Celtic Questions

[Juvenal]

I very much enjoyed my 0.80 Casse campaign.

It took about six tries before I found the right profile for the initial build up, I had several attempts at expanding from the start - all massacres. Then a couple more losses from going too long with minimal army and getting stomped on by the wandering Euletheroi stack.

At no point was the conquest of Brittania easy, even though I was getting stronger after every capture.

Then I was faced with getting over the Channel. I lost several complete fleets before I found a fleet size that would last long enough to get a stack over to Armorica. Even then it felt like smuggling runs... hang around too long and the Pirate train arrives and pounds you like a trip-hammer until there's nothing left afloat.

Once on the continent I subsisted mostly on a diet of levies from captured towns, and mercenaries, with the occasional stack of elites from Brittania (when the Pirates weren't around).

In 0.81 it sounds like it might be even more difficult for the Casse on the continent - I relied heavily on mercenary Gesaetai (who have apparently now got religion and given up hiring themselves out). I was appalled how quickly my own elites (Calawari) died - I ended up using them mostly as cheerleaders to encourage the levies.

As for chariot generals - what hot-house flowers they are, I could swear that some of them died without any contact with the enemy at all! (Of course Brittania is famous for the virulence of its Common Cold. )

[Ludens]

I had a couple of test runs before I found that putting your army outside the city around turn 6 will disuade the Balroa stack from besieging you. After that, they never bothered to attack. At the start of the game, I disbanded all my troops save one gaeroas and one botroas, then I build roads, a port and a teaching grove. I waited until I had around 17 mnai, then build four slingers, three botroas and three gaeroas. I sent half of the army to siege Ratae, and put the other half (including the slingers) in ambush position between the sieging stack and the Balroa stack in the hope of ambushing them while they marched to relieve the city.

In the event, however, they continued skulking in the woods. I had no inclination to let them pillage my lands, so I sent my ambushing stack and defeated them. The other eleutheroi stack didn't respond to this either, possibly because my stack still had some movement points left and thus went into ambush position again. After this, the challenge was pretty much over. I besieged the cities one by one, waiting for the defenders to grow desperate, sally and then defeating them with the aid of concentrated slinger fire and taking the town. The remaining eleutheroi stack continued to do nothing except moving back and forth slightly outside of the border. After I'd taken Ratae, Caern-Brigantae and Ynys-Mon, I turned south, defeated the last Eleutheroi stack and took Ictis. In between then and the point where I had conquered both isles entirely, the only disagreeable thing that occured to me was the appearance of two Balroa-units south of the Caledonian town, and my governor could simply hire two more.

My current plans, apart from teching-up off course, are to recruit a couple of spies and ships, and explore the Atlantic and Baltic coastlines. Money is rolling in faster than I can spend it, so finance should be no problem. After the reconnaisance, I intend to take Gwamjam-Skandzawarjoz and Gwamjam-Gotanoz to deny the Sweboz (who are rapidly expanding, by the way) access to ships. I may have to hurry though, the Reds are already in Gwamjam-Kimbrioz. After that, I will take both Belgae towns, and turn them into recruitment centers. I may have to wait before getting Milnath, but in the meantime the Tarranos cavalry would make a very fine addition to my army. Then I am probably going to war with the Germans, but if for any reason they decide to strike an alliance with me, I am going to take on the winner of the Aedui-Averni struggle.

[Zim]

Do you guys know if anyone has ever written a (longer than the stickied) guide for any of the Celtic factions? I have an Aedui campaign in which I've had to use prereform units against a variety of different factions and I was thinking of writing up my experiences with the various Celtic base and regional units. I always liked those guides for the vanilla games and figured I'd try one for EB.