Gaesatae way too overpowered

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

The Gaesatae are beserkers, they don't do defence. In reality if you were in melee combat with one you'd be dead sooner than you could blink. You have to gravitate between attack and defence, the big naked guy will just attack until you die.

It's very difficult to counter that unless you're very good or have great armour.

[Watchman]

If the track record of the various Viking berserker-type troops and comparable phenomenoms from other instances and cultures are anything to judge by, skilled warriors who went for the crazed "slay or die" approach to melee combat were rather nasty customers to deal with and way harder to take down than their overall lack of concern with defense and typically noticeable lack of armour as well would make one think.

A projectile, on the other hand, is a dumb object that does not worry about keeping itself alive a few seconds longer, wet its pants in fear, have to concern itself with managing to put in an effective attack while simultaneously trying to stay alive, and generally suffer from the problem human troops have in hand-to-hand combat. Especially against uncomfortably skilled nutcases unconcerned with pain or fear or their own mortality.

[mAIOR]

Yeah the problem with pre-polybian romans would be that most of them had little armor. And, if you have a dude with little armor, no pain reducing drugs and a wish to come back alive and a dude with no armor, drugged to a frenzin and who doesn't care if you removed a considerable portion of his intestine, I place my money on the second one. Gaesatae are fine in EB as they are I believe. I seldomly have problems with them (ok when they send 2 units in the middle of a battle where you're at numerical disadvantage and your troops are spent, granted they can bother you...) as I'm able to dispatch them easilly (nothing beats a triarii charge from the flanks to teach them rascals a thing or two about warare) thanks to missiles and heavy infantry.
I believe the main problem is most people trying to take them 2 on 1 with weak troops like pre-Polybian Princeps or Hastatii. Those guys have little armor and I imagine in Real life they'd want to get home to their wifes and fields again. So that gives Gaesatae a heads up no?
Also their drug would probably be some kind of Fungus (maybe grain fungus common in France responsible for severe alucinations like werewolves and vampires and lycantropy behavior) as they produce some nasty side effects...

Cheers...

[Watchman]

Back in 0.81 I once wiped out two Eleutheroi bandit Gaesatae with something like one unit of Brihentin bodyguards, one Leuce Epos, and two Sotaroas (and a lot of running around). And that's just because I didn't feel like taking pointless infantry casualties by bringing those in.

Whenever they turn up as parts of larger armies they tend to attract the undivided attention of most of my missile troops for a while. After that, and swallowing whatever precursor javelins they've got coming, they tend to go down or rout obediently enough in melee.

Overpowered, meh. You just need to take the correct approach. Granted I've never had to fight multiple-gold-chevron monster editions, but then again unless I had comparable HC killing machines traipsing around I'd just bury such under a mountain of pointy things and pebbles and forget about even trying to eliminate most of them up close.

[Kralizec]

The only real problem I have with the Gaesatae is that realisticly some of them would die from their wounds after the battle, but RTW can't handle that. Elephants have the same problem but it's rare that someone demands that they be nerfed.

[Watchman]

Strictly speaking the Solduri with their suicide pacts ought to suffer some excess after-battle casualties as well, but, well...

[Frostwulf]

The Gaesatae are beserkers, they don't do defence. In reality if you were in melee combat with one you'd be dead sooner than you could blink. You have to gravitate between attack and defence, the big naked guy will just attack until you die.

If the track record of the various Viking berserker-type troops and comparable phenomenoms from other instances and cultures are anything to judge by, skilled warriors who went for the crazed "slay or die" approach to melee combat were rather nasty customers to deal with and way harder to take down than their overall lack of concern with defense and typically noticeable lack of armour as well would make one think.

A projectile, on the other hand, is a dumb object that does not worry about keeping itself alive a few seconds longer, wet its pants in fear, have to concern itself with managing to put in an effective attack while simultaneously trying to stay alive, and generally suffer from the problem human troops have in hand-to-hand combat. Especially against uncomfortably skilled nutcases unconcerned with pain or fear or their own mortality.

I really would hesitate to call them beserkers in the traditional sense. The beserker-gang in history was typically a teutonic thing(with some exceptions). From what I have read the Gaesatae didnt behave like beserkers at all. The beserker works himself into a frenzy(biting shield,howling etc.) then charges into combat. The Gaesatae are very well ordered and disciplined, the beserkers are neither of those. Also the Gaesatae fought with big numbers, historically you rarely find that many beserkers, let alone fighting together. As far as the projectile situation, as you said its a dumb object. The missile may not have fear but the thrower might even though he may be further away. In hand to hand combat you have humans feinting and other tactics, not just a dumb object falling out of the sky.The human in melee combat has more opportunities to inflict damage and death.

Yeah the problem with pre-polybian romans would be that most of them had little armor. And, if you have a dude with little armor, no pain reducing drugs and a wish to come back alive and a dude with no armor, drugged to a frenzin and who doesn't care if you removed a considerable portion of his intestine, I place my money on the second one.

I still state that if the individual that was drugged would be worse off in combat due to his numbed state.
"A UK television programme in 2004 tested the possible use of fly agaric and alcohol by training a healthy volunteer in the use of Viking weapons, then evaluating his performance under the influence of fly agaric or alcohol compared to no influence. It was shown that use of fly agaric or alcohol severely reduced his fighting ability, and the tentative conclusion drawn was that berserk state was achieved psychologically; otherwise, berserkers would have been too easy to kill. Of course, this does not take into account the mindset that the berserker likely would have attempted to place himself in." -wikipedia. Granted this is most likely not the stuff the Gaesatae used, but other studies have been done with similar results(on reflexes and etc.)

This is what I was getting at about the lack of armor, and being in melee combat wouldnt be much different. This is the only thing I could find of actual combat involving the Gaesatae. Where can I find more information on these guys including the battles,formation, the drugs they used and etc?

Still looking for this guys. I had to edit this by saying my view on the Gaesatae is just from this limited information. This is why Im looking for more information on this.