Sweboz: slow moving stacks and hobbled characters??

[Ca Putt]

I don't remember Sweboz characters getting movement restrictions more often than others, infact all the really bad movement restrictions I've ever got were with the KH, not in greece(where movement restrictions are not thaaaaat bad anyway) but once on a Long cruise around the arabian peninsula to attack the selucid heartlands from behind(he was down to 0 at one Point) and one Client ruler who had conquered all of Gaul at the side of my FL and got stuck somewhere around gergovia.
I'd assume such difficulties are related to forced marching or bad health of characters. in combination with Infantry FMs having less Initial movement Points.

to your other Points:

Pretty disappointed with this faction's units, which seem too close to celts, but I assume that this is more historically accurate...

yes and no. they have a similar unit roster:
Skirmisher
Crappy archer with spear
Spearman with Javelins
Spearman without Javelins
Guy with Smosh weapon
Guy who so happens to have a sword
Guy on a Horse
Guy on a horse with 1337 chainmail and spear

however they use them rather differently. Celtic armies pretty fast turn out to be lots of swordsmen and slingers with th Addition of some horsies, spearmen or axemen. Lugoae filling up the stack in case of debt, Nekkid ones when one can afford them.
Germanic armies however heavily rely on their dugunthiz variants, have far more Slaxons and lack two of the most effective Gallic Units:
Slingers and lightcharging cavalry.
admitably Germanic riders are superior in prolonged melee but their Charge is just meh.

so yeah the roster is similar but it's not as good and plays rather different. but there also are upsides:
Slaxones and Chatti Jouths, while Celtic axemen are in somewhat limited supply but These guys are often present in germanic armies, improving their abilities vs "civilized" armies. Jugunthiz, are some of the most cost efficient and versitaile skirmishers ingame. Dugunthiz variants make the game more vaired and make every sweboz army unique, also having great roleplaying potential. Lugian swordsmen, nuffsaid. Germanic Bodyguard infantry may not be able to chase down Routers or Charge in the back of enemies, however they are clearly superior in sieges.

Imho the Sweboz actually make for some very good roleplaying, the seperate tribes can be played out as somewhat seperate entities once they have joined the confederation. Having to rely heavily on allied/mercenary troops once outside Germania also makes for some interesting gameplay. The Celto-germanic troops also add to this.

[Heracles]

but what do you mean by "hobbled"?

I am aware of exhaustion that occurs from repeated forced march, this is something different to that. Hobbled is an actual permanent trait. First level reduces move by 20% on campaign map. Don't think it has any battle map implications. I checked the EB data folder, this trait has a second level ( I think "Lame"). I think you are supposed to retire them to be a governor when this happens, but just annoying if they were your best general in the field at age of 30 something.

Thanks for advice ppl, but in the end I decided the limited tech tree was just not fun, and restarted on an Arverni campaign I had saved from several months ago.

Also, the hobbled trait then happened to one of my Arverni generals, so it might have just been random that it occurred several times early on in that Sweboz campaign.

[athanaric]

You may just have been unlucky with that trait in that particular campaign, maybe it's an inherited one in your royal family. The limited tech tree can indeed get very annoying in mid to late campaign (even though it's still better than in Vanilla RTW), but OTOH it forces you to be creative and keeps you from over-extending.