Celts (BI faction)

**Skott** · 10-06-2005, 23:54

I havent decided wether I'm going to buy BI yet or not. How do the Celts in BI compare to the original RTW Celts and RTR 5.4 Celts? Anyone got some comparisons to share?

**Garvanko** · 10-07-2005, 00:21

Hounds of Culaan are available straight away with the Celts!

**Dradem** · 10-07-2005, 13:33

yep the slavs don't work and the roxolani is a mistake to sorry about that
won't happen in the future. And the celts are fun to play. Not that diffucult in the begining but when the romans are gone those Romana Britisch are a pain in the ....

Greetz

Unregistered · 10-08-2005, 12:51

Kill the Romana Britisch general and they will vanish leaving a smaller rebell army. Thats what i did....

**Seasoned Alcoholic** · 10-09-2005, 17:15

Originally Posted by Dradem

Not that diffucult in the begining but when the romans are gone those Romana Britisch are a pain in the ....

Yeah, the Romano-British faction will appear once all Roman provinces have disappeared / been exterminated etc. Just found this out after sacking Londinium with the Celts.

They will appear in the centre of Britain, with pretty much a full-stack army. This consisted of several units of Graal Knights, Sarmatian Auxiliaries, British Legionaries, standard (BI) Roman infantry (heavy and light), Archers, Warlords, Monks, and a Roman general. The Romano-British went straight for Londinium after they appeared btw.

As I was overstreched (with basically no troops left), I had to recruit some Noble Cavalry ASAP to even stand a chance against all that heavy cavalry they had. Managed to recruit a unit of mercenary Graal Knights myself:

In the battle, went straight for the faction leader, killed him with a cav spam charge (in wedge), and the rest of the Romano-British army routed almost straight away. There you go, emergent faction destroyed within 3 turns

Just be prepared when the Romano-British appear - make sure you have plenty of heavy cavalry and spear warband already recruited so you can deal with them. Hounds of Culaan just in case

**Garvanko** · 10-09-2005, 20:00

Originally Posted by Seasoned Alcoholic

In the battle, went straight for the faction leader, killed him with a cav spam charge (in wedge), and the rest of the Romano-British army routed almost straight away. There you go, emergent faction destroyed within 3 turns

**Irb_the_Pictish_Berserker** · 10-10-2005, 02:31

I noticed some people in this thread were saying that the Roxolani and some other factions glitched when they tried to play them. There's a real easy way to get them to work. Just go to your bi/data/text folder and open the campaign_descriptions.txt document and add a faction description for the faction you want to play as (just make sure it's in the exact same format as the descriptions for the other factions). The description can be anything you want, even "the Burgundii were a Germanic tribe famous for the invention of the kind of wine that now bears their name. They migrated to Gaul in the fourth century because they ran out of wine and needed a place to make more."

btw, this only works for factions that are already on the map at the start of the campaign

**gmjapan** · 10-13-2005, 11:57

The celts start in a good position really, there is no real WRE presence on Britian to cause you any real trouble and they arent particularly agressive towards (in my game at least). Also one of your generals can night attack.

I really recommend Player1s bugfixer v2 for BI as it will enable the proper crossbowmen for the celts!

One of your temples gives you up to +3missile upgrade, the other +exp and hounds of cullan and the Morrigan gives less benefit than either of these so ignore it!

You are making money from the start and this is only really interrupted by a blockade on your ports by rebels or WRE. Build peasants to free your real soldiers from garrison and ship them across to Britain. You also have an assasin and a spy, these just happen to be in your towns.

Build a good mixed army, some crossbows, horses, spearmen (that can shiltron if needed), gallowglasses and Hounds. I didnt think much of the scotti chariots, maybe someone can change my mind. When my boats finished a drop-off, they went straight back into a friendly port so pirates didnt sink them. There were too many around to leave the boats exposed for a turn and yours arent good enough to fight. You have two basic choices: take both WRE towns and trigger the Romano-Brits or take one and then ignore the second in favour of invading straight to France or Spain. For example, my Romano-Brits spawned with 6 Grall Knights, legionnaires etc all 2 gold exp, all gold armour and silver weapons. And I couldnt assassinate (2% chance). I got beat down bad, lost 4 generals and wished I hadnt bothered with the second British town. You can also move from Eb to London in 1 turn so if you lose your main army to the Romano-Brits they will chase you back and punish you fast!

If you choose to leave 1 town alone you dont get much bother from the remaining WRE, they are easily contained and you can make loads of money if you grab towns with accessible ports in France or (and!?) Spain. Of course, once you have loads of money, feel free to field a good army and take the last Britain town and twat the Romano-Brits.

Hounds of Cullan make sieges a really quick affair, breach the walls in a couple of places, stick the Hounds nearby and use their special ability, they will charge the breaches and make alot of things rout! But be quick to back them up because they wont ever stop until the battle is done or they are dead. So keep Gallowglasses close by and heavy cav like your general backing them up. Be quick! If you dont lose them you can repair the Hounds at their level one shrine and they will level fast.

If you really want "proper soldiers" (i.e. not peasants) on defense, then your stone walls with +3missile crossbowmen on them give the enemy a real headache! Your spearmen dont stand up to much so only use them to pin down troops while you manouver others around them. That means if you have pictish spearmen on walls defending against ladders etc then they are done for.

Well, on their own they are. I have managed with two units either side of where the invaders will arrive on the wall (a clear gap for them to land on) and slingers / kerns on the ground below them. The 2 spearmen hold them in place while your slingers / kerns effectively hit them in the flank from below! But I dont recommend it because it works best with crossbow men (better against armour) and they are much better being up on the wall in the first place!

When you get to the mainland, use a lot of spies to scout for easy pickings and move fast to them - you will suffer a lot more the longer you leave it.