Request advice on Aedui...

[Andronikos]

Many Celtic units have javelins and when you turn on autofire, you can repel enemy charge, huge mass of javelines thrown into face could make charging enemy rout.
And the southern units aren't at all bad. My anti-Roman armies consisted of southern swordmen, spearmen (gaeroas, the havy skirmisher, good for the tactic described above), gaesatae, slingers and cavalry and did wonders, with few chevrons they can face Romans.
Also your bodyguards are superior when compared with equites, just charge enemy general and order yours to use swords, they will kill Roman general pretty fast.
The idea not to mess with Sweboz is wise.
And there is one enemy, whose units are even more powerful and harder to kill than Romans, and waits for you in the southwest - you really don't want to fight Cartaginian phalanxes and armoured infantry with your light units.

[Cute Wolf]

Don't forget uirodusios.... a line full of them should made hastati rout on contact... but beware with those missiles... Celts and Germans are highly missile allergic...

[Exosus]

I was just using the levy spearmen as an example - obviously you can't simply pick one unit and build an army with it. My point was that a cost-benefit analysis is an important part of making an army; even more so when you are having trouble with your monetary situation.

Regarding Rome having taken those 3 natural expansions by the time you are done with the Averni, that was not the case when I did it. Obviously if taking the Averni out means creating a border with Rome that does not apply, but that will not always be the case. Regarding their leaping over said territories to take Mediolanium et al, that is definitely a possibility. I have seen it happen, but it isn't all that common (imx) so leaving those cities will at least give you some chance of maintaining a peace long enough to improve infrastructure and pick up a few Eleutheroi territories before you have to go into total war mode.

Every campaign is going to be different, so none of our strategic hints will work 100% of the time: The key is to take it all into your decision making paradigm so that when a situation arises you will have a more complete view of your options.