Aedui guide?

[Province]

On the first try, I decided to disband enough so that I wouldn't be in that much of a debt. Then I took a near by rebel city and then another greek rebel city in the south with the other army from the East. But, because I didn't attack the Arverni first, they built an army that would eventually overwhelmed mine while I was in debt. They even bribed one of my cities... they are that rich? H/H was the difficulty and the army size was Large.

On the second try, I decided to try and eliminate all the Arverni settlements as fast as possible with my current army. They responded by building up a pretty sizeable army. However, keeping such a huge army was driving me down the drain in money. If I manage to conquer all their settlements, there would be peace for awhile and I would plan to disband the large army while trying to get out of the large debt. If I lose my army, I would be done for. It sounds like this would work if successful.

I was also thinking of a silly idea of abandoning all of the settlements and sail the Britain, eliminate Cassee and build something there. There are probably some tough rebels there. I wouldn't have the ability to have a government set up yet I would be in debt though. Probably won't work.

So, I was wondering, what is the best approach?

[LordSaradain]

I disbanded my fleet and took all my armies and went out to capture the surrounding rebel and arveni cities.
I lost my city in northern italy(it was bribed) but after just two years I own most of france and my treasury is +11000 mnai (thanks to my skilled diplomacy, I've sold map info and alliences to every faction I've met! )

[1MaNLan]

I eliminated enough troops initially so that I ended in the black financially. I also built economic buildings initially in order to get my economy moving. I then simply pooled everthying I had in order to fight (and Avernni was obviously the main early enemy that I needed to destroy).

I use watchtowers/spies/diplomats to monitor where the Avernni detachments were moving. In this way, I could concentrate my very limited troops upon numerically smaller Avernni armies, gaining local superiority in battles of my choosing. In this way, it is possible to whittle down the Avernni over time without losing too many men in turn, and to gain experience levels for your generals and troops.

Also diplomacy is interesting in the EB mod. Initially, I immediately moved to secure an alliance with rome (which was at war with Avernni ). Rome immediately accepted. I moved on to Casse, Sweboz and Iberia, thus isolating Avernni from nearby allies and developing needed trade agreements. In turn Avernni bribed 2 of my settlements in a row. It looked as if the AI was just going to buy out my entire faction but luckilly, this pattern did not continue. After that, It was a process of slowly taking Avernni down, and capturing nearby Rebel settlements in order to secure a territory. Once you reach a "tipping point" in which you sense that your econ and military are clearly defeating the Avernni, you can move on to secure trade ports in the north and south of gaul. At that point, you have become a faction in the top five and you can begin to really refine your development. That's about where I am now.

edit; I should add that in my initial playing, Once I allied with Rome, I approached Avernni, (who was at war with Rome as well). They IMMEDIATELY accepted a protectorate status that I had offered (just for the heck of it) even before I fought a single battle against them. I found this so unlikely, that I reloaded and avoided asking the second time around.