Anyone ever do good with Averini?

Pretty much the title says it all, I've tried about 10 times and haven't got off the ground yet. Anyone else try to play this faction? I'm pretty much determined to succeed now no matter what, I'll be trying until EB 1.0 comes out if I have to.

Well, since I'm currently doing an AAR with them. I'll know soon if it's possible to succeed with them.. I truly hope it is.. :sweatdrop:

Anyone has some good advice?

I think with the arverni ur in a bit better position than the Aedui since ROME won't come after u as soon as it gets rid of Epiros.

My advice:
1-Kill the Aedui/Arverni 1st and formost.
---Attack the enemy's separted stacks with ur 1 full or 2/3 stack army.
---Position ur forces on hills in the campain map, inside enemy territory. (the AI will attack u, and u will have favorable ground position)

2-Kill the Aedui/Arverni fast. My record is by 270 with the Aedui. (H/H & Vh/M)

3- THEN, start taking rebel cities.

4- IF ur Arverni, don't take the settlement the Aedui have in Italy. Get an alliance from Rome. IF ur Aedui, raze it to the ground and give it to Epiros, do it at the start of the game. (BUYING TIME, is what ur doing).

5- Start building ur Economy.

6- DON'T take the coastal rebel Greek city. Let the Romans take it... (buy time)

7- On ur city closest to the Alps, build and MIC3 where u can train Gaestrae.

Why are u buying time??? The romans have 4X ur economy and 4X ur armies. So u need a good economy to trian, buy, and mantain, 2 full stacks (u can get away with 1 and 1/2 stacks, I did it)

With this force it will be enough to deal with the 1st 4 full stacks Rome has, and the later 3 or more it will throw at u as u take Italy. IF u know how to fight as a Gaul. (hint: slopes, trees, snow)

HOWEVER. If Rome doesn't attack u for a while, u should attack it 1st once it starts spearding East and or North of the Alps. As soon as u get ur Armies, hit them hard, and hit them fast.
why? rome has a lot of $$, and can train a lot of stacks in those other settlements, which it WILL send to ur lands through different directions. U don't have enough troops and $$ to cover ur exposed flanks. Also u don't want to have a Defensive strategy against Rome, because it can get a full stack in 3 turns OR LESS (all cities in Italy will be MIC3 or higher + mercs).

The trick of the strategy is beat Rome and put 1 stack inside north-mid Italy, and the other a little behind to refill it the troops of the 1st stack. Rome will send to u all the stacks it has in reserves in southern Italy. Beat them all, then u will have a 3 turn window to take a Town, maybe 2. Then move downwards in the same manner.

Thats how I beat the Romani in .74 in H/H after loosing a campain against them.

Good luck,

as neospartan said, you need to go offensive from the start.

you have a substantial army that will very quickly put you into debt, while your enemies the aedui, are getting massive cash injections from the script so if you dont kill them quick, they will out-recruit you and its game over.

you can win most battles against them by simply lining up your infantry in front of the enemy, putting them on 'fire at will', and raining javelins on them. a few cavalry charges and they are routing.

after the aedui are destroyed, take as many poorly defended rebel cities as possible. you should be able to control central and northern gaul very quickly.

start training levy spearmen as soon as you come out of debt, and work on getting high level barracks in your highest population town so you can train heavy infantry.

in my campaign, the romans attacked me in 270bc, sieging massilia and meidolanium at the same time.

they are a difficult opponenet, as they have armies comprised largely of triarri and princeps, which you will at the time have nothing to compete against them with. your strong javelins which slaughterd your bare-chested neighbours are now useless against their armour.

the solution is to -never- fight them in seiges when you dont at least grossly outnumber them, especially in stone walled towns.

run an army comprised largely of generals, at least 4-5 of them including your faction leader and heir. as well as 10 or so units of infantry. basically you want a line of infantry to absorb the attacks of the enemy while you muster as much cavalry as possible to flank them.

when you besiege well garrisoned towns, just wait there until they attack you with a relief army so that you can get the town without having to assault it.

people often complain about triarii, but the thing is they have a quite a significant weakness you dont see, which is that they have a very high auto-calc rating, which means that the AI overestimates their worth, and will a result attack you even when you outnumber them, allowing you some easy victories.

try to let them attack you. form a line in a good position, let them march to you, attack your lines, then get round the back of them and charge them until they rout.

the same sort of tactics apply to most armies and most situations, but i think the most important point is to not go on the defensive, as the AI is able to pump out a lot more units than you can in a very short time.