Quote Originally Posted by Pindar
The barbarians were quite barbaric. The Celts and Germans were without any of the social accoutrements one would associate with their betters to the South i.e. no written language, no developed engineering, no large urban centers, no centralized states, no interconnected system of trade etc.

Roads: as I mentioned, for game purposes the roads play a key economic/strategic function. No such equivalent existed in the barbaric North. To argue to the contrary is to suggest some builders, maintainers and centralized interest existed. This is ahistorical.
In the eyes of the Romans, this might be true. Thankfully, we have other sources than Roman writers who depicted the barbarians as much less civilized than they actually were.

First, both the Gauls and the Britons had written language. Gallic Nobles usually spoke Latin and Greek, in addition to Gallic. They (the Gauls) wrote using Greek letters. The Gauls hated the Romans as much as the Romans hated the Gauls - they each wrote about the other being uncivilized.

For instance, the Celts were an extremely clean people. They invented soap; they bathed regularly, they shaved off all body hair as they felt it was dirty, and some even burned the hair off with a substance made of lye so that it would not grow back. The Celts felt the Romans were the "dirty" ones.

The Celts were much more advanced than you believe in the area of engineering. In fact, the Romans did not build their own siege artillery until somewhere around 70 to 50 BCE. Until this point, they relied on captured siege artillery. Where the Celts had several older types of siege artillery, including the Chythrsydh and Cyrthcanepo, both similar to the bricoli in function, and large-bolt firing systems such as the Chwythstwg (and no, don't ask me to pronounce it).

Sharrukin has posted a nice link referring to barbarian roads. The Iron Age Gaels had a stone road between Ivernis and Emain Macha. The Gauls had elaborate road systems, including main highways. The Romans used Gallic roads to invade Gaul!

Both the Iberians and the southern Gauls landed on Ireland in huge numbers, both building entire cities practically overnight. This clearly required large fleets. Just because the Romans never fought naval action against the barbarians, does not mean they did not have the capability to build fleets of ships - they had, and did.

The Celts built large, stone-walled cities, and were divided into two kingdoms under the direct control of a single king, with organized nobility. These were the Arverni and Aedui - they held direct, strong control over numerous tribes. These were not loose confederacies of independent tribes - the Celts were feudalists. A tribe in Gaul was was actually like a medieval fiefdom; it had a chieftain (who operated like a lord) in charge of it, who answered to the king.

The tribes had to provide soldiers for the king's army; they were well organized, fully trained, and used advanced military tactics. Caesar encouraged the Arverni and Aedui to fight each other. By the time he invaded, the two kingdoms had essentially destroyed each other's fighting ability, combined with German encroachments.

The Celts had a highly advanced calendar system, and did indeed build large population centers, such as Alesia, Bibracte, Gergovia, and Numantia. They were advanced medically, possibly importing medical knowledge from the Greeks and the Egyptians. Evidence has been found of advanced surgery, including (successful) brain surgery, and the reattachment of an arm!

So, as you see, relying on the recorded history of the Romans, who openly detested these people, is not very accurate.