Gaul

[frogbeastegg]

Guide.

[Poised]

(edit):Strategy deleted.
Nevermind, I started a new game up, and this time I managed to start out aggressively by attacking Massilia and Lugdunum, usually the Germans+Britts will attack you relentlessly if you grab Lugdunum, but this time Germany was busy somewhere else for many turns.
I now hold Massilia, Lugdunum, Osca and Asturica, and have more than 30k in the war chest + a connected empire.

I might write another one up for that approach :/

[Theodoret]

I've only played this faction on quick campaign med/med, but I had some success fairly early.

Immediately on starting the campaign you will note that the Gallic lands are split in two, two provinces in Italy and the rest on the other side of the Alps. First priority is to join these two together.

I raised armies in Alesia and Lemonum and sent them south to deal with the rebellious provinces there. Make sure that the army that will be heading through Lugdunum to Massila has a character with it, as you will need to build some watchtowers once you have taken Massila. Keep churning out units from Alesia to reinforce your armies and free your attack force from garrision duty.

Whilst this is happening send a diplomat to forge an alliance with Germany, and trade rights with Britain (perfidious Albion will always stab you in the back in the end, so I don't bother negotiating an alliance). Also reinforce Condate Redonum so that you have a force ready to attack if/when the Brits declare war. I also reinforced Mediolanum and Patavium, as the Julii are bound to attack you sooner rather than later.

I ignore Spain, except to beef up the Numantia garrison (the Spaniards kept on trying to bribe the city in my campaign), and negotiate trade rights with Spain and Carthage.

Before long the Julii will attack. Your newly conquered southern provinces should be bringing in a bit of money by then. I used Patavium as my military base, and sent an army from there to attack first Segesta and then Arretium. I use Massila and Mediolanum to supply Patavium with fresh troops. You have to watch out for the Brutii as well, so I sent armies to take Illyria and Dalmatia from them, and this kept them off my back whilst I was taking apart the Julii.

As sure as night follows day, perfidious Albion will attack you as you are fighting the Julii. Use a combination of diplomats and your army in Condate Redonum to push them across the Channel. I then raised a fleet using Numantia and Condate Redonum and used this to ferry my army across to Londinium. Once you take this city, the fight seems to go out of them. I ferried a garrison over to Londinium and used my conquering army to attack first Eburacum and then Deva. I didn't bother with Ireland.

Back to Italy. By now SPQR will have taken an interest in you. I first attacked Ariminium to finish off the Julii, and sent diplomats to bribe away Scipii and Brutii reinforcements. Then comes the attack on Rome. This is really tough, because the Senate have a very powerful army stationed near the city. I sent a full stack from Ariminium to attack the SPQR army which had moved outside the city. I managed to batter their army, but took severe casualties, so I retired to Ariminium, retrained, and then attacked again. Oh, I also blockaded Rome with a fleet I had built in Massilia. Second attack was succesful, so I sacked Rome. At this point I had my 15 provinces, so that was the end of the short campaign. Had I carried on, I would have finished off Italy, and then probably attacked Spain.

A note about the Gallic armies. These troops are utterly rubbish. You won't have much trouble fighting other barbarians, although British chariots can be a bit nasty, but the Romans are a different matter. I use as much cavalry as I can, and use warbands and swordsmen to pin the Roman troops whilst these guys sweep around the flanks. I also make a lot of use of wardogs - they are great for chasing those annoying velites. Whatever you do, you will take more casualties than you might be used to playing a Greek or Roman army. This is why you should set up a unit conveyor belt from Transalpine Gaul via Mediolanum and Patavium to the front. Because you are fighting the Julii and then the Senate almost from the start, you won't have all that many good troops. I did use Druids in one battle, and they were impressive, but realistically you should expect to be fighting with warbands, swordsmen, barbarian cavalry and dogs. Having a Temple of Tertullus (sp?) and a blacksmith in your troop producing towns will help.

[Empedocles]

Ok, I'll edit this latter, this is my early version of the story.
Raise two armies and send them south to conquer those rebel provinces that separate your provinces!
Now that you have a continued empire, build forts at the fords of the Po River in north italy so you can keep romans at bay! They are soy difficult!! you should ally with all the roman factions so the Julli see you with better eyes (they will attack you in the future)
After you conquered the mid-france rebels and secured your south frontier, move north because the brits are going to attack you almost from the first time.
Move a diplomat east to ally with germany and try to make them attack the Brits.
Fighting the Brits it's not a big issue because their armies are made of warbands mainly. But you should build a navy in the english channel to keep them on their island.
After you have maintaned your income then you should hire some mercenaries (specially cavalry) and take the fight to their own lands.
They have a huge army near my northern city and started to siege it, but when I took London they retreated and know seems to have lost their path.

Get used to use Warbands, you will not have another unit for many years and they are good fighters if usen properly. Try yo upgrade their armour and weapons with blacksmith and shrines in Milan and Alesia

Diego, from argentina

PS: one tip: raise mercenaries units and use them to face the enemy while your warbands flank them. After the battle you may want to disband them cause your financial situation is bad.

[Barbarian King]

MY best strategy is to rush into the roman provinces as fast as possible. Your units are very cheap and eventually you will overun the romans.

[Owen]

Since I'm now the dominant game power as Gaul in a medium/medium game and this guide is still so short, I thought I should write something here.

Here's what I did:

Build ports where you can and traders elsewhere to increase income. Roads or farm upgrades might be more suitable for the first turn, thinking about it. Condate Redonum and Narbo Martius need palisades no later than about turn 4.

Turn 1: Build diplomats in Numantia and Alesia. Build warbands in Mediolanium and Patavium. If you don't build troops elsewhere, your towns grow quicker.

Put the army outside Patavium into the city. Send out all troops in and around Narbo Martius except a single warband towards Masilla. Move your boat near Condate Redonum to discover Samarobrivium and afterwards use it to scout for British forces about to attack Condate Redonum. Move your spy to scout around Italy and prepare for an attack. Move your current diplomat to sell maps to the Romans over the next few turns, but don't chose to receive "regular tribute" any time after turn 4.

Turn 2. Build barbarian cavalry in Alesia ready for the British attack. Continue building warbands in Patavium and Medolanium.

Besiege Masilla with your army from Narbo Martius and build battering rams. Send your diplomats west from Numantia and east from Alesia to meet the Spanish and Germans. Negotiate trade rights and an alliance, exchange military access and sell your maps to them both. If you attack the Romans before this point, you may not get military access, in which case they may break the alliance. You will probably actually enter negotiations on turn 3. After this, these diplomats should be selling maps to Carthage, exploring and bribing rebels armies.

Turn 3: Continue building troops as before. Build a warband or two in Condate Redonum.

Assault Masilla then build a garrison unit. You should occupy, not enslave so that the populations grows enough to remove the culture penalties quicker. Build roads first in Masilla. If you have been building those economic improvements and selling maps, you really shouldn't need to exterminate.

Turn 4: Keep building troops as before.

Send Masilla army towards Lugdunum. Move all units out of Mediolanium and Patavium except a warband in each, merging the two armies on your border with the Julii. I may have actually left this step until a turn later, I forget.

Turn 5: Keep building troops as before.

Besiege Lugdunum. Besiege Arretium. You should be selling maps to the Carthaginians in Corduba about now.

Turn 6: Keep building those troops.

You should now have roads, a trader and land clearance in Mediolanium. Build a stables there to help the push into Italy. IMHO, massive cavalry superiority is the only way for Gaul to beat the Romans. Keep building improvements in your other cities, as long as you can afford it.

Assault and occupy Lugdunum. Build a garrison unit and roads.

If the Julii haven't just attacked your besieging army, you now need to assault Arretium. I just occupied, since many of the Roman cities have populations of about 5000 at this stage of the game and hitting 6000 will allow you to reduce culture penalties as well as building Barbarian Noble Cavalry, Chosen Swordsmen and Foresters. Retrain all the units you can back to full strength.

Britannia will now be moving on Condate Redonum, thinking you're weak because of war with Rome. Move your Alesia army to within striking distance of Samarobriva, leaving your faction leader, a warband and a unit of cavalry behind. You should be building another unit of cavalry for the next turn. You may find this should happen one turn later.

Turn 7: Keep building improvements.

In the North, sally from Alesia if attacked there. Besiege Samarobriva. Ignore Condate Redonum, since Britannia will turn back to relieve Samarobriva and you will be able to hold them off with your warbands anyway if they do try to assault.

In Italy, do not attempt attack the Senate army until you have built up more troops, including cavalry from Arretium, and until you have taken Segestica and then Ariminium. By this time, your army that was taking Lugdunum should be about to arrive as reinforcements, and you should have about 9 full units of barbarian cavalry on the field. After I started to besiege Rome, I was attacked twice in one turn by the senate, leaving me with Rome, but most of my barbarian cavalry units with only 10 to 20 men. All those Roman generals and principes in one stack are unbeatable if you don't have enough cavalry to counter, as I found out when I got too cocky after taking Arretium the first time around.

After you take Rome, it's easy, just watch out for amphibious landings in western Italy, particularly if the Julii are still left in Caralis. Don't try to compete with the Roman navies, just hop between your new ports and take their cities. The only other important tip is to make sure you don't leave it too late to take Iuvavum (in the Alps) from the rebels.

You might like to shift your capital to Italy once you take Rome. I chose Arretium. At this point, you should only have about 36 cities to go for victory.

[scipio the even younger]

gauls r actully preetty hard, you may notice your empire is split in 2 (alps seperate).well the first job is to join these and your gonna need a pretty big garrison to hold off roman attacks.so thats first.

second you need to ally with spain or germania or brits.also you are gonna need a big garrison in the north 2 as the britons and germans attack. they hit hard and they hit fast so alliances are key.
romans will never ally with you so concentrate on holding out till the others r dealt with.
you need to weather the attacks from the north and east while you build an army in the center of gaul to go and deal out some pagan justice to germanians and brits.romans will noirmall stop when they get your places in north italy but somethimes they just keep coming so hold them off for as long as possibl' . once you either conquer or force a cease fire out off the germams concentrate on the romans.its better 2 forc a cease fire from the germans as it doesn't tie down your forces 4 that long.
the britons will be a pain in the but unless you control the channel. also to safe keep your territry from spain put a fort in the middle of that passage between your land and thiers. now go deal with the julii.
if you kept up your defense and only lost1 or 0 then you will have probaly have ground down the julliis forces so att\CK WITH OUT DELAY...
you are going to have to assult pretty nfast as the bruti,scipii and spqr will be send their respective armies so so have to choose the ground to stand a chANCE.
for the senate theres only 1 bridge north across the river so plant a army there and wait,maybe build a fort. bruti you should have a ambush ready witha diversonal force in front to draw them forward.
the scipii come in turn 2 or 3 after you invade italia so you need to have ground the others to a pulp.
if you lose severly to the bruti retreat from the senate or they will sandwich u.
you should win against the scxipii if youy held the bridg as that is the way they all ways come.
if you hold your ground you can capture the rest of italy with ease as you will have kicked there armies all the way back to there makers.
now yoyu have virtully taken rome out of the game earlie on.
then you go back to the germans and brits.

the hardest people youll play are the romans and greeks and macedonians and sellucids and egytions.

[Kekvit Irae]

Gaul starts with a large portion of land, but are at a strategic disadvantage. The primary one comes from the Julii to the south. Unless you capture Massilia and Lugdunum quickly, your northern Italian cities will fall from lack of troops pouring in from mainland France. The second one comes from the Britons and the Germans to the northeast. A quick paralyzing strike to the Britons on the mainland will cripple them temporarily. Keep them out of Gaul. The Germans, however, if unchecked, will steamroll through your cities like it was 1940. An alliance with Dacia and/or Scythia will prove benefitial in dealing with the Germanic threat. The third disadvantage is you are going to be backstabbed by Spain, and, to a lesser extent, Carthage. Hold Numantia at all costs, but if you see the Carthage steamrolling heading your way, you may as well raze all the buildings in the city and abandon it. You might get lucky with a rebellion.

Logicistally, Gaul is poor. Thankfully not as poor as Germania, but it will not get you the gold needed to raise armies on three fronts. Conquer Italy as fast as humanly possible to get the gold needed for your armies.

Tacticly, none of your low/medium-level units stands out. They are, at best, mediocre. However, what they lack in power, they make up for in sheer numbers. The main advantage you have is your proximity to Rome, and the fact that the Senate refuses to garrison Rome with its army. You can easily destroy the Senate with your north Italian army and a LOT of luck from the gods for your spy to open Rome's gates. If he is unable to open them in the first turn, be prepared to be whipped back to the stone age by the massive army of the Senate waiting just outside of the city. If you ARE able to open the gates to the city, charge in en-masse and let nothing stop you from securing the town square.
Congratulations, you just killed the Senate without dealing with the huge-arse army waiting just outside. Now you are able to train your best units (Barbarian Noble Cavalry, Chosen Swordsmen, and Forester Warbands) MUCH earlier than Alesia. You have now destroyed the Senate, but there still stands the problem of the Scipii, the Brutii, and the Julii (if you kept them alive on your push to Rome). The closest city to Rome is the Scipii's capital of Capua. Build up your army and take it. Now that you have two high-level cities close together, raze the temples in both and build the maximum level temple to Epona in one city (I use Rome), and a maximum level temple to Anobea in the other. Build mass amounts of Forester Warbands in the city with the Epona temple (to get them +3 experience), and them move them over to the city with the Anobea temple and retrain them (for gold weapon upgrades). Dont forget the Weaponsmith for an armor boost as well.

From this point on, it's all up to you, but the choice is obvious, you need to kill the remaining Roman factions before Marius can screw you over. Your next target should be Syracuse if the Scipii have taken it. Cities with stone walls are at a premium, and you need as much defense as possible. If the Scipii have not taken it, ignore it for now. No sense getting into a war with Greece or Carthage right now. If you are already at war with Carthage, and they own Syracuse, go for it. Your choice now becomes more complicated. Do you want to fight toward the east in Germanic and Greek lands, or do you want to fight to the southwest and destroy Spain and steamrolling through Numidia? Alexandria and Memphis is a grand prize, but so is Athens and Corinth. The choice is yours. However, if the Brutii have already taken a foothold in Greece, the choice is once again obvious.

[Craterus]

I was just mucking about and looking at all the factions and their objectives (objectives for short campaigns) and I saw the Gaul. They got a really tough deal. As you said, they got the Germans and Britons to the north and the Julii to the south. And the spanish on another front. And they have to destroy/outlast Julii and S.P.Q.R. . That campaign looks like a good challenge and definitely one that I'm going to attempt soon.

[Ozzman1O1]

y ou guys got it all wrong,take britain!send every armie to briatan,whipp there buts!then head south to rome and sicily,and if your crazy,then germany.