Is EB 1.2 the most sophisticated turn based computer strategy wargame to this date?

[Ludens]

They had smaller, more brittle shields. They had pointless, heavy swords ideal only for slashing and quite unreliable (in Polybius' histories, he even describes during the Celtic War before the Hannibalic how Gallic swordsmen would be required to back off and straighten their swords with their legs!

Strange, then, that the Romans would adopt both Celtic shield and Celtic ironworking and equip their legions with it. I can only repeat what the EB team has said: Polybius' story may be a misinterpretation of the iron-age practice of "killing" enemy weapons. It's not confirmed by the archaeological record.

On a balancing level: yes, the barbarians get +1 armour compared to civilized armies, but that was done to increase historicity, not for game-play reasons. I suspect it can be justified by the fact that barbarian warriors would often have supplemented their equipment by looting from fallen enemies and so on.

Well, my friend, as Aristotle said: If they lived and died and never did it, then they could never do it. Right???

Given that their life was cut short by the Romans...

I think you are taking a too black-and-white view when it comes to barbarians. Remember that the Roman and Hellenistic states had not left their tribal history far behind. Voting in Athens and IIRC Rome still occurred on a tribal basis, and Hellenistic treaties were only valid as long both of the signers were still alive. Given that the more sophisticated Celtic tribes (the Aedui and the Sequani/Averni) had a senate and a justice system, with procedures in place to prevent abuse of power, it looks to me like they were developing along the same lines, if a century or so behind the Romans.