They went for the brute force approach. If they had artillery, it was because they had captured it from the enemy (f.ex. 2nd Punic War). It was in the Roman Macedon campaign where they learned the way of the Greek siege train.

My higgs boson it's a breeze to be at the Org sometimes. I've been discussing this exact same thread on the official TW forums (same author, zozor). The ignorance and stubbornness over there is astounding compared to the Org. The same old false dichotomy of "realism vs history" comes up. I keep asking for an example where "fun" yields for "history." Then they keep coming up with strawman arguments, that I attentively shoot down. But they just aren't receptive.

Here are their misconceptions of Gauls that I picked up on the .Com
-"Tiny wooden towns, paper thin palisade walls"
-"Gauls' grasp on warfare was crude and irresponsible"
etc

Instead of being agnostic on the subject, they pretend to know something they don't know:
they assume that powerful, dense and filthy urbanization is better than a decentralized impotent confederacy.

[ReluctantSamurai]

Excellent posting, folks! I'm learning alot about a very fascinating culture...

[wangchang]

Several things on Celtic fortifications and other matters:

Celtic settlements, described by Caesar as Oppidum, were protected by walls of earth and timber and faced with stone. They were topped with wooden palisades to enhance the defense and would often be ditched in front of the walls. Some sites have inner and outer walls and other defensive works.

They were immune to ramming and fire and usually of a height of 4m or more. The gatehouses were further protected and difficult to assault.

It is no wonder that the Romans usually took them by siege as the only other choice would be by escalade.

Nor was this the end of the matter. The interior of the settlements were laid out in blocks that were also ringed by palisades or fencing. This would not be a happy prospect for Roman Soldiers trained to fight in formations.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Oppidum_manching_osttor.JPG

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Muros_de_San_Cibrao_de_Las.jpg

http://marisoccidua.wordpress.com/2010/07/09/hillfort-of-san-cribrao-de-las/


We know the Celts built excellent roads, as Caesar said so himself, which aided his conquest’s speed.

It is also interesting to note that after the Roman Conquest of Gaul a much wider area of Celtic settlement were abandoned, due to economic collapse.

As to the backwardness of the Celts, one fact speaks volumes.

Prior to the conquest of Gaul it was the habit of the Roman Elite to use Greek Slaves to educate their children. Afterwards however, it was Gaulish tutors who were the most sought after.

http://wildfiregames.com/0ad/page.php?p=10839
Until fairly recently it had been taken as fact that the Celts left no written records whatsoever. However, recent advances have not only uncovered examples of Celtic writing, especially the Gaulish dialect, but also have allowed us to decipher it to an extent. While no historical writings have been discovered, if they exist at all, existing examples of Celtic writing have significantly added to our understanding. While no full alphabet has been uncovered in any of the known scripts used (for Gaulish: Etruscan, Greek, and Latin) it is now a misconception to say the Celts lacked writing.


I remember the Celtic settlements from RTW. They were flimsy little things of no account. There was never a siege. Just build a ram or if you had an elephant, charge!

It doesn’t hold up to what archaeology tells us.

I guess we will just wait and see what CA gives us.


Excellent post, I saw it in the TWcenter (unfortunately I couldn't reply there). :)

You summed all in just a few sentences. I almost think there should be several threads for each different matter about the celts.
At some point we should make a mega-thread about all that has been said on the misconceptions about the celts post it in every forums and even send it to CA.
That's what I tried to do with this thread but it's still incomplete and not concise enough.
Thanks for trying to keep my TWcenter thread alive by the way :2thumbsup:

[wangchang]

Yes, thank you for the post. The "Murus Gallicus" of the Oppida was even mentioned by Julius Caesar in "De Bello Gallico." He is impressed about the wall's qualities to withstand: ramming, artillery, fire. Hell, I'm sure undermining it wouldn't be easy either, on account of the timber lattices.
There was only ONE way to conquer the Murus Gallicus - over the top. And as they reached the top, they would have to contend with spikes like barbed wire fences, not to mention angry celts.
Thankfully the Romans were experts at brute force over the top. The Romans had learned siege warfare 200 years after everyone else in the Mediterranean. All the way until ca 200 BC, the Romans weren't using siege towers or siege machines. They had ladders, they built ramps of dirt over the wall. They went for the brute force approach. If they had artillery, it was because they had captured it from the enemy (f.ex. 2nd Punic War). It was in the Roman Macedon campaign where they learned the way of the Greek siege train.

My higgs boson it's a breeze to be at the Org sometimes. I've been discussing this exact same thread on the official TW forums (same author, zozor). The ignorance and stubbornness over there is astounding compared to the Org. The same old false dichotomy of "realism vs history" comes up. I keep asking for an example where "fun" yields for "history." Then they keep coming up with strawman arguments, that I attentively shoot down. But they just aren't receptive.

Here are their misconceptions of Gauls that I picked up on the .Com
-"Tiny wooden towns, paper thin palisade walls"
-"Gauls' grasp on warfare was crude and irresponsible"
etc

Instead of being agnostic on the subject, they pretend to know something they don't know:
they assume that powerful, dense and filthy urbanization is better than a decentralized impotent confederacy.

I agree with that too :yes:

It's funny to see that all the best posters I saw on the other forums come here to post on this thread too.
It must have something to do with this .org in the address bar :P

[Moros]

It is a special place alright! :yes:

A haven of maturity on the internet.

[wangchang]

It is a special place alright! :yes:

A haven of maturity on the internet.

Indeed.

About this, i'm thinking about trying to attract CA attention's on the matter. I know the EB guys did that in the past about the celt/germans, it did failed, but it wasn't the same CA than today, their budget was limited and they didn't put as much attention into details as they are doing today.
THe fact that there are also previous modders in their rank now makes me think they are more receptive to the community.
Any tips to how to contact CA or at least attract their attention?

[cunctator]

I don't see why contacting CA should be useful. If they really want to depict the Celts accurately this time they will have no problem getting the required data. Unlike in 2003/2004 even the most lazy people can find decent information about Celtic oppida and their defenses after a quick wikipedia search. At least in the german wikipedia already with some relevant scientific literature listed in the bibliography.
Also CA is already aware of EB as the mentioned the mod several times favorably in the past.

[wangchang]

Yeah I explained several times that CA might not be aware that there is more to the gauls than barbarian. If they are not aware of this then they might end up making minimal research and give them the same generic barbarian feeling that they will share with the germans, britons, celtiberians...

[SirGrotius]

I've always viewed TW games as somewhat historical, in terms of concept and spirit, but I never expect them to be similar to the early Paradox Interactive games, for instance. That said, despite the OP's potentially ranting style, I agree that the Gauls were short shifted, and some bumps in their tech, look of their cities, etc. should be incorporated.

[wangchang]

I've always viewed TW games as somewhat historical, in terms of concept and spirit, but I never expect them to be similar to the early Paradox Interactive games, for instance. That said, despite the OP's potentially ranting style, I agree that the Gauls were short shifted, and some bumps in their tech, look of their cities, etc. should be incorporated.

I hope they will do that.
Like I said my main concern is the settlements : they are the only stuff who can't be corrected by mods, and they are the stuff that can make a northern campaign particularly interesting and diverse if accurately done.

[Nelson]

I would like to see oppida properly fortified. They had much better walls than the stockades they get in Rome I. IIRC, the Romans pretty much gave up trying to go through Gallic walls only to go over them at great expense.

[Fisherking]

The misconceptions and myths we have of the Celts is so pervasive that it makes it very difficult to sort truth from the xenophobic ravings of the Romans and Greeks. To them those who spoke other languages or didn’t share their culture were more animal than man and likely had little to show the cultured and civilized peoples.

Roman and Greek writings tell us that the Celts were the preeminent barbarians. They were the Boogey Men that mothers frightened their children. They dressed in skins, planted no crops, held wives in common, and painted themselves blue. Nothing much above animals screaming into battle nude, excepting the paint, of course. The Greeks of all people tell us that they had no interest in the opposite sex and disdained the company of women. Yet somehow they managed to reproduce and populate most of Europe, asexually I presume.

Am I being too harsh? The Classical World did have an overblown view of themselves, rather much like the vestigial views of the stereotypical Italian waiter. But then you have episodes like this: http://balkancelts.wordpress.com/2012/07/10/the-galatian-genocide/

What is more interesting is that all historic focus is on naked Celtic warriors while the Roman say that they took almost all of their military kit from the Celts. Helmets, swords, shields, chain mail, the list goes on. The Greeks and Macedonians tell us of them fighting in shield walls very much like the Romans. Caesar also talks of phalanx formations against his cavalry when fighting the Helvetii. We have recovered Celtic armor. We know they made breastplates, chain mail and one very distinctive type which was scale sewn to linen over chain mail. That sounds much like a brigantine over chain. Transitional armor of the middle ages.

I don’t dispute that Celtic farmers could not afford much armor or that some warriors went to battle mostly naked to prove their bravery but if they made such good armor are we still to believe they never made any use of it? I suppose it was good that some Celtic Chief showed up dressed in his grave goods so the Romans could copy it. Yet most of the records only say they fought as mobs, albeit mobs who carried standards, for what ever reason…certainly not to distinguish between units, of course.

We have descriptions of battles stating that the clothing of the enemy gave them protection from arrow and javelins. Most descriptions are very vague. Tacitus wrote that their strength lies in their infantry but some had strong a cavalry arm as well.

Much of the Barbarian motif is false propaganda, most likely for political reasons. We have no reason to believe that they only dressed in animal skins, held wives in common, and we can label a lie to the grow no crops easily. Britain and America did the same to the Germans of the First World War, taking the most cultured country in Europe and passing them off as barbarous warmongers. But that image, still in large part, persists to this day.

If they were such undisciplined fighters why were the hired by every power of the time that could manage it? Why are their cities and towns so well protected. Why did they have coinage, paved roads, and a trade network from the Atlantic to the Black Sea? The Romans not only took their kit, they also took their infantry tactics, shield wall and short sword. Roman Cavalry adopted the spath from the Celts. We have some mention of them rotating fresher troops to the for of battle and resting the others.

In describing the difference between Celtic and Celtiberian warriors it was said that the later wore leather and bronze or bronze scale instead of chainmail.

It is also interesting to note that Celts produced steel. This was an art the Romans themselves never mastered but continued to rely upon the conquered craftsmen after they were integrated into the Republic and later Empire. They also came up with pattern welding.

The Romans didn’t learn everything the Celts had to offer, however. Among the things they rejected was the iron Celtic plow. While Roman agriculture was advanced by Celtic contacts, to reach its highpoint in the late Republic and early Empire periods, it was not what it could have been. It not only cut deeper into the soil but also turned it at the same time, eliminating the need to double plow. It would seem while Pliny though the Celtic Plow superior to the Roman it was abandoned, seemingly because they though that iron would poison the soil. They did take their harvesting machine but crop rotation and fertilizers were dropped. The iron plow had to wait until the 1700s to be reintroduced in the west. In China it came into being around 450AD. Another item they seem to have disdained was soap.
Of their engineering and architecture we know little, except, they had a very good road network, built using stone or wood, their city walls we made in such a way as to make breeching by siege weapons in effective, they built with stone or wood and some buildings may have had at least three levels.

It was the Celts who improved the wheel, giving it spokes and the iron tire. They also improved the wheel hub and used iron axels. Their design remained unchanged until the invention of the pneumatic tire. They brought the world the wooden barrel too. When was the last time you saw something packaged in an amphora?

It is a myth that they did not write. They used the scripts of the Greeks and later the Roman. We have inscriptions in Gaul using the Greek alphabet and going back to roughly the same time as the first sack of Rome.

What they didn’t leave were any in-depth records, long lists of their achievements, and a bank of literature. If it was not inscribed in metal or stone it didn’t survive. But what we do know from the Romans themselves is that Gauls were in great demand as tutors and educators. More so even than the Greeks during the Empire.

Far from being the backward barbarians of Roman writings, they were sought after to teach their children. What higher recommendation could you give them?

[Gerula]

No offence, but If CA will remember only this part, where GAULS bring 300.000 mens to fight against of 40,000 Caesar's legionaries, do not expect that this time they will make them better, will remain as an unorganized gang of barbarians who fought with the Romans and lost.

[Fisherking]

Oh yes, right! Caesar would never exaggerate numbers.

What we do know of their tactics is that if they had the logistics to mass 300,000 men they would have enveloped the Romans and awaited them to attack or catch them in a massive ambush and annihilated them. Since this didn’t happen we can assume the odds were fairly even, perhaps 3 to 2 or even 2 to 1.

We know that Caesar defeated an army twice his size at Pharsalus but it was also veterans against recruits and conscripts.

[quadalpha]

Anyone have the loci classici for the more outlandish Greek and Roman descriptions of Celts?

The Celts obviously had to fight naked if the sneaky Romans took all of their military kit!

[Gerula]

Oh yes, right! Caesar would never exaggerate numbers.

Yes I think you have right, except this part.
We talk about an empire with many plots and betrayals, don't you think that they found at least some of its soldiers for money to run quickly and tell the true to Caesar's rivals: "Look, Caesar is a liar, we just beat 50,000" .They could use this against him, so definitely I do not think anyone lied about those numbers in my opinion.

[quadalpha]

As if the common soldier would know whether they were fighting 5000 of the enemy or 500000. Remember, Herodotus estimated the Persian invasion at 1.2 million.

[Gerula]

if you talk about a beginner soldier, whatever possible, but a veteran not approximately correctly estimate the number of enemies around, then I do not think we talk about Roman legionnaires. Herodotus wrote after what he may heard from others not after seeing him with his eyes

[quadalpha]

Considering that 50,000 deployed men would cover several miles, and considering the uneven and forested terrain, and even discounting the effect of fog and light on visibility, unless you have citations attesting to the arithmetic prowess of the veteran Roman soldier, I'd consider it quite unlikely that a challenge to the official numbers would have been taken seriously.

[Gerula]

Your opinion does not convince me with anything that at that time, professional soldiers couldn't able to approximate estimate correctly the number of enemies

[Fisherking]

There were many Romans who disputed Caesars claims on the numbers, particularly the Helvetii. Caesar says 380,000, others say 300,000 or just 200,000.
Modern archeologists surveyed all the areas. They found little to no evidence of such a mass migration from Helvetii lands and only one of the 15 cities of the area had been burned. Surveying the battlefield and known areas they estimated that the Helvetii set out with about 120,000 at most with roughly 20,000 warriors. Smaller than Caesars forces.
Caesar wanted to make a name for himself as a military commander. Beating up women and children would be a lot of bad press.

[Moros]

When it comes to numbers on the battlefield every sane historian of our time agrees they are inflated. It was not just Caesar it was common practise, which is also one of the reasons Caesar could get away with it. Ancient historians and writers also refer to the practice. The argument of the soldier being able to refute the numbers isn't very good either, first we all know the soldiers were rather loyal to him, furthermore few of them would have the possibility to speak up anyway as that was a very limited privilege. Then remains the question of when it was publicized. If it was after the civil wars, well you'd be a fool to speak up either way. Unless you wanted to end up on the capitol. Also due to the nature of the irregular peasants army and strategic situation I even bet Caesar wouldn't even have a clue about the numbers the army had.

Just applying modern day logic and possibilities, situations, reactions,... on the ancient period really doesn't work. Not at all actually.

[quadalpha]

Sources, anyone?

[Fisherking]

Okay, but remember, you asked for it.

Plutarch estimates 300,00 Appian 200,000
Commentarii de Bello Gallico book 1 gives us his count as 380,000

If you read German then:
archäologische Fundorte: Andres Furger-Gunti: Die Helvetier: Kulturgeschichte eines Keltenvolkes. Neue Zürcher Zeitung, Zürich 1984


H. Delbrück, Geschichte der Kriegskunst im Rahman der politischen Geschicte, vol. 1, 1900, pp. 428 & 459f.

Delbrük give the number of fighters as only 16,000 meaning Caesar had them outnumbered 2 to 1.

The Swiss still think of themselves as the Helvetii League and you will find much on the topic.

[Arjos]

Caesar 380.000ish aren't Helvetii only though, it consisted of several tribes that joined the migration...
Imo 16.000 warriors is very very limited...

Though that Caesar throughout the campaign had more professional soldiers is certain :)
All those huge figures even if reasonably reduced, are still made up of levies and youths in the vast majority...

[Vuk]

Hey FisherKing, I noticed that almost all the citations are wiki are German articles and books as well. I was wondering, did any of those ever get translated into English?

[Fisherking]

Short answer: Learn German.

I know of no translations for those references.

In English the titles would be; The Helvetii People: Cultural History of a Celtic Folk.

The second would be: History of the Art of War in Roman times, the Political History.

For instance, in English you may find two or three lines of text on the village I live in and those are uninteresting. Location and where the county seat is.

In German it is a different place, all to gather. There was a Celtic settlement here in 500 BCE. It was the largest known settlement of its type when the Romans got here. There were Irish monks setting up monasteries here before 700. The town was first mentioned in charters by its current name over 1,250 years ago. It was the seat of a duchy at one point, until the duke took on more than he should have and got the ax. There was even what one could, laughably, call a battle here in WWII.

My house sits next to an old moat, known on maps as the black ditch. It was once the mote for the largest moatted castle in Bavaria. Now it is mostly pasture land and a train station. The little Schloss across the river was built after the other was burned and dates from the late 17 or early 1800s. It had one of the earliest train stations in Germany, built in 1832.

Before WWI Germany was known as the most cultured and civilized country in Europe. When war broke out it became the land of militaristic barbarians, and sadly the propaganda has never been refuted and there is not much interest in translating histories from German.

We are missing a lot, but you don’t miss what you don’t know, do you?

[quadalpha]

Well, that sounds a bit unfair, both before and after the war. I suspect the lack of translation is due to the general scarcity of any academic translation. The Delbrück is also over 100 years old and likely superseded by new research, historically if not theoretically.

[Fisherking]

Like many topics, the Celts draw different attitudes depending on language to a great extent. The French , Swiss, and some regions of Germany see themselves as Celts or Gaulls, whereas the British see themselves more in the light of modern heirs of Rome. This attitude may even carry over a bit with Americans. At any rate we get some very childish accounts about them written in English. In other languages some of the accounts may be a bit overblown.

I took it on as a historical specialty in the early 1970s when it was quite obscure. Research was difficult but you had few people knowledgeable enough to question your conclusions. By the end of the 1970s and even into the present much of the information was colored by new-age philosophy and would be shamen who thought of the Celts only in the tales of the Irish Heroic Age or as Europe’s answer to Indians. Needless to say that put off even more serious research.

I know the French have done some extensive digs and found quite a bit but I don’t read French. The Germans have made some large finds as well but much of the information has not been published in full, as yet. I think I have heard of some major finds in the Czech Republic too. At the best of times German is not easy to translate to English and most of it, to me, comes off bad. Written German is even worse than spoken when it comes to us non native speakers trying to wade through it. Luckily I use my wife to translate a great deal of it.

Good luck with your search.

[quadalpha]

I've looked at some Celtiberian inscriptions. Here's a primer if anyone's interested: http://www4.uwm.edu/celtic/ekeltoi/volumes/vol6/6_17/jordan_6_17.pdf

[Vuk]

Short answer: Learn German.

I know of no translations for those references.

In English the titles would be; The Helvetii People: Cultural History of a Celtic Folk.

The second would be: History of the Art of War in Roman times, the Political History.

For instance, in English you may find two or three lines of text on the village I live in and those are uninteresting. Location and where the county seat is.

In German it is a different place, all to gather. There was a Celtic settlement here in 500 BCE. It was the largest known settlement of its type when the Romans got here. There were Irish monks setting up monasteries here before 700. The town was first mentioned in charters by its current name over 1,250 years ago. It was the seat of a duchy at one point, until the duke took on more than he should have and got the ax. There was even what one could, laughably, call a battle here in WWII.

My house sits next to an old moat, known on maps as the black ditch. It was once the mote for the largest moatted castle in Bavaria. Now it is mostly pasture land and a train station. The little Schloss across the river was built after the other was burned and dates from the late 17 or early 1800s. It had one of the earliest train stations in Germany, built in 1832.

Before WWI Germany was known as the most cultured and civilized country in Europe. When war broke out it became the land of militaristic barbarians, and sadly the propaganda has never been refuted and there is not much interest in translating histories from German.

We are missing a lot, but you don’t miss what you don’t know, do you?

Ah, crap. My two semesters of German in College (that I forget entirely) certainly won't be of any use. :P Thanks.

[Gerula]

I saw here only words of praise for Barbarians such as: levy, conscript, youth,etc and you all have forgotten that they were born under the warrior mentality. I think most of this barbarians were warriors before anything else

[Tuuvi]

I saw here only words of praise for Barbarians such as: levy, conscript, youth,etc and you all have forgotten that they were born under the warrior mentality. I think most of this barbarians were warriors before anything else

You need to play yourself some Europa Barbarorum. Or read some history books.

[Gerula]

You need to play yourself some Europa Barbarorum. Or read some history books.

I can not find anything relevant to what you say
p.s: and playing EB is like I will learn the pure truth about history. lol
I'm not sure where you going with these comments.

[Arjos]

I think most of this barbarians were warriors before anything else

Ethos doesn't pay for equipment, in the modern terminology they were all warriors, but in keltic society being a warrior meant having wealth and power...
Those levies and youths, although living in a warlike culture, having developed an according mentality and survived that specific environment, still couldn't do much against well armed legionaries...

[Gerula]

Ethos doesn't pay for equipment, in the modern terminology they were all warriors, but in keltic society being a warrior meant having wealth and power...
Those levies and youths, although living in a warlike culture, having developed an according mentality and survived that specific environment, still couldn't do much against well armed legionaries...

if I am remember correctly, I think Romans copied almost everything they could get from Celts, especially shield and helmet for their armies and thus tend to believe that Celts wasn't so unarmed against Romans, contrary

[Arjos]

Romans copied almost everything they could get from Celts, especially shield and helmet

And that happened in a span of 2 centuries and roughly 400 years before Caesar...
Even back then, except for the shield and helmet, body armour wasn't so common for roman soldiers...

After Marius' reform, basically every legionary had the same equipment, fully armoured and that state, the roman republic, had the whole mediterranean resources to back such military force; Gallia, with its political disunity couldn't match any of that...

Adapting the Keltoi armaments, doesn't mean that every single warrior could afford a chain-mail (or even an helmet!)...
Not to mention ancient sources describing most of the Keltoi in battle, as naked or wearing simple trousers and cloaks...

[Tuuvi]

I can not find anything relevant to what you say
p.s: and playing EB is like I will learn the pure truth about history. lol
I'm not sure where you going with these comments.

lol sorry that was a dumb comment. I misunderstood what you meant.