Impoverished Gaul

I had always pictured Gaul to be a wealthy place to be. It's fabled riches, along with a need for a military conquest and blah blah blah, were one of the major factors contributing to caesar's eventually campaign in Gaul right?

Anyway, point of this thread: Im playing a campaign as the Arverni on vh/m. Currently in 255 bc and Ive wiped out the other Gaulic faction except for its one starting province in northern Italy. (I might be the Aedui, I get the two factions mixed up so you'll have to forgive me) I rule all the pronvinces that my Gaulic nemesis possessed in Gaul, Massalia, Emporium (sp?), and one of the northern provinces that borders the English channel. Ive built atleast a market in every settlement and every other trade/economic building that I can. Massalia and Emporium (sp?) are currently the only two provinces really bringing in any money - both are near 1k. My cities throughout the mainland of Gaul range from 500 to the negatives, at normal to high taxes. This is in the absense of a legit army. When I actually build up a force, my two economic power houses will drop down to near 600 and the rest usually under 100.

Where's the money that lured caesar to his glory?

Slaves?

REputedly the largest gold mines of the age were in their control and I have heard estimates that half of the gold in circulation came from there.

hence the avarice of rome....:clown:

I tried an Aedui campaign too and experienced the same thing, their economy isn't what it should be imo... they can't even build paved roads! :wall:

what do paved roads have to do with economy besides allowing faster travel? :dizzy2:

They increase trade.

well, would they actually of HAD them? i would think that if they had made them the EB team would of made them readily available.

Many gallic tribes had a pretty good form of paved road historically. In EB the two gallic factions are suppost to have roads but do not due to an error in the EDB. There is some sort of retardation in the way the game reads the word "or" in the code.

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Originally Posted by MastaSpoofa

well, would they actually of HAD them? i would think that if they had made them the EB team would of made them readily available.

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They did make stone roads*the celts that is*. The building of the for the gauls is messed up right now, if you look through the files you can see they have the line for building them and describitions.

Money wise, take Tolouse and that Helvetii city, Tolouse=big sea trade and a silver mine, makes more then both emporion and massalia. Helvetii city=good land trade with a bunch of cities, and two silver mines for super big bucks

They didn't have paved roads in the same sense the greeks and romans did, but they did have roads paved in a different manner. Mostly using logs and earth.

EDIT: Anyway, longstory short, they're supposed to get paved roads and will at some point.

oh, im sorry i dont have much knowledge of many "barbarian (used for lack of a better word)" tribes, i was just going on what our schools teach us in history class now a days.......... *sigh*

The oldest 'paved' roads found in Europe I think are Celtic, but someone will confirm / deny this. By paved the Celts reinforced the surface with split logs. I think the oldest road surface found to date is in fact in Ireland....and they are still tracing its route from what I remember.

I also saw some information on the Celtic road map of Europe and I was staggered by the extensiveness of it......I tried to see if I can goooooogle it but couldnt. From the map I saw it was very extensive, from ireland to the black sea and predated the roman road network.

Obviously the romans took the idea, improved it and.....the rest is history.

Heres a reference to it

In the townland of Derrycorr is a curious ancient road, formed of large oak trees placed longitudinally with planks of cleft oak laid over them transversely, and covered with sand and gravel about a foot deep, forming a road across the bog at a considerable depth below the surface, and in an excellent state of preservation, though, from the accumulation of superincumbent bog, the timber must have remained there for many centuries. The sand and gravel were evidently brought from Lough Neagh, from portions of petrified wood and chalcedony being intermixed with them; and the road, which was recently discovered while cutting turf, is traceable for nearly two miles to the Lough, and is supposed by the peasantry to have been constructed by St. Patrick, for the purpose of conveying sand for the building of Armagh cathedral. In the year 1815 a golden gorget, weighing 12 oz. and richly chased, was found in one of these bogs, and was purchased by the Rev. F. Gervais, rector of the parish.

.....my memory is that it predated st patrick by more than a thousand years.

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Originally Posted by HFox

The oldest 'paved' roads found in Europe I think are Celtic, but someone will confirm / deny this. By paved the Celts reinforced the surface with split logs. I think the oldest road surface found to date is in fact in Ireland....and they are still tracing its route from what I remember.

I also saw some information on the Celtic road map of Europe and I was staggered by the extensiveness of it......I tried to see if I can goooooogle it but couldnt. From the map I saw it was very extensive, from ireland to the black sea and predated the roman road network.

Obviously the romans took the idea, improved it and.....the rest is history.

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Pleeease! This is Terry Jones "Barbarians" info, am I wrong?

That whole map used there is pure guesswork. Parts of road log roads were found in few places, but drawing huge system is huge overinterpretation. Log roads also were found as early as late bronze, few hundred years before celts (for example Biskupin in Poland).

Romans were building paved roads before they entered gaul. The construction is made for stone usage, not logs. There is no trace celtic log roads influenced romans, especially as "proper paved" roads were used in mediteranean area long before romans.
Do you know that in some regions roman roads are used up untill now?

The difference between best (known) roman roads and best (known) celtic log roads is like between paved road and highway. I do not want to say log road is rubbish, it is definately better than dirt road, but I have to say I hate when programs like this one misinforms people that much.

Please don't sound so patronising, it belittles you.

This was from something I read, I don't tend to watch much television but it may have been from one of the newspapers and magazines I read which itself was referring to this. After all, no one is perfect.

All I can remember is some Irish researchers being quoted. The dates of the logs themselves put the road surface at a time before Rome.......I think .....but until I can find the reference it could be me miss remembering something.

And yes I know that some roman roads are still in use....the one I know of is called the A1.

Sorry HFox:shame: I didnt want to sound bad.

Only this program makes me mad.

I've just yesterday watched episode of this and I:furious3:

For example the guy claim that Vandals were "peaceful and just on the move to find new home" through Gaul and spain while evil Romans were attacking them.
And they had supplies dropped from the sky by God I suppose. Such big group just have to pillage (and obviously kill people protecting theyre home) because they will not be able to survive. And those "evil romans" were in fact people protecting theyre homes and trying to prevent Vandals from robbing them.

After watching 2 episodes I can form opinion that it is just awful propaganda using banner "demistificaton of history", but in fact providing information (lot of it is true of course) in such a way that they mistify history in opposite direction.

I watched that show too. It's nice to see things from the other side's point of view. If you take both the barbarian supporter's point of view and the roman supporter's point of view you can find something in the middle that is most likely close to the truth.

NPS

Can't find a source for this anyway so may have been b0ll0ck5

...but I like the idea as it fits in with the roman way of taking good ideas and taking them to a higher level.

You have noticed our "Bog/Moor Roads" in the north, right? They have descriptions, but they are really just unique buildings that give trade bonuses. Descriptions give us another opportunity to inform people about these sorts of interesting and relatively unique constructions. They don't really make the province roads any different, but they were mostly just short range roads to help carry heavy loads between things like a mine and a smelting facility or other such examples. Not long distance things so much.

well apart from the mines that are spread throughout Gaul into Germania, do you plan on increasing the wealth of the region through other means? I mean owning 7 provinces with only 1 army should be more than reasonable but it can still be a struggle to get by.

Also, will barbarian reforms work in .81?