Gaesatae overpowered?

[Little Legioner]

First of i'm aware of that they're elite troops of Celtic ranks but why don't they die :furious3:

They always paralyze my fellow Legionaries. They (mine soldiers) surround those troublemakers and figth lasts long minutes. They never give up they never flee. Javelins, Slings, Pilums, Gladius', Falcatas, Pugios, Spears cannot penetrate their line even they are fully flanked by my men.

What are they? They've become a nightmare for me. :wall:

Besides my rightheous fury please tell me fellas. Is there any way to kill them or break them fast?

Do they deserve that great stat benefits?

By the way,

Thanks for the god because of EB. I've never seen such challenging campaign game for years. My social life died for two weeks. I'm planning my attacks and defences and whole situation during my business day. When i gone home after a quick diner whoop my camp goes on again. Every victory and defeat has a meaning with this great game!

Excellent and brilliant job guys. One by one i shake your hands. :2thumbsup:

Well, i must leave coz i need to refine my plans to crush Galli. Aedui and Arverni scum still resist against Roman power! I'll shave their moustaches then :whip:

Ave Frates!

[Birka Viking]

Use slingers or surround them. Well they are good but not so good...
Good luck:balloon2:

[Kralizec]

Some people seem to think that because multi-hitpoint units don't die (or indeed, visibly take damage) from single volleys of sling-bullets, arrows and javelins, that multiple hit-points negate missile fire. That's not true. A couple of volleys of missiles fired on them, while maybe not killing a lot of them, removes hitpoints from a lot of them and makes them more killable for the ensuing melee.

[Anthony]

They're heavily drugged with something akin to PCP. A good missile hailing as they approach should weaken them well enough. Hit them with cavalry from the flank if you can when they hit your infantry line; it'll cut them quick, and it's what Romans did at Telamon. Their morale and staying power is intentionally very good, but a wise tactician who realizes what the way is to fight them can break them pretty quick. They are not supermen, but they do require special tactics.

[Zim]

Yeah, in my celtic campaigns, Gesaetae have to be managed well, as they're pretty vulnerable to missile fire. They cost a ton of money, but even lowly accensi can take them out so long as teh Gesaetae don't catch them. :furious3: It may take a few volleys, but missile fire, especially to their flanks helps a lot. Fighting them I sometimes even stop my soldiers when they try to charge after throwing their javelins, then have them throw another volley.

:beam: You might want to do a search of the forums on the killing them. Gaesetae seem to be a hot subject, I think there are a couple of threads floating around with lots of great tips on killing them.

P.S. If the enemy comes at you with 4-6 units of double gold chevron Gaesetae, the above doesn't apply. I recommend running, myself. I lost a whole stack Casse army to those guys.

[mcantu]

Doesnt sound like you have the battle difficulty at Medium...

[Little Legioner]

P.S. If the enemy comes at you with 4-6 units of double gold chevron Gaesetae, the above doesn't apply. I recommend running, myself. I lost a whole stack Casse army to those guys.

Lol infact i've already done this for several times and also one more "infact" i've made a terrible mistake with setting battle diffuculty to hard. This makes elite units to more elite and more elite means pain in the a** :smash:

Well, thank's for your advices. I'll refine and improve my tactics. Vae Victis then... I'll crush them :whip:

[Domitius Ulpianus]

The way to deal with these guys is the same way you should deal with any infantry unit. Confront them with a fairly strong unit (please don't use archers, slingers or skirmishers to repel their charge) then flank them and finally bring some cavalry and charge from the back. IMPORTANT: Give them a way out as soon as they break...or they will fight to the last man. If you don't have cavalry, confront them again with a strong unit and move your missile troops behind the Gaesatae and shoot them from behind.

If you don't have Misslie troops, nor cavalry....what the HELL are you doing fighting them....RUUUNNN!!!!!!!!!!!!!:smash:

[Little Legioner]

If you don't have Misslie troops, nor cavalry....what the HELL are you doing fighting them....RUUUNNN!!!!!!!!!!!!!:smash:

Hannibal ad portas! :laugh4: Run to the hills run for your life. When my or enemies army start to flee from field and heard their scream "run" then i remember Iron Maidens track Run to the hills. :dizzy2:

Anyway, it seems so my fault ways surround them completely and do not give them a room to flee. They are really Uruk-hai' like backbone of Celtic armies and if i were Legionaire i'd not to fight against such lunatics.

Polybius's account on Telamon was also gives an impressive sigth on Celtic battle fury. I really would like to see an Roman Vs Celtic battle with my eyers... but as an invisible spectator by the way :beam:


The Romans, however, were on the one hand encouraged by having caught the enemy between their two armies, but on the other they were terrified by the fine order of the Celtic host 6 and the dreadful din, for there were innumerable horn-blowers and trumpeters, and, as the whole army were shouting their war-cries at the same p315time, there was such a tumult of sound that it seemed that not only the trumpets and the soldiers but all the country round had got a voice and caught up the cry. 7 Very terrifying too were the appearance and the gestures of the naked warriors in front, 8 all in the prime of life, and finely built men, and all in the leading companies richly adorned with gold torques and armlets.

I'm speechless. I love to read history. There are no greater way to trigger human imagination.

[Tellos Athenaios]

Gaesatae >> time for some decent phalanx unit. One to hold them in the front, so you can kill them from the sides.

[antisocialmunky]

I haven't had the honor of fighting a whole freaking army of those nuts but I've seen them go down surprisingly quick when surrounded with all their buddies routed and general dead. I've also seen them participate in chain routs during bridge battles once enough of their buddies loose thier nerve. I look forward to fighting large numbers of them once I take Greece and Carthage in my current Romani game.

[Rilder]

Playing medium battle difficulty Gaesatae seem rather easy to be honest, at least in my casse campaign, there a bit difficult to rout but not hard, I'd say a boost to them if anything.

[Enguerrand de Sarnéac]

They're not soooo incredibly good... just nice hackers. Keep them away from the right units in your lines... Charging them with good charging cavalry with staying power should do...better even when combined with missile fire indeed, or some good ol' rear charges

VH/M by the way

[fallen851]

Yeah, inbut even lowly accensi can take them out so long as teh Gesaetae don't catch them. :furious3:



That is interesting because I did a custom battle where I used Cretan archers vs Gaesatae, and after emptying all their ammo, the cretan only killed 3, and after engaging in melee, only 6 gaesatae were dead. Of course they reduced HP on a bunch of them with their ammo, but I don' think Accensi have a chance, unless you have 10 units of them vs 1 unit of Gaesatae.

Anyhow, I think the EB team likes the way they are balanced. I'm now less than a week away from releasing my own EDU text for the game, and elite units aren't close to being so powerful.

[Jarardo]

You can change the battle difficulty with RomeSage, here's a link:

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/downloads.php?do=file&id=448

I used it for my current Romani campaign. The Hard difficulty was alright at first, but most of the battles I actually fight now are against generals with a lot of command stars, and the culmination of all those bonuses really gets whacky.

It's suggested to back up your save game before using it, I myself haven't had a problem with it.

[Zim]

That is interesting because I did a custom battle where I used Cretan archers vs Gaesatae, and after emptying all their ammo, the cretan only killed 3, and after engaging in melee, only 6 gaesatae were dead. Of course they reduced HP on a bunch of them with their ammo, but I don' think Accensi have a chance, unless you have 10 units of them vs 1 unit of Gaesatae.

Anyhow, I think the EB team likes the way they are balanced. I'm now less than a week away from releasing my own EDU text for the game, and elite units aren't close to being so powerful.


I'm not sure why, but slingers, even with fairly low attacks (like the 1 of the Accensi) seem to take out a lot more enemies than archers, even the Cretans. I wasn't thinking so much of a one one battle, I just remember invading Rome and having the guys cut my couple of Gaesetae units by a third or so before they hit the infantry. Eventually I took to keeping them in the second line, then charging the enemy army after the front lines had met.

[edyzmedieval]

Who wants to play a MP with me? I get only 6 units of full-power Gaesatae, with gold chevrons, gold armour and gold swords, you get what you want.

Anyone? :beam:

[Tellos Athenaios]

It's because slingers have the AP attribute, which effectively makes it impossible to just stand there and take it, unless you're in some crazy phalanx mood. And no unit is in such a mood today that I know of.

Also it's vitaly important for your slingers to hit the guys at the right angle: from their right or from their back otherwise the hughe shields will block nearly everything coming their way. ~;) Of course you get the best effect by making them run by hitting them once with a single missile volley (preferably slingers with the AP attribute such as the eastern and greek ones) and when they're running (thus when they can't use their shields properly) unleash a rain of arrows/ slingshots. Given the AI this works out especially well if you deploy your missile units behind a single line of phalanx units, or use your slingers to soften a garrison during assault. A bit of an exploit but hey, this one isn't even that ahistorical: slinger were notorious for breaking whole armies by simply provoking a couple of units too much.

[Kralizec]

Celtic slingers are also AP. The only slinger unit that doesn't per 0.81 is from the Getai, wich I figured is an oversight.

@edyzmedieval: horse archers.

[Tellos Athenaios]

Who wants to play a MP with me? I get only 6 units of full-power Gaesatae, with gold chevrons, gold armour and gold swords, you get what you want.

Anyone? :beam:

You would dare to face an elite army with all gold noble horse archers, companion cavalry, phalanxes, pheraspidai, thorakitai argyraspidai and the lot? Or if that's too much: half a stack consisting of those evil killer tank units from the Iberian penninsula all gold? ... Glad that I'm not under your command. :grin:

EDIT: You figured already that I'm a Seleukid fan. And here's another one: those cute indian longbowmen that rip any bodyguard cavalry to pieces...

[The Errant]

Actually the team said that the reason Getai slingers don't have AP is because historically the Getai were more fond of archers and the team wanted to encourage the player to use getic archers over the slingers.

As for the Gaesatae. There is a very nice picture on the last page of the screenshots for 0.81 thread concerning them. You might want to check it out Little Legioner. It's hilarious.

[Tellos Athenaios]

And... what about the "typical EB humor comic"?

[edyzmedieval]

You would dare to face an elite army with all gold noble horse archers, companion cavalry, phalanxes, pheraspidai, thorakitai argyraspidai and the lot? Or if that's too much: half a stack consisting of those evil killer tank units from the Iberian penninsula all gold? ... Glad that I'm not under your command. :grin:

EDIT: You figured already that I'm a Seleukid fan. And here's another one: those cute indian longbowmen that rip any bodyguard cavalry to pieces...

Ok. I'm scraping these guys, just keeping 2 units.
Here's my formula, all of these guys are FULL(gold chevrons, armour, swords).

I'm the biggest Ptolemaioi fan possible.

6 Basilikon Agema
3 Toxotai Kretikoi
4 Agema Cavalry
2 Gaesatae (instead of Kluddolon)
1 General

[antisocialmunky]

Who wants to play a MP with me? I get only 6 units of full-power Gaesatae, with gold chevrons, gold armour and gold swords, you get what you want.

Anyone? :beam:

I'll take seven of those then and beat your six with them.

[The Errant]

Who wants to play a MP with me? I get only 6 units of full-power Gaesatae, with gold chevrons, gold armour and gold swords, you get what you want.

Anyone? :beam:

Fine. I'll take a full stack of celtic slingers. With double gold chevrons and no general.

[antisocialmunky]

Lol, I don't think that's going to work, I've done bridge battles with slingers vs Gaestae and it doesn't workout so well for the slingers...

You could just get the ultimate army of 20 uber gold uber Kataphract-type horse archers.

[The Errant]

I fought the Galatikoi Tindanotae, the Galatian version of the nude, mad drugged up barbarians with mostly slinger armies. The key is in flanking. Even against phalangites the armor bonuses from the front are simply overpowering. You need height or mobility. Easiest way to kill elite units with slingers is to leave one or two firing at them, make sure to disable skirmish mode. Then disable skirmish mode from the rest and have them flank on both sides. The elites will charge those units with disabled skirmish modes. Once your flanking slingers are on both sides and to the back of the charging elites, reactivate skirmish mode for your bait and watch the crossfire oblitirate the enemy. Works for Argyraspidai, Thorakitai Argyraspidai, Galatikoi Tindanotae, Hypaspistai, Hetaroi, Hellenikon Katapractoi etc. etc.

edit. Forgot to mention. Allways focus your fire on a single enemy unit. Minimum of four slingers per enemy unit, not counting whoever you got as bait. The Celtic Slingers are even better than the eastern ones due to their freakishly long range and almost inexhaustable supply of ammo.

[Intranetusa]

That is interesting because I did a custom battle where I used Cretan archers vs Gaesatae, and after emptying all their ammo, the cretan only killed 3, and after engaging in melee, only 6 gaesatae were dead. Of course they reduced HP on a bunch of them with their ammo, but I don' think Accensi have a chance, unless you have 10 units of them vs 1 unit of Gaesatae.

Anyhow, I think the EB team likes the way they are balanced. I'm now less than a week away from releasing my own EDU text for the game, and elite units aren't close to being so powerful.

I used 5 units of Roman peasants (peasant slingers), and killed about 75% of 2 units of gaesatates

[Intranetusa]

Actually the team said that the reason Getai slingers don't have AP is because historically the Getai were more fond of archers and the team wanted to encourage the player to use getic archers over the slingers.

As for the Gaesatae. There is a very nice picture on the last page of the screenshots for 0.81 thread concerning them. You might want to check it out Little Legioner. It's hilarious.

Yes, how would the player know that Getai slingers don't have AP when every single othe slinger in the game have AP...


grrr, I hate unit inconsistencies...

[Tellos Athenaios]

:idea2: Weren't Getai slingers supposed to use clay bullets, instead of the rocks/ lead bullets that other slingers used? :idea2:

[Tellos Athenaios]

edit. Forgot to mention. Allways focus your fire on a single enemy unit. Minimum of four slingers per enemy unit, not counting whoever you got as bait. The Celtic Slingers are even better than the eastern ones due to their freakishly long range and almost inexhaustable supply of ammo.

That's an interesting strategy here, never payed that much attention to skirmish mode since my units always get caught... There's a slight problem though, needing 4 units to obliterate 1 or 2 is fine, but what are you going to do to take care of the rest of the army in the meanwhile? I suppose you'd need plenty of space for both the skirmishing and the trap too. Perhaps you could use some light javcav to greater effect for the luring purpose: you can keep them just out of the Gaesatae range, but they'll tempt the fanatics into a vain charge anyway (being cavalry after all). Especially Hippakontistai, they have a decent secondary attack as well. :juggle:

[JeffSteel]

I fought the Galatikoi Tindanotae, the Galatian version of the nude, mad drugged up barbarians with mostly slinger armies. The key is in flanking. Even against phalangites the armor bonuses from the front are simply overpowering. You need height or mobility. Easiest way to kill elite units with slingers is to leave one or two firing at them, make sure to disable skirmish mode. Then disable skirmish mode from the rest and have them flank on both sides. The elites will charge those units with disabled skirmish modes. Once your flanking slingers are on both sides and to the back of the charging elites, reactivate skirmish mode for your bait and watch the crossfire oblitirate the enemy. Works for Argyraspidai, Thorakitai Argyraspidai, Galatikoi Tindanotae, Hypaspistai, Hetaroi, Hellenikon Katapractoi etc. etc.

edit. Forgot to mention. Allways focus your fire on a single enemy unit. Minimum of four slingers per enemy unit, not counting whoever you got as bait. The Celtic Slingers are even better than the eastern ones due to their freakishly long range and almost inexhaustable supply of ammo.

Very true, even elite units will just melt away under flanking fire from slingers with decent experiance. My three units of triple silver cheveron slingers will kill 10-20 men per volley in elite units such as Carthiginian Elite African Infantry and Sacred band, and even those Galatian wild men after getting rid of their extra HP. They will also decimate ANY calvary short of cataphracts, and hurt cataphracts fairly well, so make sure to build up their experiance (which should be easy considering how many they can kill). No unit is invincible, its simply a matter of knowing their weaknesses and exploiting them.

(By the way, I'm assuming that anyone can recruit those Galatian Wild Men if they build a type 4 government in Ankyra and leveling up the regional barracks enough. Is this assumption correct?)

[Intranetusa]

:idea2: Weren't Getai slingers supposed to use clay bullets, instead of the rocks/ lead bullets that other slingers used? :idea2:

fired clay ceramics or crappy soft sun dried clay?

[antisocialmunky]

I fought the Galatikoi Tindanotae, the Galatian version of the nude, mad drugged up barbarians with mostly slinger armies. The key is in flanking. Even against phalangites the armor bonuses from the front are simply overpowering. You need height or mobility. Easiest way to kill elite units with slingers is to leave one or two firing at them, make sure to disable skirmish mode. Then disable skirmish mode from the rest and have them flank on both sides. The elites will charge those units with disabled skirmish modes. Once your flanking slingers are on both sides and to the back of the charging elites, reactivate skirmish mode for your bait and watch the crossfire oblitirate the enemy. Works for Argyraspidai, Thorakitai Argyraspidai, Galatikoi Tindanotae, Hypaspistai, Hetaroi, Hellenikon Katapractoi etc. etc.

edit. Forgot to mention. Allways focus your fire on a single enemy unit. Minimum of four slingers per enemy unit, not counting whoever you got as bait. The Celtic Slingers are even better than the eastern ones due to their freakishly long range and almost inexhaustable supply of ammo.

That is quite effective even against the uber tank type guys as you mentioned. My personal tactic is to get slingers on opposite sides of a unit by using one slinger as bait and having one eventually slip behind it. That way, whichever way it turns it won't be able to respond effectively.

I should have mentioned my post to say that I was fighting three armies of naked fanatics at a river for fun. :beam: So, yeah if you outnumber them with slingers, you will win. :shame:

[The Errant]

That's an interesting strategy here, never payed that much attention to skirmish mode since my units always get caught... There's a slight problem though, needing 4 units to obliterate 1 or 2 is fine, but what are you going to do to take care of the rest of the army in the meanwhile? I suppose you'd need plenty of space for both the skirmishing and the trap too. Perhaps you could use some light javcav to greater effect for the luring purpose: you can keep them just out of the Gaesatae range, but they'll tempt the fanatics into a vain charge anyway (being cavalry after all). Especially Hippakontistai, they have a decent secondary attack as well. :juggle:

Not to spoil your fun but javcav dosen't cut it. Sure their more mobile. However against a phalangitai unit especially the pike phalanxes the only place they are vulnerable to javelins is directly from the back. Unless you use settings that allow unlimited ammo, a unit of javcav will run out of ammo too soon. At best they can inflict maybe a handful of casualties per unit of javcav on a unit of pikephalangites.
The slingers on the other hand have plenty of ammo to spare. And hording them in large numbers allows you to set up lethal crossfire zones where no matter what direction the phalanx turns to a unit or more of slinger will always be firing at it from the vulnerable back or flank. There is no surer way to absolutely decimate enemy armies. Apart from cavalry, slingers are some of the fastest units around and can withdraw whenever they feel threatened. Once they run out of ammo simply withdraw. If your facing cavalry. Target them first. With a large enough stack of slingers you can even decimate Catapracht units. Sure you will take casualties, but while you may loose a unit or two to their charge when seven or eight other units are firing bullets at the catas, usually from their exposed backside or flank. You can even rout the most powerful cavalry in the game.

Note. I don't like hording slingers and using exploit tactics. I prefer balanced stacks and fair fights. However playing the Sabyn I've had to face two maybe three seleucid stacks coming my way on the same turn. Most of those stacks were packed with elite units and they even bought all the local mercs on their way down the peninsula. With a normal stack of my regular troops I'd face over 50 % casualties trying to destroy their first stack alone. No way I could handle number two and three on the same turn. Especially since the seleucids will just send another one with their limitless treasury.
Since the AI is basically cheating by getting those scripted cash bonuses for provinces held, the only way to stand against a faction as powerful as the seleucids was to either cheat more money to myself. Adjust the stats of my troops to make the uber powerful. Or use the one exploit already available in the game without cheating. Hording masses of cheap slingers and slaughtering the enemy at range. It's neither fun nor glorious on the long run, they are the desperate tactics of the drowning man. But they kept me from drowning, so I won't complain.

edit. The Galatians are recruitable to a varying degree with a level 4 gov and the reagional barracks. Recruitment seems to depend a little on what faction you are playing. Some seem to be able to recruit more galatian units than others. Don't know if it's a feature or a bug. Most of the Galatians I faced have been mercs recruited in the general area of Ancyra.