SFraser
10-14-2009, 23:16
A Casse Guide for 1.2
Introduction
At the end of the world there lies an ancient land. A land isolated in space and time, seperated from our world by oceans and aeons. It is a land of ancient peoples, of ancient monuments, of ancient hills and ancient forests and it is a land of ancient ways. An exiled land invariably grants refuge to the exiled and that is what you are my King. The neighbours of our ancestors could not live with our strength, with our hunger, with our ways, but when the Sheep flock against the Wolf then even the most noble of predators must retreat. And so we came to this ancient land, this land of our long forgotten origin, and in this land we found the home for those ways that the world fears and fights against. But the Wolf cannot lie still forever, the Wolf cannot ignore it's nature. We can hunt this land, we can explore this land, we can tame this land and when that primeval urge to reclaim our rightful place as the mightiest of the mighty and the predator of the weak in the eyes of all the world stirs within us, we can unleash an ancient power and an ancient terror that all the world is foolish to cast aside. All the world will know, respect and fear us as man knows, fears and respects the Wolf.
Overview
The Casse are an exquisitely put together faction whose strengths only seem to multiply the more you get into the mindset of essentially roleplaying this faction. While playing as the Casse you are not so much playing a regional overlord indigenous to the area such as you get with the Lusotannians, Sweboz and Gaulic factions, but instead you are playing as the exiled Belgae stumbling across an incredibly ancient land. This is one of the more interesting themes in the entire game because I know of no other faction that is effectively recruiting from its own mythology. The most aggressive, isolationist and feared of the Gaulic tribes has been exiled into it's own ancient history. When the fearsomely aggressive Iron age Gaulic culture of the Belgae meets the bronze age lands of Hero Worship and mythology that is Britain and Ireland in this time period, the end result is a technologically backwards warrior culture that is so far out of time with the rest of the world that the rest of the world simply does not know what has hit it.
This faction should be viewed differently from the rest. While the basics of starting off with one Flag and one Colour and one technical culture and then expanding it around the map work exactly the same, the finer details that really help you get the most out of this faction and at the same time really pull you into the goings-on and working of this area in this time period are completely different. You start off as the Casse and as the campaign progresses you begin to play more as the emerging supremacy of the exiled Belgae in Bronze Age Britain, but eventually the true nature of this faction begins to emerge and that true nature is a deeply ancient culture that is a fusion of Bronze Age Brythonic indigenous hero worshippers and exiled war-like Iron Age Celts from mainland Gaul. You are trully a coalition of Celtic and Brythonic cultures held together by ancient traditions, wise council, vassalage and the strength and wisdom of the elected King. You will not be playing the Casse so much as you will trully be playing Celtic, Brythonic and Goidilic tribes united under Druidic Council and conquest. This is Bronze Age Britain, not Belgae invaders or Casse hegemony, but Belgae invaders, Casse hegemony and Caledonian brutality all play a compelling and deep role in this faction.
Tribes
The Casse themselves are perhaps the most open minded and forward thinking of the initial Belgae tribes you will encounter and are therefore best placed to serve as Governors and community leaders in the early emergence of a united Bronze Age Britain. They are still as warlike and aggressive as any other faction outside of Britain that you might care to mention, but inside the coastline of Britain they are practically soft. The Casse will accumulate huge quantities of hugely benificial traits for trade, management, mining and overseas contact and you can expect all but the most stupid of Casse familly members to achieve +5 trade and +5 management traits in a couple of years wherever there is a decent port with good trade links.
There are too many other tribes to mention individually, but eventually you will wrack up a large collection of indigenous Brythonic and Goidilic tribes that are high quality Governors and Generals alike, but surely the Caledonian tribe and the other Belgae tribes you will encounter must be pointed out as these tribes and their familly members are significantly brutal when it comes to commanding armies. Barring the Casse you do not want Belgae tribes to Govern towns and cities. Some other Belgae tribes can Govern effectively but you are wasting these people as the Menape and Ordovices, "River People" and "Old Ones" respectively are profoundly designed to keep in with the theme of Bronze Age or Neolithic struggle for survival. They can farm and they can trade, but what they really do best and ironicly what sends them over the ocean into your hands is their ability to fight.
Speaking of fighting, I should draw special attention the Caledonians. Whether it is familly members or Caledonian units, Caledonians do only one thing of comparable merit and they do it best, that is fight. They are invariably the worst equipped, worst funded, worst drilled, worst organised and so they invariably lose rediculous quantities of battles against their foes, and yet they are nigh on impossible to defeat. The Caledonians are two things: Neolithic in their development and profoundly feral in their attitude. While the Sweboz develop facial and head hair rituals for engagements in battle and first kills, the Caledonians are too busy clawing their own survival out of the Highlands of Scotland to care about such bourgeoisie behaviour. If you can get leaders from this tribe then for goodness sake do not let them command your huge army of heroes, but give them some skirmishers and violent light infantry and send them into the depths of Germania to teach the Sweboz a thing or two about what it means to be Wild.
Economy
The economy of Bronze Age Britain is simple, resources and ports galore. You wont be mining many large or small veins of precious metals and you wont be getting much in the way of trade benefits from temples, but you will have a port in every single town you conquer in the next 50 to 100 years and you will be wracking up those trade bonuses in your Casse Kings and Chieftains. Once you have united Britain and Ireland under your rule you will be raking in rediculous quantities of cash in comparison to the armies you require. Conquest of Northern Gaul can be easilly achieved by simply stockpiling funds for a generation or two and then unleashing hoardes of Heroes, but the conquest of Norther Gaul is simply a means to obtain yet more ports. You are Sicily to the power of ten, minus the multitude of problems produced by the multitude of factions around the Mediterranean. You can quite easilly establish trade routes with every faction in the game long before you have to attack anyone, and those you do attack first are invariably weak on the trading front. Trade with Carthage especially is likely to be your bread and butter, but despite their trading proximity they are a world away in terms of armed conflict. Spam ports and trade routes while using minimal forces to conquer maximum territory thereby gaining maximum experience and maximum quality and you will be rolling in cash.
Politics
The politics of the Casse are something that add real flavour to this faction. The basic mechanics of sticking decent Governors in Cities and selecting your next in line for the throne are all identical to all other factions, but what is different is that by the time you have conquered the 8 provinces of Britain and Ireland you have access to four different Zones of Recruitment with four different styles and types of units, and ontop of this you have the Bronze Age Brythonic simulcrum to the Spartan Agoge that is the Dark Island of Druidic power and teaching where all new leaders are invariably sent for significant trait benefits. Ontop of that you also manage to get through all 3 types of Government, homeland, expansion and subjugation. By the time you reach Ireland, a mere 5 Eleutheroi towns on an factionless Island later, you can install a type 4 Government which grants you immediate access to the Celtae Vollorix unit, the significantly well equipped Celtic Lesser Kings. No other faction in the game provides both a crash course in the implication of Zones of Recruitment, Government Types and their implications, but at the same time sucks you right into the role play immersion of wholly various and distinct entities in a collective united by vassalage and kingship, overlooked and guided by the religious caste and fundamental cultural views.
The best that the Roman player can look forward to in this time frame is the destruction of Carthaginian temples and barracks and the development of a Roman Province. The Casse player gets to experience 3 distinct regions and 3 distinct government types ranging from direct rule to tributary vasselage, and can recruit these incredibly potent "Lesser Kings" directly into his army. To imagine that the Casse are simply the EB team showing off their "cool stuff" in an area lacking real threats is unfair, this entire situation adds deeply to the whole sense of actually being a large Bronze Age culture. These tiny little details are rampant in the Casse faction and they produce a vastly compelling roleplay experience. Given the lack of direct expansion options and capability for a one province faction, the quantity and depth of the literature and subtle interplay of gameplay details is brilliant. For a "mod" of this game it is a historical flavour that is close to genius, given the limitations on the team in terms of hard and soft code.
Religion
Where do you start? I will start by saying that religion in the Casse faction is one of the most spectactular and frustrating experiences in EB, but the frustration is not the fault of the EB team unless ofcourse you think they should have anticipated and worked around basic gameplay flaws produced by CA.
Enough of that, let me move onto explaining perhaps the central and most defining feature of this faction. The Casse faction is a mixture of Bronze Age Brythonic and exiled/invading Iron Age Celtic/Iberian cultures, left to stew in isolation for aeons before the next wave comes in and itself mixes for aeons. The player is left with a mixture of Celtic Druidism in its primeval form, Neolithic monuments that have existed for millenia, and hero-worship cultures that are not simply existant or hinted at but incredibly prevalent and integral to the entire function of this faction. Druidism and Hero-Worship alongside Neolithic Monuments dont simply turn up occasionally, they are everywhere. Then add temples to this mix and you start to get the idea.
Unfortunately Drudism is the only one that really works. Hero-Worship and Neolithic Monuments do provide bonuses, but the really significant bonuses for this faction from these objects do not work. That might be a blessing in disguise for if they did work you would be dealing with the obscene.
Starting with Druidism, Bronze Age Britain is the only real bastion of Druidism in the game in its prototypical form. Druidism exists not as a nod to historical importance but as a vibrant and existing element in this faction. Druidism overtly exists in two forms: the first is the Druid unit which boosts morale by two factors in battle rather than the usually impressive one, which therefore makes it the most potent morale enhancing unit in the game. The second is the existence of the Island of Darkness and the trait implications of Druid ancilliaries. The Island of Darkness is essentially a monument that begins Druidic training for Characters placed into the nearby city. The Druidic Training lasts for four seasons or one year and generally confers small trait benefits to Law and Influence. It also confers a trait benefit for the healing of casualties in battle. The second major benefit of Druidic influence in the Casse faction is that it confers upto 4 distinct types of Druid ancilliary of which 3 provide a bonus for the healing of casualties sustained in battle. When you combine these benefits then very often you get a character with 3 ancilliaries confering healing benefits and one trait conferring healing benefits which results in 4x the benefit for casualties killed in battle. The Romani get one or two. The Casse get 4 or 5. In other words it is possible for the Casse to get absolutely slaughtered in battle while losing very few men. No other faction in the game can heal as many casualties as the Casse. I dont think any faction can even get close to half the Casse casualties healed in battle. For a bunch of naked, unroutable fanatics lacking the drug-induced 2 HP of the Gaestatae this is a significant bonus.
The second major factor of the Casse religious details, and the one that unfortunately does not work but still adds immense atmosphere to the faction is the Hero-Worship mausoleums, Neolithic Structures and Temples. Take Camulosadae for example, with its nearby monument of Caerncaladrydane (Stonehenge) combined to a Hero-Cult Mausoleum and a Fortress-Temple of Andraste you could in theory provide a +6!! Morale modifier to the recruitable Mihlnat (Great-Men). If this worked as it appears ingame you would be playing the Casse faction with a Morale superiority above and beyond the Casualty superiority you already possess, against any and every faction in the game. Routing would not be something you would have to worry about, straight out of the box so to speak. Unfortunately it does not work, but I can see how +6 Morale to Bronze Age Naked Wild Men supported by Druids and do not need Drugs for their fanaticism would simply add to the character of this game.
The bottom line is that the Fortress Temple of Andraste is a no brainer if it works, but it doesnt work so don't suffer the 0.5% penalty to population growth through human sacrifice for a non existant gain.
Combat
Combat is where all the threads of a faction come together and the Casse are no different in this respect. Where the Casse are different comes from who they are. The Casse are essentially a lightening bolt from the past, they are poorly equipped, they lack extreme specialisation that you might find in the Makedonian Phalanx supported by Thraikioi Peltastai or Agrianikoi Pelekuphoroi and they are going to struggle hugely against Cavalry. But then the Casse have never had to equip thousands of weaklings with long sticks to prevent them running from battle, and those that turn up today have never lost a dual against an opponent no matter his weaponry. Infact it is rare to find anyone that has the balls to attack, even the Belgae only came here because they had no choice.
This is not an attempt at humour but the best way I can explain the Casse troop roster. Casse units are unspecialised and lack tactical flexibility but they are incredibly tough and have a huge impact on morale, of the enemy or of the ally. Their inherant toughness is a huge weapon against any enemy, no one on the map is going to recruit low level infantry that you cannot beat with your own low level infantry, but that is only part of the story. Casse units are inherantly tough in comparison to equivelant levels of troops amongst their enemies, but Casse troops mess around with Morale like no one else, not even the Sweboz and not even Elephants.
The Casse terrify troops like few others, motivate their own troops like no one else, heal their casualties like no one else, and fight like absolute demons. While the "slinger approach" is useful in the early game when money and manpower is tight and you are assualting rebel towns with rubbish units, to actually fight with the Casse requires that you understand the full power of frontal warfare available to you. The power of the frontal assualt available to the Casse is second to none, in terms of both combat ability and morale destruction. The defensive capability of the Casse against a well ordered army is bugger all barring numbers and morale.
There are two ways to break down and analyse the Casse troop roster. The first is light, medium and heavy troops and the second way is morale alterating or not morale altering. That helps to understand the Casse troops but no Casse army is going to be without a good, solid mix of these units. The real boon of the Casse army is the potency of their medium troops. Their light troops are equal or better to other nearby light troops, but the Casse medium troops are in a league of their own.
Uirodusios - Man Demons
https://i35.tinypic.com/2wn8c4k.jpg
These guys do not look like much, especially when you have been hoping for the Gaesatae, but they start off in Camulosadae with 18 attack, 18 defence and lower the morale of nearby enemies while motivating nearby allies. Forget about thinking of them as spearmen. They have short spears, no armour and a shield value of 2. This means they have a defence skill of 16 which is higher than Rycalawre. They might weild a spear and shield but they are not defensive troops. A charge bonus of +8 only serves to drive home the point that these guys are infact a shock troop for melee and a shock troop for morale. They will die like flies when hit by missiles, when hit by cavalry and when surrounded but a few of these chaps close together will never route, will terrify the enemy, and will give a brilliant account for themselves in melee combat. To try and compare them with Gaestatae because they have their bits out is a mistake. They do not have the 2 HP of the Gaestate but the Gaestatae do not motivate those troops around them. They are a different beast altogether, where beast is the operative word.
This is a powerful assault troop with morale modifiers that no other faction has. This is an elite you start off with that no other faction can obtain even after 2 reforms and 60 new provinces. Understand and treat this unit as such. This is the epitome of the faction.
Milnaht - Great Men
https://i37.tinypic.com/1zl4o3r.jpg
The fancy pants invader, the foreign infidel with his new ideas and soft philosophy and shiny trinkets. You cannot have two epitomes because it simply doesn't work, but I don't care I am having two. On its own the Milnaht - The Great Men - The Belgae Swordsmen are quite simply the finest of the Gaullic line infantry. While anyone that has ever played a Gaullic faction will know that as line troops the Bataroas (Northern Gallic Swordsmen) command respect, well the Milnaht commands awe. And that is exactly what this faction is all about.
The Milnaht is quite simply the peak of Gaullic line infantry. They are after all the best of the Belgae. In other factions you may look towards the inhibatively expensive elite troops to watch a group of true martial warriors engage in the kind of combat we love to watch in this game, but with the Casse tribe you find it near instantly with the medium infantry, the line troop that is the Milnaht. The Milnaht are so good at being medium infantry line troops that you will eventually come to regard them as your elite, because they are quite simply so good at fighting. Their sword has nearly double the lethality of the Uirodusios primary attack, they pack an armour of 5 which is nigh on epic for Casse medium troops, and their unmodified defence is 20 or around 23 in Camulosadae. Their stats are good but not great. But like the Uirodusios for some reason in the maelstrom of close melee combat there is something about them that makes them absolutely lethal.
However the really cool trick/roleplay immersion comes when you combine them. The Casse medium infantry line troops echo the point of the elite troops, a combination of potent morale manipulation combined to lethal close quarters melee infantry. There is no better faction at scaring and killing the enemy combined to motivating and healing your allies. Some people say that the Casse come down to charge and morale depletion but the Casse actually boil down to charging the enemy, destroying their morale, boosting your own morale, killing huge quantities of the enemy and then healing all of your own troops.
Kluddargos - Casse Sword Masters
https://i38.tinypic.com/102nviw.jpg
Here is an example of a unit that the swaps the Milnaht shield for armour and ends up with 23 defence compared to the Milnaht 20, that has a weapon of equal attack value to Milnaht but higher lethality AND is armour piercing. And to top it all off this Unit increases the morale of nearby units while the Milnaht has no such morale modification feature. This unit has superior defence in all directions to the Milnaht and is superior in attack against all foes, but is a complete butcher compared to the Milnaht when fighting armoured foes, and turns "Eager" into "Impetuous" which is a state of readiness I love to see even if it doesn't mean much in a particular battle.
The list goes on with the Casse and this is only their line troops, their run-of-the-mill warriors. I could go on at even further length because it is such a unique and brilliant faction of primal warrior ethos, in scratching a living and surviving exile as much as in fighting the enemy.
The only real advice for playing the Casse, or for playing any faction in this brilliant modification, is to slow down and read every piece of information presented to you. Then you will be transported into an ancient way of life that is so rich and deep and compelling that to fight against it only means that you are going to lose. The EB team have done such a great job that if you want to succeed you need to embrace.
I hope you have fun with the Casse. They are deeply compelling when you get to really play them, but so is every other faction.
Introduction
At the end of the world there lies an ancient land. A land isolated in space and time, seperated from our world by oceans and aeons. It is a land of ancient peoples, of ancient monuments, of ancient hills and ancient forests and it is a land of ancient ways. An exiled land invariably grants refuge to the exiled and that is what you are my King. The neighbours of our ancestors could not live with our strength, with our hunger, with our ways, but when the Sheep flock against the Wolf then even the most noble of predators must retreat. And so we came to this ancient land, this land of our long forgotten origin, and in this land we found the home for those ways that the world fears and fights against. But the Wolf cannot lie still forever, the Wolf cannot ignore it's nature. We can hunt this land, we can explore this land, we can tame this land and when that primeval urge to reclaim our rightful place as the mightiest of the mighty and the predator of the weak in the eyes of all the world stirs within us, we can unleash an ancient power and an ancient terror that all the world is foolish to cast aside. All the world will know, respect and fear us as man knows, fears and respects the Wolf.
Overview
The Casse are an exquisitely put together faction whose strengths only seem to multiply the more you get into the mindset of essentially roleplaying this faction. While playing as the Casse you are not so much playing a regional overlord indigenous to the area such as you get with the Lusotannians, Sweboz and Gaulic factions, but instead you are playing as the exiled Belgae stumbling across an incredibly ancient land. This is one of the more interesting themes in the entire game because I know of no other faction that is effectively recruiting from its own mythology. The most aggressive, isolationist and feared of the Gaulic tribes has been exiled into it's own ancient history. When the fearsomely aggressive Iron age Gaulic culture of the Belgae meets the bronze age lands of Hero Worship and mythology that is Britain and Ireland in this time period, the end result is a technologically backwards warrior culture that is so far out of time with the rest of the world that the rest of the world simply does not know what has hit it.
This faction should be viewed differently from the rest. While the basics of starting off with one Flag and one Colour and one technical culture and then expanding it around the map work exactly the same, the finer details that really help you get the most out of this faction and at the same time really pull you into the goings-on and working of this area in this time period are completely different. You start off as the Casse and as the campaign progresses you begin to play more as the emerging supremacy of the exiled Belgae in Bronze Age Britain, but eventually the true nature of this faction begins to emerge and that true nature is a deeply ancient culture that is a fusion of Bronze Age Brythonic indigenous hero worshippers and exiled war-like Iron Age Celts from mainland Gaul. You are trully a coalition of Celtic and Brythonic cultures held together by ancient traditions, wise council, vassalage and the strength and wisdom of the elected King. You will not be playing the Casse so much as you will trully be playing Celtic, Brythonic and Goidilic tribes united under Druidic Council and conquest. This is Bronze Age Britain, not Belgae invaders or Casse hegemony, but Belgae invaders, Casse hegemony and Caledonian brutality all play a compelling and deep role in this faction.
Tribes
The Casse themselves are perhaps the most open minded and forward thinking of the initial Belgae tribes you will encounter and are therefore best placed to serve as Governors and community leaders in the early emergence of a united Bronze Age Britain. They are still as warlike and aggressive as any other faction outside of Britain that you might care to mention, but inside the coastline of Britain they are practically soft. The Casse will accumulate huge quantities of hugely benificial traits for trade, management, mining and overseas contact and you can expect all but the most stupid of Casse familly members to achieve +5 trade and +5 management traits in a couple of years wherever there is a decent port with good trade links.
There are too many other tribes to mention individually, but eventually you will wrack up a large collection of indigenous Brythonic and Goidilic tribes that are high quality Governors and Generals alike, but surely the Caledonian tribe and the other Belgae tribes you will encounter must be pointed out as these tribes and their familly members are significantly brutal when it comes to commanding armies. Barring the Casse you do not want Belgae tribes to Govern towns and cities. Some other Belgae tribes can Govern effectively but you are wasting these people as the Menape and Ordovices, "River People" and "Old Ones" respectively are profoundly designed to keep in with the theme of Bronze Age or Neolithic struggle for survival. They can farm and they can trade, but what they really do best and ironicly what sends them over the ocean into your hands is their ability to fight.
Speaking of fighting, I should draw special attention the Caledonians. Whether it is familly members or Caledonian units, Caledonians do only one thing of comparable merit and they do it best, that is fight. They are invariably the worst equipped, worst funded, worst drilled, worst organised and so they invariably lose rediculous quantities of battles against their foes, and yet they are nigh on impossible to defeat. The Caledonians are two things: Neolithic in their development and profoundly feral in their attitude. While the Sweboz develop facial and head hair rituals for engagements in battle and first kills, the Caledonians are too busy clawing their own survival out of the Highlands of Scotland to care about such bourgeoisie behaviour. If you can get leaders from this tribe then for goodness sake do not let them command your huge army of heroes, but give them some skirmishers and violent light infantry and send them into the depths of Germania to teach the Sweboz a thing or two about what it means to be Wild.
Economy
The economy of Bronze Age Britain is simple, resources and ports galore. You wont be mining many large or small veins of precious metals and you wont be getting much in the way of trade benefits from temples, but you will have a port in every single town you conquer in the next 50 to 100 years and you will be wracking up those trade bonuses in your Casse Kings and Chieftains. Once you have united Britain and Ireland under your rule you will be raking in rediculous quantities of cash in comparison to the armies you require. Conquest of Northern Gaul can be easilly achieved by simply stockpiling funds for a generation or two and then unleashing hoardes of Heroes, but the conquest of Norther Gaul is simply a means to obtain yet more ports. You are Sicily to the power of ten, minus the multitude of problems produced by the multitude of factions around the Mediterranean. You can quite easilly establish trade routes with every faction in the game long before you have to attack anyone, and those you do attack first are invariably weak on the trading front. Trade with Carthage especially is likely to be your bread and butter, but despite their trading proximity they are a world away in terms of armed conflict. Spam ports and trade routes while using minimal forces to conquer maximum territory thereby gaining maximum experience and maximum quality and you will be rolling in cash.
Politics
The politics of the Casse are something that add real flavour to this faction. The basic mechanics of sticking decent Governors in Cities and selecting your next in line for the throne are all identical to all other factions, but what is different is that by the time you have conquered the 8 provinces of Britain and Ireland you have access to four different Zones of Recruitment with four different styles and types of units, and ontop of this you have the Bronze Age Brythonic simulcrum to the Spartan Agoge that is the Dark Island of Druidic power and teaching where all new leaders are invariably sent for significant trait benefits. Ontop of that you also manage to get through all 3 types of Government, homeland, expansion and subjugation. By the time you reach Ireland, a mere 5 Eleutheroi towns on an factionless Island later, you can install a type 4 Government which grants you immediate access to the Celtae Vollorix unit, the significantly well equipped Celtic Lesser Kings. No other faction in the game provides both a crash course in the implication of Zones of Recruitment, Government Types and their implications, but at the same time sucks you right into the role play immersion of wholly various and distinct entities in a collective united by vassalage and kingship, overlooked and guided by the religious caste and fundamental cultural views.
The best that the Roman player can look forward to in this time frame is the destruction of Carthaginian temples and barracks and the development of a Roman Province. The Casse player gets to experience 3 distinct regions and 3 distinct government types ranging from direct rule to tributary vasselage, and can recruit these incredibly potent "Lesser Kings" directly into his army. To imagine that the Casse are simply the EB team showing off their "cool stuff" in an area lacking real threats is unfair, this entire situation adds deeply to the whole sense of actually being a large Bronze Age culture. These tiny little details are rampant in the Casse faction and they produce a vastly compelling roleplay experience. Given the lack of direct expansion options and capability for a one province faction, the quantity and depth of the literature and subtle interplay of gameplay details is brilliant. For a "mod" of this game it is a historical flavour that is close to genius, given the limitations on the team in terms of hard and soft code.
Religion
Where do you start? I will start by saying that religion in the Casse faction is one of the most spectactular and frustrating experiences in EB, but the frustration is not the fault of the EB team unless ofcourse you think they should have anticipated and worked around basic gameplay flaws produced by CA.
Enough of that, let me move onto explaining perhaps the central and most defining feature of this faction. The Casse faction is a mixture of Bronze Age Brythonic and exiled/invading Iron Age Celtic/Iberian cultures, left to stew in isolation for aeons before the next wave comes in and itself mixes for aeons. The player is left with a mixture of Celtic Druidism in its primeval form, Neolithic monuments that have existed for millenia, and hero-worship cultures that are not simply existant or hinted at but incredibly prevalent and integral to the entire function of this faction. Druidism and Hero-Worship alongside Neolithic Monuments dont simply turn up occasionally, they are everywhere. Then add temples to this mix and you start to get the idea.
Unfortunately Drudism is the only one that really works. Hero-Worship and Neolithic Monuments do provide bonuses, but the really significant bonuses for this faction from these objects do not work. That might be a blessing in disguise for if they did work you would be dealing with the obscene.
Starting with Druidism, Bronze Age Britain is the only real bastion of Druidism in the game in its prototypical form. Druidism exists not as a nod to historical importance but as a vibrant and existing element in this faction. Druidism overtly exists in two forms: the first is the Druid unit which boosts morale by two factors in battle rather than the usually impressive one, which therefore makes it the most potent morale enhancing unit in the game. The second is the existence of the Island of Darkness and the trait implications of Druid ancilliaries. The Island of Darkness is essentially a monument that begins Druidic training for Characters placed into the nearby city. The Druidic Training lasts for four seasons or one year and generally confers small trait benefits to Law and Influence. It also confers a trait benefit for the healing of casualties in battle. The second major benefit of Druidic influence in the Casse faction is that it confers upto 4 distinct types of Druid ancilliary of which 3 provide a bonus for the healing of casualties sustained in battle. When you combine these benefits then very often you get a character with 3 ancilliaries confering healing benefits and one trait conferring healing benefits which results in 4x the benefit for casualties killed in battle. The Romani get one or two. The Casse get 4 or 5. In other words it is possible for the Casse to get absolutely slaughtered in battle while losing very few men. No other faction in the game can heal as many casualties as the Casse. I dont think any faction can even get close to half the Casse casualties healed in battle. For a bunch of naked, unroutable fanatics lacking the drug-induced 2 HP of the Gaestatae this is a significant bonus.
The second major factor of the Casse religious details, and the one that unfortunately does not work but still adds immense atmosphere to the faction is the Hero-Worship mausoleums, Neolithic Structures and Temples. Take Camulosadae for example, with its nearby monument of Caerncaladrydane (Stonehenge) combined to a Hero-Cult Mausoleum and a Fortress-Temple of Andraste you could in theory provide a +6!! Morale modifier to the recruitable Mihlnat (Great-Men). If this worked as it appears ingame you would be playing the Casse faction with a Morale superiority above and beyond the Casualty superiority you already possess, against any and every faction in the game. Routing would not be something you would have to worry about, straight out of the box so to speak. Unfortunately it does not work, but I can see how +6 Morale to Bronze Age Naked Wild Men supported by Druids and do not need Drugs for their fanaticism would simply add to the character of this game.
The bottom line is that the Fortress Temple of Andraste is a no brainer if it works, but it doesnt work so don't suffer the 0.5% penalty to population growth through human sacrifice for a non existant gain.
Combat
Combat is where all the threads of a faction come together and the Casse are no different in this respect. Where the Casse are different comes from who they are. The Casse are essentially a lightening bolt from the past, they are poorly equipped, they lack extreme specialisation that you might find in the Makedonian Phalanx supported by Thraikioi Peltastai or Agrianikoi Pelekuphoroi and they are going to struggle hugely against Cavalry. But then the Casse have never had to equip thousands of weaklings with long sticks to prevent them running from battle, and those that turn up today have never lost a dual against an opponent no matter his weaponry. Infact it is rare to find anyone that has the balls to attack, even the Belgae only came here because they had no choice.
This is not an attempt at humour but the best way I can explain the Casse troop roster. Casse units are unspecialised and lack tactical flexibility but they are incredibly tough and have a huge impact on morale, of the enemy or of the ally. Their inherant toughness is a huge weapon against any enemy, no one on the map is going to recruit low level infantry that you cannot beat with your own low level infantry, but that is only part of the story. Casse units are inherantly tough in comparison to equivelant levels of troops amongst their enemies, but Casse troops mess around with Morale like no one else, not even the Sweboz and not even Elephants.
The Casse terrify troops like few others, motivate their own troops like no one else, heal their casualties like no one else, and fight like absolute demons. While the "slinger approach" is useful in the early game when money and manpower is tight and you are assualting rebel towns with rubbish units, to actually fight with the Casse requires that you understand the full power of frontal warfare available to you. The power of the frontal assualt available to the Casse is second to none, in terms of both combat ability and morale destruction. The defensive capability of the Casse against a well ordered army is bugger all barring numbers and morale.
There are two ways to break down and analyse the Casse troop roster. The first is light, medium and heavy troops and the second way is morale alterating or not morale altering. That helps to understand the Casse troops but no Casse army is going to be without a good, solid mix of these units. The real boon of the Casse army is the potency of their medium troops. Their light troops are equal or better to other nearby light troops, but the Casse medium troops are in a league of their own.
Uirodusios - Man Demons
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These guys do not look like much, especially when you have been hoping for the Gaesatae, but they start off in Camulosadae with 18 attack, 18 defence and lower the morale of nearby enemies while motivating nearby allies. Forget about thinking of them as spearmen. They have short spears, no armour and a shield value of 2. This means they have a defence skill of 16 which is higher than Rycalawre. They might weild a spear and shield but they are not defensive troops. A charge bonus of +8 only serves to drive home the point that these guys are infact a shock troop for melee and a shock troop for morale. They will die like flies when hit by missiles, when hit by cavalry and when surrounded but a few of these chaps close together will never route, will terrify the enemy, and will give a brilliant account for themselves in melee combat. To try and compare them with Gaestatae because they have their bits out is a mistake. They do not have the 2 HP of the Gaestate but the Gaestatae do not motivate those troops around them. They are a different beast altogether, where beast is the operative word.
This is a powerful assault troop with morale modifiers that no other faction has. This is an elite you start off with that no other faction can obtain even after 2 reforms and 60 new provinces. Understand and treat this unit as such. This is the epitome of the faction.
Milnaht - Great Men
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The fancy pants invader, the foreign infidel with his new ideas and soft philosophy and shiny trinkets. You cannot have two epitomes because it simply doesn't work, but I don't care I am having two. On its own the Milnaht - The Great Men - The Belgae Swordsmen are quite simply the finest of the Gaullic line infantry. While anyone that has ever played a Gaullic faction will know that as line troops the Bataroas (Northern Gallic Swordsmen) command respect, well the Milnaht commands awe. And that is exactly what this faction is all about.
The Milnaht is quite simply the peak of Gaullic line infantry. They are after all the best of the Belgae. In other factions you may look towards the inhibatively expensive elite troops to watch a group of true martial warriors engage in the kind of combat we love to watch in this game, but with the Casse tribe you find it near instantly with the medium infantry, the line troop that is the Milnaht. The Milnaht are so good at being medium infantry line troops that you will eventually come to regard them as your elite, because they are quite simply so good at fighting. Their sword has nearly double the lethality of the Uirodusios primary attack, they pack an armour of 5 which is nigh on epic for Casse medium troops, and their unmodified defence is 20 or around 23 in Camulosadae. Their stats are good but not great. But like the Uirodusios for some reason in the maelstrom of close melee combat there is something about them that makes them absolutely lethal.
However the really cool trick/roleplay immersion comes when you combine them. The Casse medium infantry line troops echo the point of the elite troops, a combination of potent morale manipulation combined to lethal close quarters melee infantry. There is no better faction at scaring and killing the enemy combined to motivating and healing your allies. Some people say that the Casse come down to charge and morale depletion but the Casse actually boil down to charging the enemy, destroying their morale, boosting your own morale, killing huge quantities of the enemy and then healing all of your own troops.
Kluddargos - Casse Sword Masters
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Here is an example of a unit that the swaps the Milnaht shield for armour and ends up with 23 defence compared to the Milnaht 20, that has a weapon of equal attack value to Milnaht but higher lethality AND is armour piercing. And to top it all off this Unit increases the morale of nearby units while the Milnaht has no such morale modification feature. This unit has superior defence in all directions to the Milnaht and is superior in attack against all foes, but is a complete butcher compared to the Milnaht when fighting armoured foes, and turns "Eager" into "Impetuous" which is a state of readiness I love to see even if it doesn't mean much in a particular battle.
The list goes on with the Casse and this is only their line troops, their run-of-the-mill warriors. I could go on at even further length because it is such a unique and brilliant faction of primal warrior ethos, in scratching a living and surviving exile as much as in fighting the enemy.
The only real advice for playing the Casse, or for playing any faction in this brilliant modification, is to slow down and read every piece of information presented to you. Then you will be transported into an ancient way of life that is so rich and deep and compelling that to fight against it only means that you are going to lose. The EB team have done such a great job that if you want to succeed you need to embrace.
I hope you have fun with the Casse. They are deeply compelling when you get to really play them, but so is every other faction.