Celts (BI faction)

[Dragoncrusader]

Thanks
I will give it a go and then happy slaughtering!

[caspian]

What effective army composition would be best against the hordes and their horse archers? My last army consisting of Gallowglasses, Levy Spearmen, Hounds and Noble Clansmen were wiped out by some marauding Goths. Maybe Im not used to having no missile troops to field against those pesky Horsemen.

Any advice aside from hiring missile mercs?

[Dorkus]

Best way to deal with horse archers is to chase them with one unit, and get them to run into another unit. Once they engage in melee, they're mincemeat.

It's tricky to do, of course. Try to use the battlefield borders to your advantage.

[Watchman]

I've noticed nearly any semi-decent heavy infantry and spearmen can be safely pulled into *very* long and thin lines if all you're dealing with is light horse archers (who, sensibly enough, tend to avoid hand-to-hand like the plague). Ditto for melee cavalry. This makes it relatively easy to simply herd the HA against map edge and crush them against it - it's messy, it's ugly, it's pretty much an exploit and overall there are rather few good things to say about it, but it does win you battles against the dodgy bastards.

'Course, if there's melee cavalry or God forbid multiple FamiCav sharing the stack with the HAs it might get a bit more tricky...

[Mamba]

Played these folks a few times lately, and one thing I've noticed that hasn't been mentioned is the Saxons.

These fellows have the goal of invading your fair isle, and so they should be a top priority. As soon as I had dealt with the immediate threat of the Romans and Romano-British, a large Saxon force landed next to Londinium. I managed to fend them off, and kept enough men to send an assault force on their city. I managed to get lucky and survive a couple pirate assaults, and landed right next to Vicus Saxoni. I took the city and therefore wiped out the Saxons.

That threat being dealt with, I turned my attention to the remaining German clans. As it turned out the Western Roman Rebels held the city nearest to Vicus Saxoni on the left, so I took it quickly. I then made war on the Burgundii, therefore solidifying my prescence on the European mainland. By this time the Lombardii, Franks, Alemanni, and Burgundii were all trying to make nice, so I did.

The Romans then assaulted, and I beat them back and countered by taking Colonia Agrippina. I then proceeded to backstab the Franks by taking Vicus Frankii. Luckily, they had taken another settlement and were unable to horde. Then I proceeded to march into France.

To win, I needed to take Lugdinensis. However, due to a strange twist of fate, I didn't find the Romans there, as I expected, but the Huns. I was forced to assault the city and declare war on the Huns. I barely managed to wrest the city from their grasp, but in so doing I unleashed the full Hunnic horde. I still needed two cities, and I was at war with basically everyone in the West (Romans, WER, Franks, and the Huns). I was forced to march two full stack armies to assault the Hunnic hordes to attempt to keep the city.

Unfortunately, I failed in this. I lost the city and had it sacked by the Hunnic horde, but managed to wipe out two of the three stacks. They proceeded to move into my territory and I gathered as many troops as I could to handle them. My ragtag bunch of troops BARELY managed to beat them off, and I was forced to regroup.

The Franks didn't give me a chance to do that. They besieged two of my cities, and I was forced to withdraw back to my original three German cities.

Meanwhile on the British Isles, I managed to smash the pirates and raise three full stack armies. These armies arrived in the nick of time and went full out against the Franks. I took the remaining Frankish cities and went head to head with their hordes. I soundly defeated them and wiped out the faction.

At this point I was right back where I started, plus one settlement. During this little detour I managed to wipe out two factions that were threats. I continued my march into France, still needing one settlement. I found that settlement by backstabbing the Alemanni and taking their starting settlement.

This was probably the most exciting game I have played of RTW, be it vanilla or Barbarian Invasion.

[Seige_Engineer]

Awesome stuff Mamba! Looks like the Celts can actually be a winner if played correctly! :D

On HA's: Scotti Chariots? If they get a bonus against Cav, then surely they would be idea to use against HA's?

[Mamba]

The Huns were a challenge primarily because of those Horse Archers. Luckily I had a lot of Spearmen and managed to box in the majority of the Horse Archers before they could do a ton of damage. My cavalry hunted down their meager infantry.

What really took me apart was their Heavy Cavalry, which were both plentiful and powerful. Despite having around 500 spearmen, they consistantly flanked my troops and managed to rout a good number of them. Lag didn't help, either.

I was lucky enough to have a general with the night assault ability so I was able to slowly take apart their hordes, but, like I said in my previous post, I did lose my first three full stack armies against theirs. There was a huge disadvantage in fighting these guys with the Celts: it's clear that they aren't really meant to clash. Even numbers and they still managed to crush me with around 1/3 of their men left...

[Unforgivable-Fenrir]

I played these as this faction and it was fun. Just make sure that you leave a lot of men in Londonium after you take it because the Romano_British will show up sooner or later. But i was able to take all the required provinces and am now currently taking spain from the inferior romans.

[Patriarch of Constantinople]

Hounds of Culaan + a good naval position= OH YEAH!


I love hounds of culaan. i can use 2 units of them and kill 357 men with losing 5

[Monarch]

Just started a campaign with Celts. I quickly took the British Isles however money was very low, I had pumped out troops to counter the R-Brits, so I sent the diplomat you start with around mainland europe selling map info, riased quite a bit of quick cash.

When the Brits spawned I simply let them assault LOndoninium. I let them have the walls and fell back to the hill (the advantage of a barbar style city). Now, I know everybodies raving about these Hounds, I agree they are great but, especially when your on the defensive, I suggest the Celtic Spearmen, put them into schiltron formation. I placed 3 schiltoned spearmen as my front line at Londoninium and the bulk of the British army attack, they assaulted the schiltrons and made little headway, I could have left them to all die out but to save a few of my own troops I sent 3 HoC units round the rear and as they cause fear amongst enemy the British routed very quickly.

Gallowglasses are quite good, get a few per army for a more solid infantry line, but main army should be hounds and schiltroning spearmen.

[Olaf The Great]

This is what I did.

Gallowglasses: Use them as the "line" unit
Hounds of Calahn:Extremely useful units, have 2 in each army, can rout the enemy in seconds.
Noble cal. use as light cal.
Graal Knights: Use as heavy cal, recruited in N. Gaul and S. Britain.
Chariots: Use these guys as horsearchers and line breakers, yet, they are extremely weak, use Sarmatians more for this role

Sarmatians, better then other cal. as they shoot arrows, cheap, and are better then Roman heavy cavalry.

[Orb]

OK, I'm trying to nail this campaign at the moment, great fun:

Troop types:

Missile

Kerns - not a lot of use, with the more powerful cavalry and greater armour, skirmishers appear to be obsolete
Slingers - quite good, but can't use fire arrows. Essentially, you have an enormous disadvantage in siege defence. Keep the Saxon capital's temple to get gold weapons for them. Use them to nail schiltroms.
Crossbowmen - haven't really used these, but if they're the same as the merc. Bucelarii, they're useless.
Sarmatian Horse Archer mercs. - Extremely useful archer cavalry, with an ability to go hand-to-hand when necessary. Treat them as a hunter/flanking unit, and you shouldn't go wrong. Hire in Britain, retrain in Saxony, use everywhere.
Light Chariots - useless for themselves, but the morale effect is quite neat, sit them behind the battle line, or use them to run across the back of the enemy line. Cause extreme panic.

[dacdac]

I like the crossbowmen against the Romans though. When your facing an Urban Hohort, crossbow bolts seem to have a higher kill rate than arrows. They are also better in melee so they can take similar units such as archers or javelin throwers

[Orb]

I like the crossbowmen against the Romans though. When your facing an Urban Hohort, crossbow bolts seem to have a higher kill rate than arrows. They are also better in melee so they can take similar units such as archers or javelin throwers

hm, after playing on a bit:

Problems: your 'archers' are all direct-fire or short range. This makes them nearly useless on the defence if you don't have a virtual cliff to sit on. Use them on the attack, to draw out enemies. On the defence, first break the enemy horsemen, then use them to cause damage by flanking or just breaking up schiltroms.

[dacdac]

good point, what i should have said is that when they are preoccupied with another unit, to flank and shoot. They are also good in defending sieges. Not as much range, but can take out siege forces quickly that are pushing towers or rams. They can hold their own a little longer than most archers if the walls get overrun.

[Orb]

I just tried simultaneously converting my entire "empire" (9 provinces in Britain, Gaul and Germany) to Christianity simultaneously. It doesn't work, but watching all the rebellions is great fun :D

[dacdac]

Orb said:

I just tried simultaneously converting my entire "empire" (9 provinces in Britain, Gaul and Germany) to Christianity simultaneously. It doesn't work, but watching all the rebellions is great fun :D
__________________
12th Century Glory
Knights, Crusaders, Byzantines, scheming Viziers...
We have them all!

Peoples of God. The mod which will Arabize YOU!
Death threats received so far: 2
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'My intelligence is not just insulted, it's looking for revenge with a gun and no mercy. ' - Frogbeastegg

I'll drink to that man. If they start rebelling, take out the troops, turn around and kill all the people. Sets you back a couple of years, but putting down heretics is so much fun, it pays for itself.

[Fate]

Edited in the Celts last night and started playing them, and i must admit, so far, its a thoroughly enjoyable campaign.
I managed to take the romano-british out within 3 turns. They appeared and i always thought it was on the south coast, so my spies were looking at the wrong place. They besieged London, and i sallied out, my 3 units of sarmatian archers sallying out of the side gate to flank them, drawing the RB back, so my infantry could leave my main gate. Rather chilvalrously, they formed up far away from the city allowing me to create my battle lines. My 3 units of sarmatian HA's nearly wiped out all of their infantry and once the HA's were dry i started moving the lines in, they chanrged with their Graal cav against my spear lines, and were quickly caught by braced spears, and my 2 generals flanking them and causing a quick rout. 3 of the 5 units of Graal's were destryoed, as were all of the infantry and archers. I suffered about 50 casualties where as the Romano-Brits suffered about 500.

Now im just building up my treasury to invade gaul.

The only real complant about eh campaign is that there arent enough troop types, more or less everything is unlocked when you start to play.

[Severous]

One region away from completion.

Mercenary army just captured Rome. As usual you can recruit all sorts of advanced troops in Rome. This is the first time ive seen these Pictish Crossbowmen. They are only a little more powerful than the mercenary equivalent....but less than half the wages to maintain.


I am going on in the campaign to kill all the WRE. Imposed a couple of house rules... not moving my capital from Ireland nor using the beserkers.

[druged_beserker]

I have always loved the Celts, simply the fact you can have your own island as the center of your Impirial empire.

[Richthofenn]

can u guide me through the process
becuase it does not work so far

[Richthofenn]

can u guide me through the process
becuase it does not work so far

[Richthofenn]

or what form mods do i need (any updates e.g. v1.5 or something)


plz tell me

[~Isabella of Castile~]

forgive me if I'm being blind sighted, but where do you put this celt thing in to play them? also I'm still trying who to play for my first time playing R:TW BI

[Severous]

Hi

The second post of this thread tells us how to do it.

Here is a screenshot I did to help someone with the same problem with Alexander.

In your case you are looking for the BI file rather than Alexander. Remove celts from unplayable and put them in the playable list. Take a back up before you do it. Make sure it all lines up, no invisible extra spaces or you can kiss your game goodbye.

Good luck.


Here is my completed and fully documented Celt campaign:
http://rtw.heavengames.com/cgi-bin/f...10,5870,30,all

[Revenant69]

Well, I decided to give Barbarian Invasion a try after a long period of not playing. I wanted to choose a small campaign so that I could finish it quickly and I chose to play as the Celts.

My oh my, am I glad that I've made that choice. To say that the campaign is increadibly exciting would be an understatement. So far the campaign has an explosive beginning and I'm really enjoying all those Celtic units, trying to learn how to use them to the best. Great stuff. I even decided to do a write up of the campaign as I play. You can read it here:

Celtic Campaign Report

I will continuously update the page above as I progress through the campaign. Have a read. Comments and suggestions are welcome.

So far, I can say that Celts are an interesting faction to play.
Cheers.

EDIT: Well, I've finally finished playing Celts and can add my few more cents.
Units: Celts have a nice selection of units, although their infantry can be quite vulnerable to missile fire (like Gallowglasses and Hounds of Culann) it does seem to be capable to deal with all threats. Use Pictish Spearmen in schiltrom formation - they can take a beating and not worry about "Flanks being exposed". Gallowglasses and Houdns of Culann are good enough to be used during sieges. Just watch out for arrow fire, if you are bringing the Hounds to fight on the wall, bring another crappy unit to draw missile fire. In my last battle for Ravenna, two units of Hounds destroyed a couple of units of Comitatenses and some archers that were guarding the gate.

Slingers and Kerns are OK, but you need max upgrades for them to be able to do any damage whatsoever. I am quite dissapointed with Scotii Chariots - they seem too weak. Noble Clansmen are quite good - a good bang for the buck - they can handle (not necessarily kill) most heavy cavalry, just don't get them overwhelmed.

Strategy: When expanding, be very mindful about not expanding your borders too much. Use natural obstacles (rivers, mountains) as your defensive choke points. Build a network of forts in mountain passes, near bridges and other locations to help you secure the peace of your vast empire (I used the river Rhine, the Alps and the Pirenees as my additional defence). Although Celts are not meant to fight the Huns (remember, your infantry is vulnerable to missile fire) it IS possible to beat them. I fought the Huns' stacks, albeit somewhat depleted, and survived. Use assassins to knock out their (or other horde's) lesser family members until only the faction leader and an heir are left, then kill these two in battle. The rest of the horde will simply melt away.

Diplomacy can be tricky. I was allied to the Huns, but then they crossed the Alps and attacked me =( Traitorous scum. So don't trust the word they say. A good defense on the river Rhine is a must if you want to hold off the Franks, Burgundii, Alemanni and the Saxons from knocking you back to Britannia (although in my game Saxons were my allies pretty much from the start and to the end).

Well, so far so good. Keep an eye on the link above - I'll keep updating my gameplay story. Who knows, maybe it'll help someone.

[Ozzman1O1]

im kinda a saxon person,but now i whant to defend britain,the hounds of cullann and gallow glasses are life savers!but its almost is a waste of denareii to make practic ranges,but a good tip is to never go into spain,if you do,the romans go pyscho

[Hound of Ulster]

The Celts were fun in BI, but don't get bogged down in Europe. The Goths, Vandals, Franks, and Huns will run over you like a speed bump. I had some trouble with the Romano-British, but I eventually wore them down.

[Celtic_Punk]

k i started my Celtic campaign a wee while ago, and tara always seems to loose more and more cash, it put me into huge debt for awhile, but now that i have all of england i want to keep it as such for about 20 or some odd years before I'm ready to move inland...build up army, and build my economy and cities. any suggestions or criticisms and what not?

[Ozzman1O1]

farming is your best economic growth in england,alot of farms,enough denarii to sail your diplomat overseas and make dennarii throuhg trade rights like theres no tommorow,once youve turned a few towns into large towns your econemy will big enough to attack the the saxons and finish off any threat of invasion.......then you scale northern gaul.......hope that helps...