Difficulty for Celts vs Romans...?

[aaronishappy]

Hi, I'm playing as the Arverni and it's roughly 248BC. I decided to leave Belgium alone and make way into Italy, so I've already taken Tolosa, Massalia and now I'm on my way to Liguria. My plan is to sack Rome and maybe the whole peninsula then make headway to the Balkans. However, out of the 3 engagements I've fought with the Romans, I noticed it was considerably a good bit harder than fighting other Celts. I've won all of them, but, 200 Romans vs 800 Gauls, and I can kill all of them yet sustain 350 casualties... I consider myself a not-bad field commander, I've had battles where I fought 2000 other men but only lost 100 of my own, but this is a lot different. It also took much longer to kill the damn Romans. I know Romans were a lot tougher in real life, so I'm going to assume this is reflected in the game.

But can someone confirm this firstly :) And if this is the case, does anyone know any good tips for Gauls vs Romans? I don't think my 3 stacks will make it to Rome if they're this hard, and I haven't even engaged their 4 full stacks down along the line :)

[Lazy O]

IM assuming you are facing pedites spam, even so, its not that hard to insta rout them. Bataroas and Celto Hellenics with Leuke Epos were what I used.

[antisocialmunky]

Alpine axemen, the ones that are 200 in size pretty much shred heavy infantry.

[Lazy O]

There are Rhaetics too. But I never found out where to recruit them, just found them as mercs. For 1300, Celtohellenics hold the line reallly well

[Biowulf]

If you have gaesatae you should take advantage of their fear effect. They're not bad fighters, too.

[vollorix]

You´d need some good healer traits and ancillaries for your generals on the Roman front - you might take heavy causalities, but the recovery rate makes, at least, partly for it. You don´t need superb troops to hold the line - levy spearmen do the job quite well on guard mod ( medium battle difficulty, of course ). Deal with their skirmishers first - Gaeroas in loose formation will take lot of damage, but they are spear armed infantry, so no problems with cavalry charges. Knock out Roman general(s), and their pathetic cavalry, bring your missile troos ( slingers for Triari + Pedites; expend the missiles of your shock infantry, aka Botroas + Axemen; bring some Leuce Epos too, to get them some range kills ) around the flanks and shredder them to pieces. Once they are decimated, their general dead, Velites routed - charge your fresh swordmen/axemen in, followed by a double charge from your Brihentin ( Bodyguards etc. - the more you charge, the "braver" will get your general, and the more chevrons he´ll get in short time, just "rally" before impact, to prevent him to be nailed on some random spear ) + Leuce Epos, which should have depleted their javelines by know. A unit of "wild" infantry, aka Gaesatae or Nakes Spearmen, won´t harm, but is not nesassery, imo. Oh, and if you play on BI.exe be carefull of Romans performing "shieldwall" - a nightmare i have experienced couple of times. Good luck :)

[aaronishappy]

Thanks all.

Where/how can I recruit the Gaesatae? And a whole host of other units for that matter? At the moment all I can recruit from my towns is Lugoae, Bataroas, Vollorix and Iaosatae. Makes pretty boring armies, I can afford the odd merc or so. I'm in the process of building 4 Dauerdanochs (sp), which I've heard allows reforms and thus new units...

Yes, I'm new to EB, but I've looked about on recruiting different types of units and apart from how to recruit foreign units I haven't had any luck.

[vollorix]

Take a look at the recruitment viewer in the EB folder ( if you choosed to install it, of course ). For some of the units you simply need at least level 4 of your factional barracks ( Leuce Epos, Solduros ), level 5 for Brihentin, others are bit region specific. But to be able to build those high tier barracks you´ll need at least lvl 2 gouvernment ( lvl 1 - homeland for the top tier, the 5th level ). The reforms will bring you Neitos ( similar to a Vollorix unit, but not a bodyguard unit ), Galaeche - a semi professional warband with couple of javelins, but reduced in numbers compared to Lugoae. The Raetic Axemen are available in Raetia, Alpine Phalanx in Raetia and Noricum etc.

[Unintended BM]

Take advantage of your better cavalry, and use lots of swordsmen. Don't let the Romans engage your main line for too long because their troops are better than yours, for the most part. Pretty much engage the main lines, then be ready to flank very quickly, with infantry and cavalry. Try and isolate their general and take him out with your superior cavalry. It shouldn't be too hard because the AI is dumb with their generals and likes to charge them ahead in battles. Also, take advantage of your Celtic slingers. They're really good.

[The Celtic Viking]

Thanks all.

Where/how can I recruit the Gaesatae? And a whole host of other units for that matter? At the moment all I can recruit from my towns is Lugoae, Bataroas, Vollorix and Iaosatae. Makes pretty boring armies, I can afford the odd merc or so. I'm in the process of building 4 Dauerdanochs (sp), which I've heard allows reforms and thus new units...

Yes, I'm new to EB, but I've looked about on recruiting different types of units and apart from how to recruit foreign units I haven't had any luck.

You can get the Gaesatae with a high enough factional MIC in Mediolanum (amongst others, though I only remember that place by name).

Two units that haven't been mentioned yet though are Uirodusios and Teceitos. The first are naked spearmen, and basically the poor man's version of the Gaesatae who also boosts your own units' morale (which Gaesatae don't). The other is a cheap band of axemen, and their AP is very useful. You can get both from the north-eastern most province that you start with, I forget its name. I highly recommend both those units.

[QuintusSertorius]

If you're not currently able to recruit Leuce Epos, then hire Curepos which are the mercenary version of the same unit. Some of the best value, most flexible medium cavalry in the game. Incredible stamina, javelins and AP lances.

Same goes Keltohellenikoi, which if you can't recruit (Massalia I think is the only place in Gaul) then hire as mercs. Dependable line-holders as well as being thureophoroi-a-likes. More armour than most of the Gallic roster too, without being elite or expensive. Good for covering the flanks of your line, or holding the centre for a short time.

A tweak I always apply to my EDU is to halve the size of the pedites eztraordinarii (and Polybian triarii).

[CashMunny]

If you're playing the (in my opinion) superior Arverni, you eventually get Arjos, which are freaking awesome, and Gaesaetae can be recruited in Viennos, and Mediolanum with level 4 factional MIC. You can recruit Celto-Hellenes in Massilia, and in many cities in Italy, and possibly Emporion (I forget, but there'd be a case for it, since Emporion was a greek colony like Massilia). You can recruit Helveti phalanx as well, who are tough to beat head on with anything but a true Macedonian phalanx, I believe, in Helvetia. Take some cities bordering the Rhine and I'm fairly sure you can get access to Celto-Germanic spearmen, which have higher morale, stand in a dense formation, (traps cavalry inside, slaughters Romani Consular/Citizen Cavalry and Brihentin/Leuce Epos) and are generally better than Gaeroas at fighting infantry.

The first reforms are mainly important for allowing you to recruit Gaelaiche, who are superior to Lugoae, while the second reforms bring about the more armored and disciplined professional units, like Arjos, and Solduros. Conquering Britain can get you some neat units to play with, but nothing spectacular, and by the time you'd taken Britain and built the barracks up, you'd probably not need them and be well on your way to completing the reforms, which aren't year-restricted, so can be achieved quite quickly.

The Celts are one of the more challenging factions to play, because all your Neighbors are quite strong, (Romani, Sweboz, within 30 years Lusotannan) and you have to use the terrain and your units to their full potential, but once you win the civil war in Gaul and get your barracks built up, you can field a really impressive army, that is actually really versatile, fast moving, and great in the terrain of western Europe (forests, hills, and not too bad in a straight up plains charge).

[Grade_A_Beef]

I don't know about Arverni being superior, but they certainly have it tougher. It's somewhat harder to eliminate your rivals while saving cash when Mendiolanum is 3-4 turns away, and if you leave it alone the Aedui will be getting scripted income. Either way you typically end up in slightly longer debt than as the Aedui. On the plus side you don't have to devote yourself to conquering the Iberian peninsula and can just choke the Lusos from Emporion. AI Lusos stacks are rather fun to fight against, as opposed to the AI Sweboz who are simply minor annoyances.

With regards to the Romans you can always try a full on charge. The Celts almost specialize in it, with high lethality, javelins, and powerful shock infantry (pretty much a guaranteed win against AI Lusos and Sweboz.) Flanking is useful but not really necessary if you have a full line of Bataroas. That said, I only use Bataroas against Romans in the beginning and use a more historical build later on (usually after Bononia.) In the beginning I'm poor but above all I like seeing whole armies rout with one charge.

[aaronishappy]

Well, I've been using your advice and it works quite well. Since making the thread I've captured Segesta, Arretium, Ariminium and Bononia. However, there were some tough battles where I lost a lot of men and I don't really have the wealth to replenish them to offensive-size armies. It's basically me defending 2 sieges every turn, hiring 1 merc, repeat. I got bored of it.

Sooooo... I started an Aedui campaign :D I'm playing it on H/M, it's 267BC and I've wiped out the Arverni. I just want to ask regarding the Romans, is it good to take them early on or do I do other things (Germany? Britain? Iberia?) and let them come to me?

[moonburn]

when playing a celtic faction list of priorities:

eliminate the other celtic faction

(conquer rebel setlements)

build forts in the river crosses from swabia (mainz river?)

(conquer rebel setlements)

build forts in the passages to the iberian peninsula

go and destroy the romans (or at least find a way to destroy rome and capua infrastructures)

conquer belgium

naval invasion of the british isles

and then you should be financilly strong enough to finish off the romans the lusitanii or the sweaboz (and you should be around 178 bc with solduros as your main infantry line)

[Lazy O]

IIRC Avaricum or some settlement east of Gergovia can recruit Gaeasatae

[Cute Wolf]

don't listen to the supporter of the false God King of Arvernii, the Carnute Cingetos can boost the stats of your lower quality troops by their magical chants, and Arvernii didn't have their support....

(too bad, we, the Aedui don't have Obelix at our side yet)

[Lazy O]

Druids are the same and Arjos spears matter more

[Cute Wolf]

Druids are the same and Arjos spears matter more

Arjos is no better than neitos if you used em right, especially in campaign since Arjos can only got trained from 1 province only, and Neitos almost all gauls...
the Druids however, has their natural place behind the line, so they can actually saw many battles before retraining / merging is must

[Lazy O]

True. But you say comparing unique units to unique units, and Arjos was the only competition. In all fairness, not much of a difference

[The Celtic Viking]

Arjos is no better than neitos if you used em right, especially in campaign since Arjos can only got trained from 1 province only, and Neitos almost all gauls...
the Druids however, has their natural place behind the line, so they can actually saw many battles before retraining / merging is must

Well, the only thing Neitos have on Arjos is javelins and a bigger recruitment area, and the former is made up for with a spear. Otherwise, Arjos are clearly superior: better defence, better morale, higher mass and slightly cheaper at that.

However, it is still true that the Carnutes can do their chanting, and since Drwdae are only available in Britain, this usually still translates as the Carnutes being on the plus side in SP. However, in MP the Arjos are simply a better choice, as the Drwdae are much cheaper, more numerous and does the chanting just as well as the Carnutes do.

[Cute Wolf]

Well, the only thing Neitos have on Arjos is javelins and a bigger recruitment area, and the former is made up for with a spear. Otherwise, Arjos are clearly superior: better defence, better morale, higher mass and slightly cheaper at that.

However, it is still true that the Carnutes can do their chanting, and since Drwdae are only available in Britain, this usually still translates as the Carnutes being on the plus side in SP. However, in MP the Arjos are simply a better choice, as the Drwdae are much cheaper, more numerous and does the chanting just as well as the Carnutes do.

yeah, this is SP related thread right. as the OP said

of course, in MP battles, the AOR, availability, and requirenments didn't go into the equations

[The Celtic Viking]

Indeed - but that's just the exclusive units. The Arverni start with a better army, and has a better starting position; moreover, all cool kids play as the Arverni. That's more important than morale boosting in SP!

[G. Septimus]

why don't use 2 stacks against 1 Roman Stack? it's a lot more easy fighting high quality infantry with a bunch of men. the one you need to watch out once you get Italy is Carthage

[Lazy O]

Indeed - but that's just the exclusive units. The Arverni start with a better army, and has a better starting position; moreover, all cool kids play as the Arverni. That's more important than morale boosting in SP!

So full of win :D

[Cute Wolf]

Indeed - but that's just the exclusive units. The Arverni start with a better army, and has a better starting position;

less Challange as well, plus if something good happened, they usually had free settlement in Galatia, full with gold chevroned units (because those easterners and greeks can't hold ancyra well)

Ironically enough, right now, my current EB campaign is actually Arvernii.... - but they are packing their things and move to Galatia