Gaesatae Question

[chairman]

Paullus: I'm going to postulate that it is just an Etruscan, sans-clothes. The helmet is more Phrygian-Thracian which doesn't strike me as something a Gaul would wear, especially not in the Etruscan time period. Also, the sword looks more like a xiphos or kopis weapon based on the handle and the way he holds it. I think the shield is just an aspis that is in perspective, making it look taller than wide, given the angle. He is also wearing Greek style greaves, which would seem strange even on a mercanary if he was Gallic. Also, AFAIK, alot of Etruscan art show men wearing very little clothing, except for a cloak, like this guy. I think it was an aesthetic choice by the artists rather than an accurate reflection of RL, similar to the nude pezhetairoi and other greeks on the Alexander Sarcophogus (sp?).

That's just my opinion.

Chairman

[paullus]

everyone around the soldier is wearing full armor, and in spite of the Etruscan style aspis, helmet, sword, and greaves, he wears a woad-colored cloak in the Celtic tradition and--a tell-tale detail--a chain link belt.

And no, Elmetiacos, its a much smaller tribe than either of thus. Some tiny people in Anatolia near the Trallians.

[chairman]

Hmm... I'm kinda stumped then, but my gut tells me that aside from the characteristic blue cloak (yeah, I know it's the obvious clue in that direction, but...) and the chain link belt (which is hard to see, and I don't what to make of) he doesn't seem very Gallic. All of his equipment is within the traditional range of Greco-Hellenistic-Roman military equipment, which would only make sense on a Gaul either in Massilia or another Greek colony (though the phrygian helmet would seem rather odd at that point) or as a Galatian mercanary in Egypt or Syria (but only at a later date than the painting and far away from Etruria). Also, the way he wears his cloak reminds me of the Royal pages of Alexander's court (or just the way that Hellens in general wore their cloaks). I don't claim to be an expert so... I don't know. You definitively know more about the galatians in Greek lands, so in that sense the blue cloak would point straight to a Celtic origin, but my gut feeling still says native Etruscan. Maybe someone else with a better knowledge of ancient Italy can help.

Chairman

[the_handsome_viking]

I feel we must be very objective about this so this thread doesn't sort of go off the beaten track too much.

Did the Gaesatae exist? yes.

What were they exactly?: Quite an elaborate group of mercenaries and soldiers possibly similar to the Fianna(now though this is Irish keep in mind that a lot of cross studies between continental sources and Irish sources show a common theme repeating throughout the Celtic world)

Were they well equipped?: Yes

23 The Gaesatae, having collected a richly equipped and formidable force, crossed the Alps, and descended into the plain of the Po in the eighth year after the partition of Picenum.

Did some of them fight naked?: yes.

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.

Was there a religious reason for them fighting naked?: Possibly, but there are possibly other reasons for this and the Celts were not the only one to use naked warriors. There could have also been simply practicality reasons for this.

but the Gaesatae had discarded these garments owing to their proud confidence in themselves, and stood naked, with nothing but their arms, in front of the whole army, thinking that thus they would be more efficient, as some of the ground was overgrown with bramblesa which would catch in their clothes and impede the use of their weapons.

Did all Gaesatae fight naked?: Probably not as the nature of Mercenary life, especially in the form of a fairly large and complicated organization of Mercenaries who didn't come under the administrative rule of any local tribe would have to be quite versatile, they definitely had money and resources and as I've said before probably were very equipped as a general rule.

Were the Gaesatae elite?: By definition yes, as the very nature of such sought after professional soldiers requires an elite status, they also seemed to have quite a high degree of relative freedom from the social obligations of their neighbours, historically speaking it would seem that their allies contacted them expected positive results, so yes in that sense they were elite, if they were anything comparable to say, the Fianna then yes they were elite.

Were the Gaesatae capable of pulling javelines out of themselves and throwing them back at their enemies?: It is possible for men to do this, there are accounts of Celts doing this, was it a general rule? it is unknowen but Celts full stop were known for their battle fanaticism.

Did the Gaesatae use special drugs that were similar to PCP?: Drug use was common throughout the ancient world but there is no conclusive evidnece of this, berserker studies have been conducted to see if battle frenzy was aided by drugs like Alcohol or Mushrooms etc, and some have concluded that it was more along the lines that the warrior worked themselves up into a psychological frenzy that allowed them to perform above and beyond the regular man and what most people would expect from a human being, the Celts definitely had soldiers like this, they possibly did exist amongst the Gaesatae, especially if there was a religious element within the organization, the existance of naked warriors within their ranks would make this highly likely, but as for the drugs they used or whether or not they even used drugs? this is unknown.(unless someone can provide evidence)

[blitzkrieg80]

fair hair and complextion is hardly a Celtic or Germanic exclusive trait in fact, we can be guaranteed that all Indo-Europeans have the strain to some degree.... but i am inclined to agree that the mail is particularly interesting clue pointing in that direction. of course one doesn't need to be Indo-European at all to be pale and ruddy too

let's keep in mind the powerful and highly unknown peoples of the area which could easily be in the background, such as Lusatians! as well as Raetians.

[Elmetiacos]

What the Handsome Viking said.

I don't worry too much about the Gaesatae stats; what I do question is some naked Celtic berserkers being better than other naked Celtic berserkers, but that's possibly for another thread.

[the_handsome_viking]

What the Handsome Viking said.

I don't worry too much about the Gaesatae stats; what I do question is some naked Celtic berserkers being better than other naked Celtic berserkers, but that's possibly for another thread.

Well, they were lavishly equipped professional warriors who were either fully or semi independant, people did seem to know quite a lot about them and if they were anything like the Irish version of them the Fianna, then they probably were pretty darned good, but this argument can go the other way, a mercenary may not be as inclined to go full berserk as they are wanting to make money in the end of the day, a tribalistic naked berserk on the other time wouldn't be as interested in the material reward and probably would be motivated by something a bit higher, loyalty to friends family and loved ones and/or religion.

Berserkers are a pretty complex subject believe it or not, for a bunch of often naked men.

[Ibrahim]

I agree with Blitzkreig. Actually not just indoeuropeans have that kind of complexion. Arabs too. My uncle is an Arab, and he has arab ancestry all the way through, but he is blande haired and blue eyed. my other uncle has a fair complexion too (only dirt blond and blue eyes) only Dad has a rudy complexion and hazel eyes out of the brothers. (I myself have light brown hair and dark eyes, both not on my mom's side-though I'm not rudy).
there was also a legend about an arab named zarqaa' al-yamaamah. she lived in a now extinct tribe, and she was famous for her deep blue eyes, and piercing sight (she was before Europeans were even heard of in Arabia), hence her name, Zarqaa'

[Frostwulf]

Eh, no. That is the WORST way to judge an individual unit's power. The BEST way is to go online with either two accounts or a friend.

I agree with you that the two accounts is the best way, but otherwise playing one unit against the other is very good. The only problem is for units under the control of the AI tend to do irritating things, such as the Gaesatae running away to throw javelins again. When they do this they suffer casualties. I tend to play 3 rounds as the Gaesatae vs. whatever unit, then I play 3 rounds as the whatever unit vs. the Gaesatae.

In which case, a lot of people have mentioned that Gaesatae gets easily defeated by these other units.

I only recall one and he only played from some kind of bodyguard. Later after my post he tried the Gaesatae against that bodyguard unit and the Gaesatae won. Generally on a unit to unit battle the player on equal terms will beat the AI. When I do these battles the only thing I do is click on my unit and then click attack, thats it the AI does the rest.

And even with all that, it's only unit power, not campaign balance, which is what the balancing is supposed to be based on.
I believe someone already told you in another thread that one on one in custom battle counts for nothing in unit balance. For one it doesn't take into account the cost and availability during campaign. For another the unit get a huge morale boost by having the general. The first time you complained, you haven't played a campaign with or against them. If you still haven't go play a campaign before coming back to complain any further

If you have read this the you must know my reasons, but just in case you missed it I will state them again. In EB they try to be as historically accurate as possible. I believe you should make the units historically accurate first then change things for game balance, to me the units come first. You can always make the unit cheaper or more expensive or adjusting things other ways, but accuracy of the units I believe was the first purpose of EB.

They were deemed to be an acceptable level by historians (indeed done by one), so I don't see why you're complaining about it.

The extrapolation came from one on the forum, not the historian.

So let's see you throw out all books focusing on Romans start pulling out some books focusing on Celts to source your complains.

I did make a response to this(and your other questions) on another thread but was told I could get banned for it. Look under threads started by me and you will see it, it was locked. But I will answer this question since you did put it down here.
The first set of books listed are from the EB suggested books and the ones I quoted from will have an * by them:
Warfare in the Classical World-John Warry*/, Warfare in the Ancient World-multiple authors/,Warfare in Antiquity-Delbruck/, The Roman Army at War 100B.C-AD 200*/The Complete Roman Army-Goldsworthy/ Warhorse: Cavalry in Ancient Warfare-Sidnell*/, Greeks, Romans, and Barbarians: Spheres of interaction-Cunliffe*/, The Extraordinary Voyage of Pytheas the Greek-Cunliffe/, In the Name of Rome-Goldsworthy*/,Caesar(life of a colossus)-Goldsworthy*/, The Prehistory of Germanic Europe-Schutz/,The Ancient Celts-Cunliffe*/, The Celtic Empire-Ellis*/, The Celts-multiple authors(edited by Kruta)*/, Celts and the Classical World-Rankin*

These are some of the others I read which would hardly be "Roman-focused authors" such as Romans and Celts-Ellis*, The Celts-Kruta(different then the one mentioned above)*,Lords of Battle-Allen*,The World of The Celts-James*,*Atlas of the Celts-Dr. Barry Raftery; Dr.Jane McIntosh, Clint Twist*, Celtic Chiefdom, Celtic State-multiple authors*,France(Cambridge Illustrated History)-Jones*, The Celtic Atlas-multiple authors*,European Iron Age-Collis* and more.

That's what I'm talking about. The others have pulled out a lot of examples in which the Gauls won, as well as talked about ones that the Romans didn't write down but proved by archeology and others that the Romans just manipulated the story.

If your talking about this thread Faesulae is the only one mentioned that I recall. But this is a good example of what I was saying on the other thread(locked one) Someone says there is some archaeological evidence and instantly you assume it to be true, so lets see.

As far as civil war between gauls goes, recent archeological findings point towards constant fights in ancient gaul. This, and the writings of caesar, tend to prove that global fighting was the rule in Gaul from the 2nd century BC to the roman conquest.

Where can I read about this?


@the_handsome_viking
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showp...&postcount=151
Very well said. I would like to address further but this post is already to long and I am short of time.

[Parallel Pain]

Did you read that I beat the Gaestae with Polybian Principate in guard mode?

That pretty much settles everything, especially when in history Principate made up about 2/7 of a maniple when the elite naked fanatics only made up like less than 1/10 of the Gallic army, it being the "elite" and all.

You know what that means? That means in a 3000 Gaul vs 2200 Roman battle in the game, there will be less than 300 Gaestae against about 300 principate and 300 allied troops of slightly lesser quality. On top of that, there will be 300 velite and 300 allied skirmishers. Now if, besides the AI general and his bodyguard, the rest of their army are levies, and the AI also played historically (or at least according to how so many books you stated said they just charged head on) that would mean Gaestae gets its ass kicked to the moon. With the Gaestae gone, the rest of that Gallic army is good as dead. It quite heavily outnumbered the Romans too. But then I guess it was able to do that from the low quality levies.

It seems pretty accurate to me.
So I don't know why you are arguing for the Gaestae to be nerfed and not arguing for the team to crack the game code and design a new AI for the Gauls.

Ok, so the team doesn't know how to do that, and now the AI has an army not following history and don't fight like the Gauls did in history, well the player often doesn't either. Most players are running skirmishers around the flanks to shoot rears when in history they would never get the chance, and not using the triple checkers, and having more cavalry than the Romans used, etc. So it's fair.

And really, have you gone and played a campaign yet? The campaign is supposed to be historically accurate, not custom battles. The huge morale boost of the general unit alone is enough to throw everything off.

You know, the conclusion I have reached right now is that you are a terrible tactician who don't know how to beat the Gaestae at all, and therefore you try to run to history to justify your idea that they should be nerfed. For elite units, thanks to low armor, they suck.
And as for you and all others complaining about 2 hp, I'd rather have more men than 2 hp. I'm sure we've all swarmed generals in the original RTW before and killed them, and THEY had 2 hp.

As for all the other things, the only ones worth answering to are:
1) There are qualified historians on the EB team.
2) As they have qualified historians on the team, I give them the benefit of the doubt just as I do to scientists proposing stuff like string theory, and I accept that while they could be wrong, they could also be right. While the same can be said for your sources, it certainly can't be said for you.

[PershsNhpios]

Hmmm.. I could swear I read this thread was clo.. OH!

Oh this is the Gaesatae Overpowered thread, I though I was reading the Celtic Overpowered thread!

Can someone explain to me the difference between the two?

Bahahahaha!

"Come, have a seat - and let us seriously discuss the nature of these big, wild naked men with luscious, huge swords!"

Tell me, Parallel Pain, have you got a sword?

[Ibn-Khaldun]

I think that this thread should be locked because it was started with another question ...

Does anyone remember WHY this thread was created?
I think not .. because no one looks the FIRST post and they just think this is just another gaesatae owerpowered thread ..

Also .. I thought that people in the org are friendly but recent posts here have made me think otherwise ...