Firstly, I want to apologize publicly for my behavior a month ago. In a rather quixotical way, I charged against a well-known developer in the believing I was actually defending someone, and I chlidishly enraged and tangled in a discalification war when I was called an ignorant.

Now that things have calmed down, I hope I can restart my presence here with a better spirit. I am sorry.

As for this interesting debate, I'd like to give my point of view about the topic:

1) 'Barbarian' does not mean uncivilized or savage, as some people still believe, it means 'stranger', it was later that the term adquired that pejorative tone, from the contact with cultures that practiced blood-thirsty wars and rituals that Greeks and Romans found disgusting. Anyway, it wasn't a good thing to be considered a 'barbarian' in the ancient grecolatine world, given their traditional despise and distrust of anything from abroad. And it certainly has the ethimologic origin given above 'bearded men'. However, don't forget that beards were a common feature for Greek, and that it became a normal fashion from the times of Emperor Hadrian onwards, to the point it is nearly imposible to find a late Roman portrait that has not facial hair.

BTW, for Ptolemaic, Seleucids, Greeks and Macedonians -this is for Hellenic world- Romans were barbarians.

2) Elephants are not those mild and pacific creatures that 'carefully avoid harming the nearby'. They maybe in a peaceful environment, but once enraged they're dreadful enemies with the size and the power of a big bulldozer. We know for ancient references that war elephants panicked easily, and when that happened, they were out of control and attacked the same friends are foes, often causing havoc in the friend lines. The elephant leaders used to carry a hammer and a chisel to open elephant skull and kill it if necessary.

3) It's not that Celtic and Germanic cultures were uncivilized or ignorant. Simply, they had not the engineering knowledge necessary to build the most complex of Roman realizations. Engineering is not an easily transmisible skill, thru contact with advanced cultures, such as pottery, alphabet or masonry. Like Architecture, Math or Physics, it needs of qualified professionals and theorizers to teach others who dedicate their lives to it. The ruralized and hard-living Celtic-Germanic world lacked a 'burguese' class of citizen to do this. They had enough trying to fight off their dangerous neighbours and sustaining their civilization, but their lifestyle just did not favour the figure of the 'scientific' or the 'phylosopher', a rather useless and despised role in a society where prestige can only be achieved thru war and posessions. That's why they had not semicircular archs, real domes -not the false domes done by aproaching rows of stones- and that's why they had no Coliseum, insulæ, or true viæ -of course they had roads, but not the most advanced types, costly engineering works of the macadam type, made in a very similar way than actual roads. And of course, they only had the most simple siege stuff, such as scales, etc. BTW, trebouchets were too complex even for Romans, only late Romans -not in the game- had them, and the bigger were not made till Middle Ages.

4) This doesn't mean they were uncivilized or stupid, simply Celtic and German worlds, while culturally rich, were technologically much inferior to the Grecolatin-Punic world that dominated the Mediterranean. In RTW they're the way they are, because of game balance. But reality wasn't balanced, had it been, the Roman Empire would have never existed. The moment the barbarian assimilated a more urban lifestyle, and cultivated concepts such as state, administration and science -as with Visigoths, etc.- the late Roman Empire couldn't cope with them so efficiently. One of the causes -apart from the inner ones- for Western Empire to fall.

Just my opinion.

And once again sorry for the past.