View Full Version : celts v romans
green jacket
10-16-2011, 23:47
I've recently just united britain and ireland under the casse banner and started an invasion of mainland europe by taking most the rebel provinces in western gaul. Then the gallic civil war broke out and seeing rome, the cassi and Arverni where all allied we have destroyed the Aedui. I took most of central gaul, the Arverni took the west and rome took the Aedui provinces in northern italy and now also has the provinces in southern gaul that are connected to the mediterranean.
I was thinking about moving against the sweboz or the Arverni but i think with my alliances to them my current faction leader would like to stay allied to his celtic brothers. I also thought about moving into iberia, however Carthage has always been a good ally and see both them an the iberians have been allied to me for quite a while i've decided to go for a weakened rome.
However this is my first campaign, how do the celts actually fare against the romani? Looking at their unit stats their attack values seem similar (if not worse) and their defense seem very low due to their lack of armour. Do the celts usually get slaughtered when fighting rome?
When the AI plays Rome, it tends to fill its armies with triarii and pedites extraordinarii - allied Italian elites. As such your poorly armoured Gauls and Britons will suffer, especially in the early battles. But with access to lots of morale boosting/enemy scaring units like the druids, naked spearmen and chariots, you can turn the tide by bringing these units close to the enemy. Don't let your chariots get caught though, they will drop like flies if you do.
Celtic units have very strong charges, make sure you use this and don't just let the Romans come to you. Also remember that Celtic slingers have a better range than the Roman accensi, slingers use lead or stone bullets that are effective against armour.
That's a very "vast" question, geographically and temporally speaking...
Romani and Keltoi fought eachother, side by side, even side by side against more Keltoi or employed by other nations to fight the Romani, for a period of 400 years and even more, from Iberia to Anatolia and from Britannia to Africa...
They influenced eachother immensely and as for you question they slaughtered and got slaughtered...
If you would like to know about a certain region and period, we can narrow the answer, but as Keltoi against Romani is almost all the battles the SPQR had in its history :D
As for the game, exploit their charges and scare abilities :)
antisocialmunky
10-17-2011, 00:17
Teceitos kill everything. Build them.
green jacket
10-17-2011, 00:24
I did see those "teceitos" (or celtic axemen to us simple folk). Loved them in the couple of battles i have used them in however they dont look quite right compared to the rest of the cassi army :P lol.
As for the Casse roster, these units are amazing: kluddargos, milnhat, cwmyr, drwdae, pictone neitos, calawre and rycalawre...
Soon as you have a solid general with druidic traits, basically you can rout any army with a charge and suffer no losses :D
Forget Tecitos. Get Gaesate, Druids, and chariots, fill the rest of the slots with botoraos and/or rhaetic axemen. No need for cavalry.
Brave Brave Sir Robin
10-17-2011, 14:14
Forget Tecitos. Get Gaesate, Druids, and chariots, fill the rest of the slots with botoraos and/or rhaetic axemen. No need for cavalry.
He's playing as Casse so he does not have access to either Gaesatae or Botoroas, not to mention that Rhaetic Axemen are only available in 1 province that is not all that close to Britain and require a relatively high MIC to recruit (lvl 4 local I believe). Use Teceitos and Botroas as your main units with fear inducing and morale boosting ones backing them up. Chariots and Druids will be your friends too so get used to using them. And when you see those PE and Triarii armies building up, better bring along some Kludarggos but I think you need Time of Soldiers for those guys.
So naked spearmen, Tecitos, Chariots (Do they get those?) and Kluddargos?
Brave Brave Sir Robin
10-17-2011, 16:53
Exactly. Italian and Gallic Roman armies have terrible missile options so you don't have to worry about your naked spears getting shot to pieces all that much. Teceitos, Uridusios, and Botroas can form the armies core, maybe some of the Midland Spearmen too. Sprinkle in some champion units, druids and chariots but make sure that you don't bankrupt yourself in the process as they get expensive fast.
antisocialmunky
10-17-2011, 17:58
Actually better idea, fight all the way to the Steppe/India and find merc catas or elephants and then kill the Romans.
The_Blacksmith
10-17-2011, 18:11
Actually better idea, fight all the way to the Steppe/India and find merc catas or elephants and then kill the Romans.
OR, OR, OR!!! Migrate to Krete and get ze best archers in da intire worldz!!!11!11! YIR!
xD
Or just spam Kluddargos .
The end.
Brave Brave Sir Robin
10-17-2011, 20:06
Or just spam Kluddargos .
The end.
Slightly off topic but remember when we were supposed to have 40k MP armies and I could take Casse with 12 Kluddargos, a chariot, nakeds and druids? Most OP army ever lol.
Back on topic, I forgot Milnaht which are available in your starting province and right across the channel. Use them instead of Botroas if you can afford it. They are great medium infantry.
TheLastDays
10-17-2011, 20:08
Head Hurlers :clown:
Slightly off topic but remember when we were supposed to have 40k MP armies and I could take Casse with 12 Kluddargos, a chariot, nakeds and druids? Most OP army ever lol.
Back on topic, I forgot Milnaht which are available in your starting province and right across the channel. Use them instead of Botroas if you can afford it. They are great medium infantry.
Milnaht are heavy infantry, they're one of the best celtic units available. They can hold the line (with or without guard mode) but are also great flankers because of their very good stamina, perfect for fighting the romans.
TheLastDays
10-18-2011, 18:24
I agree about the Milnaht. Haven't said anything yet, even though Casse are among my favourite campaigns, because everything made good sense. It's a pity that Milnaht have such a small AoR because they really rock the boat. Don't forget about Belgic Heavy Cav either, they come in handy in certain situations.
Lack of armor hurts. So the correct classification is Medium Infantry. They get shredded by pila/soliferum/javelins and wont do as line infantry unless facing hoplites.
Lack of armor hurts. So the correct classification is Medium Infantry. They get shredded by pila/soliferum/javelins and wont do as line infantry unless facing hoplites.
So just because they wear merely helmets they must be medium infantry? Okay, when you say that, it must be right.
They work fine for me as line infantry, what units do you use instead when playing celts?
Brave Brave Sir Robin
10-18-2011, 20:38
So just because they wear merely helmets they must be medium infantry? Okay, when you say that, it must be right.
They work fine for me as line infantry, what units do you use instead when playing celts?
No offense, but they work for you as line infantry because you are fighting the AI. Against human players, Milnaht are better suited in the back as flankers or to support a wavering main line after javelins have been expended. They certainly have the morale and discipline to hold the line, but as Lazy was saying, they will get torn to shreds in a javelin exchange with true heavy infantry like Thorakitai or Legionaries. As the Arverni or Aedui use Neitos as line infantry as they are heavier and have a wider AOR. As the Casse its a bit trickier and Milnaht will have to do unless you are rich enough to afford Calawre. Though sometimes its best not to form a main line except as a diversion and use your mobile infantry to swarm the flanks along with the localized fear effects of druids, chariots and units like Uridusios to quickly break your opponent.
TheLastDays
10-18-2011, 21:57
No offense, but they work for you as line infantry because you are fighting the AI. Against human players, Milnaht are better suited in the back as flankers or to support a wavering main line after javelins have been expended. They certainly have the morale and discipline to hold the line, but as Lazy was saying, they will get torn to shreds in a javelin exchange with true heavy infantry like Thorakitai or Legionaries. As the Arverni or Aedui use Neitos as line infantry as they are heavier and have a wider AOR. As the Casse its a bit trickier and Milnaht will have to do unless you are rich enough to afford Calawre. Though sometimes its best not to form a main line except as a diversion and use your mobile infantry to swarm the flanks along with the localized fear effects of druids, chariots and units like Uridusios to quickly break your opponent.
That's all fine and probably correct in an MP environment, I don't know enough about MP to judge this correctly but when I play Casse in a campaign I tend to use armies that are at least a bit realistic and an army made up of champions is not ^^ - Usually my main line is helf by Milnaht and also Botroas, Gaeroas, a good mix of units. Sure, that's not the OP army that would break anything apart but I can't make myself run around with an army consisting of Rycalawre and Kluddargos.
Brave Brave Sir Robin
10-19-2011, 04:57
There is definitely a difference between the roleplaying aspect of campaign and MP armies, which ask, what is the best army I can bring in this situation for this amount of mnai? I enjoy both but MP is truly where you discover the effectiveness of various units as you live and die by how well they perform. This all being said, I love Milnaht when playing as the Gauls or Casse in MP, just not as line infantry.
Actually I must say the recent armies in MP are quite historical. You should come and take a look before guessing that we spam champions all the time :P
TheLastDays
10-19-2011, 10:23
Actually I must say the recent armies in MP are quite historical. You should come and take a look before guessing that we spam champions all the time :P
I haven't implied that at all, I was only replying to the comment suggesting the use of Calawre as line infantry :tongue:
antisocialmunky
10-20-2011, 05:25
The only celtic armies I've fought are walls of neitos.
Brave Brave Sir Robin
10-20-2011, 07:00
The only celtic armies I've fought are walls of neitos.
What about my Arverni armies? Then I take a wall of Arjos intead :p
No offense, but they work for you as line infantry because you are fighting the AI.
This thread is about the campaign and not MP.
Brave Brave Sir Robin
10-20-2011, 20:35
True, although my point was to use an example of properly countering Milnaht as a way to prove that they don't function as line infantry as well as many other units. Unfortunately the AI doesn't test our units' capabilities in such ways, instead preferring to charge in their general first and then wander around in front of your line for 5 min while soaking up arrows/stones/pointy sticks before starting a disorganized and disjointed assault. In campaign against the AI, I can (and have when flirting with a negative income as the Gauls) get away with using Lugoae in guard mode as line infantry but that doesn't make them line infantry in actuality.
Sorry if the topic shifted, I was just using MP as an example.
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