Galatia, home of Killix (swap faction description)

[Bradley]

Prologue:
Pergamese Elder: Life used to be nice here, in Micra Asia. Yes, some skirmishes here and there, you poked Ptolemies, they poked you back, nothing uncivilized. Tribes in the mountains were waging their little wars and only occasionally went mad and pillaged lowlands or shores.

But common people here lived in prosperity, they spent their time by drinking wine, sunbathing, eating, fishing, BBQ, simply caring their own bussiness in Pergamon, Ephesos, Sinope, Amaseia, Halikarnassos, Side... Trade flourished, grass was green, sky was blue.

But than that son of a b…h, that i…t, that little retarded puny „I am the mightiest King eva!“ Nicomedes the First from Nicomedia INVITED (I cannot stress the stupidity enough) people soon to be known as Galateans, into our nice country. He invited them after they conquered, pillaged, looted, killed and raped everything on their way from Galia. They massacred Celts, Dacians, Scythians, Illyrians, Macedonians, Greeks and many more unknown nations and tribes and definitely a lot of sheeps and after all this he

I N V I T E D

them here!



Nicomedes I to Attalos on 5o´clock tea time break as quoted by Livy:
„They will fight for me, kill all claimers of the Bithinyan throne and then, they will settle up, live calmly, prosper, make awesome metalworks pay high taxes and be great mercenaries! Win-win situation I tell you! Heh! What can possibly go wrong? Lol“

Pergamese Elder: What Nicomedes forgot was, that these beardy unshaved smelly dirty barbarians with blonde plaits had some issues. Possessed by bodybuilding, generally warlike, easy to enrage, even easier to reproduce and to add a little cherry on top the best metalsmiths under the sky.

Every Galatean usually went through this scene during his adolescence:

„Killix, you are 16 now. Here, take this finely crafted longsword, this tartan cloak and this chainmail and go prove that you are a real man. Kill many, rape some women, bring home some herds and loot, earn a saga, be a hero. Than you will be recognized as a true man and everybody will respect you and you can even find yourself a wife.“

„Oooohhh… father, come on! This is so embarasing! Friends are watching! Give that chainmail away, tartan cloak and sword will do just enough.“

„But son! …“

„I´ll go naked or I wont go at all!“

„I am so proud of you Killix! Say goodbye to granny before you go. And look, I heard that this year trade is really flourishing in Halikarnassos. And Sinopeans built new walls… heh… they call it “walls”. But that means they have some money left. Consider it before you decide where to go. Yes! And uncle Brennus send a message that he found some really nice jewellery in Delphi, so if you travel that way tell him Hi! from me, okay? Gl hf!“

Pergamese Elder: So the Killix and others of his kind went around Micra Asia, filled by testosterone they kill, rape, pillage and loot. Why didn´t we stop them? We tried. Many times. The old fool Nicomedos the First (and last, heh, at least a little bit of satisfaction there) was first of many. They simply dethroned him, slayed bithynian army, enslaved the population of Nicomedia and had a lunch. The lunch lasted ten times longer than defeating bithynian army.

Nicomedes I to Attalos on 3´o clock coffee break as quoted by Livy:
“F..k!”

Killix to bithynian Thureophoroi: „Is that supossed to be a sword?“

Thureophoroi covers behind thureos, waving his kopis in front of Killixis face and with eyes full of fear after a blink on a Killixis naked underbelly, nods slightly.

Killix raises his overmuscled arm, pokes his moustache (suprisingly well grown for now a seventeen years old boy), smiles and starts to lower his arm. As the arm lowers to chest level, Thureophoroi notices mighty breast with wild fur. When the arm reaches belly, Thureophoroi notices that each muscle of Killixis sixpack has its own sixpack. The hand finally reaches the underbelly and grasps the giant, strong, solid and smooth… hilt of the sword. And Killix starts drawing the sword. He is drawing. He is still drawing. Thureophoroi is watching as the mighty solid shiny steel becomes unsheathed and is wondering how the Tartaros can be anything so long?! Killix is still drawing. Thureophoroi is just astonished and wondering if the steel has any end at all? Is he going to draw that forever? Finally, Killix unsheathes the whole longsword.

Killix: „This is a sword, my friend. I call him Nicomedes, the old king did so much for us and wit…“

Thureophoroi, suddenly filled by hate after hearing the old king Nicomedeses name: „But you have no armour, only that tartan cloak! I have a shield and helmet and greaves and linothorax! I kill you now, BARBARIAN!“ raising his voice and literally screaming the last word.

Killix swings the longsword around his head and towards the Thureophorois thureos: he cuts the shield in half and brokes the soldiers kopis into pieces.

Killix: „Quisque est barbarus alio.“

Killix is lowering his eyes on the shards of Thureophorois kopis and asks: „Did you by any chance named your knife Andúril?“

Thureophoroi: „My SWORD? No. I did not, why?“
Killix: „Nevermind.“

Killix than smashes Thureophoroi on the ground and kills about hundred of his mates, with his fellow youngsters conquers some more coastal cities and towns, takes some loot and sprays walls with something like „T+T+T were here“, gets on the latest exclusive model of the Galatian chariot and then, he and his mates leave town riding through the crowds of groupies…

Pergamese Elder: And that was just the beginning of the end…

[Bradley]

Ten years later:

„Hi Killix!“

„Hello father! Uncle Brennus says Hi! to you too!“

„Oh! You catched up with him?“

„Yes, I met him in Alexandria during the siege and than we plundered the Nile delta together for a month or so. He went to Italy then, I went home.“
„To Italy? He should visit Rome, really nice city.“

„This is for you, father.“ Killix puts his hand to a chest and the hand emerges with a heavily decorated feast horn. „I took it from some Judean after Damascus fell”.
„Really nice Killix, I´ll add this to my collection. Look Killix, druids said, that we should destroy Pergamon. Are you going?“

Killix: „Sure.“


In battle, facing Pergamese Elitekoi Heaviestekoi Cataphractoi Ultimatikoi Cavalrykoi, Killix is sitting on his faithful galatian steed he named Comfy.

Pergamese Elitekoi Heaviestekoi Cataphractoi Ultimatikoi Cavalrykoi facing Killix: „Do I know you?“

Killix: „Bithynian Thureophoroi? Hi! How are you man?“

Pergamese Elitekoi Heaviestekoi Cataphractoi Ultimatikoi Cavalrykoi: „Today I kill you for sure! You cannot kill me in this Mightikoi Impenetrabloi Armoroi! HAHAHAHA!!!“

Killix: Reaches for a hilt of his…

Pergamese Elitekoi Heaviestekoi Cataphractoi Ultimatikoi Cavalrykoi: „Haha! Your mighty longsword will be useless, I´m in heavy armour now! HAHAHA!!!“

Killix: … axe. „I´m a noble now, I use AP axe.“

Pergamese Elitekoi Heaviestekoi Cataphractoi Ultimatikoi Cavalrykoi: „NOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!“

Killix: smashes Pergamese Elitekoi Heaviestekoi Cataphractoi Ultimatikoi Cavalrykoi formerly known as Bithynian Thureophoroi down as other galatean nobles around him do, and charges to the back of some Hipaspistae or how do the Greeks call all these variations on spear/knife+shield soldiers.

Killix to his father (who is at the moment painting T+T+T on an astonishingly polished shield of some unconscious Argyraspidai): „Father! The greek prodromoi are going to charge into our archers, you wanna look?“

Father, elaborately painting last T: „Nah, they fine. These prodromoi are not the first so stupid nor the last.“

Killix: „But it is fun everytime.“ Killix makes himself comfy on Comfy and watches as pergamese prodromoi charge to Galatian archers. Who shoot a volley and take their spears, point them towards surprised prodromoi and kill them all.

Killix: „Who are those guys?“ and points to a group of huge men clothed in blue and red tartan, waving with their axes around their heads. Whole group is standing behind enemy lines, with their backs turned on the enemy phalangites, who are fruitlessly engaged with Trocmi spearmen. Phalangites are punching their sarissas to the massive shieldwall with confidence, that flanking attack of Cataphracts is just about to happen to the back of galatean spearmen. Trocmies in third and fourth row are playing cards and dice. Loosers have to hold the shields against phalangites.

Father: „I think those are future champion material. Mighty warriors indeed. Maybe little stupid, but by some miracle they get better and better.“

From the group of blue and red tartan warriors, who stare on the walls of Pergamon, seemingly unaware of engagement behind them, one man emerges, turns towards others and to the faces of his comrades – future champion materials – he shouts: „My fellow bodybuilders!“

Crowd: -shouting some approval narcistic noises-

Guy: „Behind those walls…“ and he points behind his back, toward stone walls of Pergamon „… there are literally thousands of nice young girls from all parts of the world, who are desperate to get into hands of real men! Men like you!“

Crowd: - excited noises of hornynes-

Guy: „The only thing that stays between you and those girls are those guys … ehh... behind you!“

Crowd: -angry and little confused murmling-

Guy: „Yes! Those guys! What are you going to do about it?“

Crowd unanimously: „KILL, KILL, KILL!!!“

Guy: „Dont tell me! Tell them!“

Crowd: „AAAAAAAIIIIIIIIEIEEEEEEE“ mixed with some „RRRRAAAABBBBOOOO“, „AAAAABBBBBUUUU“, „WAAAAAAAAAAGHHHHH“, “ZA STALINAAAA” and other growling seductive noises.

Guy, pointing his axe towards the back of Agema phalanx: „KKKKIIIIIIIILLLLLL!“

The crowd raises its axes and in a charge driven by madness and reproductive instinct cuts a path through the venerable Agema and than pours into Pergamon with routing pergamese soldiers.

Killix watching this spectacle: „I wish I was 17 again. Lets go burn some library.“

[Bradley]

I´ll stop the short story here, we may return to Killix, his father, future champion material and Bithinyan Thuerophoroi later. Now lets talk about the mighty Galateans.

The Galatia faction is a swap faction in your beloved mod of Rome Total War - Roma Surrectum II. And I say it now, it is awesome faction with some bugs. First think you will notice, Galatia is one turn faction, but with economy of 0turn. That means buildings are expensive and have some different effects. But your capital will earn about 20k a turn. So I see no real problem, it quite works, try it yourself.



Location, location, location:
First of all, this is your starting location:


Three cities, one for each tribe, Trocmi, Tectosages and Tolistobogii (T+T+T), Ancyra is your capital. Not the greatest of the cities, but on the other hand, thanks to that, you can improve it a lot J . Other cities are little (much) worse, but after all, you have three cities (what would other swap factions do for that). Your starting location has one real problem, no access to the sea. But there is simple solution: take Nicomedia (for start).

In strategic view, you are in the center of Micra Asia, that means in the middle of the map. So you have a lot of options for expansion. North are free and greek cities, south is the same. West of you, there is Pergamon and some Ptolemaic colonies and later whole Europe. On the east there is that corrupted leviathan of Seleucids, adorable Pontos, violet Armenia and a lot of HA.

As I said in other threads relating swap factions, you have always one main enemy you have to destroy in order to prosper. When playing Galatia it is Pergamon. There are three reasons for destroying Pergamon. Access to the sea, treasure money and security. After killing Pergamon you have one flank of your empire de facto secure and you can concentrate on securing the peninsula. Ptolemaic colonies are usually one spy from civil upraising, Pontos usually wont attack you as long as you pay them regular tribute 200 and they have place to expand or an enemy. Then, they will betray you. Seleucids will betray you anytime. Macedonians are quite reliable as long as they wage war with Rome, but if you take Byzantion, they will probably attack you.

What is good in Micra Asia is the trade in Black sea, trade in Aegean sea and trade in Mediterranean sea. When in Micra Asia, you have access to all of these.
Use it.
Earn the money.
Spread the love.
Travel.
Die heroically.

[Bradley]

Military:§
I cannot stress enough the fun you will experience when playing your T+T+T. Your military is an agent of chaos in the Diadochoi areas. I tried to express it a little in the story above and I will say it again: Galatean roster is just awesome in its „area of operations“. You can basically counter everything enemies have at their disposal as long as you dont fight HA armies of far east/northeast.

Infantry: You have light spearman to start or for securing the flanks, you have heavy spearman who can stop even heaviest phalanxes without suffering (or suffering much) and can make a shieldwall for city fighting.






You have excellent heavy swordsmen with javelins. Heavy swordsmen with longswords.





Thats something Greeks and Diadochoi just cannot get along with. Those swordsman just cut through anything except the most elites.

But when your enemy brings elites to battle (anything with heavy armour like Hypaspistae, Agemas, Argyraspidae…), place some future champion material aka celtic axemen in your army. Click warcry and charge. Done.



Btw, after conquering Pergamon, you will have access to mercenary thrakian Pezoi and Psiloi too (yes, falxmen).
Elites of your army are Champions, guys with longswords, heavy chainmail, shields and bird on their helmet (Greetings to Boii!). They improve morale and have warcry. Have one, maximum two of them in army, flank, warcry, attack, behold and awe (flank is optional).



Cavalry: You have light cavalry with missiles and heavy cavalry with axes. And of course your chieftain cavalry, also with axes. Light cavalry is solid, but those noble light cavalrymen are really great in my opinion. They can harass, kill routers and even make charges in the back of some engaged lighter units or kill peltasts and archers/slingers. Your heavy cavalry has the axes which are just awesome in killing armoured units. Like cataphracts. Dont hesitate to sent your celtic axemen infantry to the fight with cavalry too, they just kill horses by hundreds. Do not forget your chariots. I personally do not like them and do not use them a lot, but I have to respect their purpose and abilities, especially the fear factor.







One more thing I have noticed: For first about 150 turns, my generals were true celts with moustaches and axes with proper chainmail and tartan and stuff. But then they turned into THIS!:



Yes, that’s one of many bugs. Another is that in my campaign, there was Sparta. Yes. I don’t know how it was possible, but here it is, behold:



So do not be worried about it a lot, when you are a Galatean, world is bit crazy


Missiles: Your workhorse will be celtic archers.



Who just rock. They are not the best archers under the sun, but have good range, nice price and the one important thing: spears. They really can hold their own against lighter cavalry, at least long enough to give the reinforcements time to join or long enough to protect back of your melee infantry. Do not overcount on them though, they are not spearmen and will succumb to enemy heavier types of cavalry in the end. Later you can levy some local archers (for example scythian) and very good Rhodian slingers. In my opinion, the more east/north you will go, the more you will use archers because that is your HA/low armour infantry counter. A contraire when you will move to west/south, you will use more slingers (rhodean or barbarian), because you will face more armoured infantry and less cavalry.

[Bradley]

Tactics: it depends on enemy. If there is a lot of phalanxes, lock them with Trocmi heavy spearman, flank and kill.



When you face non-phalanx infantry, make a line of swordsmen in center, axes on flanks and spearman on extreme flank, warcry and attack. Have your archers shoot cavalry (especially missile cavalry), and smash with your cavalry enemy missiles. Try to lure enemy heavy cav to your spears or axes and then charge them with your noble celtic cavalry with „alt“. Hmm… when I look back on what I wrote and recall the battles, your tactic is basically: CHARGE!

Your army has huge charge bonuses that can be even improved with warcry in some cases. Your army has a lot of AP weapons (axes) and longswords (which are better damage dealers than normal swords/kopis, if I remember correctly). Use these advantages, because enemy infantry you will fight in these lands
1) generally serves as anvil, has high armor values, low charges, low attacks (phalanxes, hoplites, spearmen). They count on holding you on place, exhaust you and kill you by flanking cavalry (Hello Alexander!),
2) is light, low armour, flanking infantry (peltasts, khaldian mountaineer, pezoi/psiloi…).
On the first you use the axes (hoplites) or heavy spermen in guard mode (phalanxes) and flank. On the second use swordsmen/cavalry, because due to low armour values they just melt. Do not forget, that your swordsman/axeman/trocmi spearman have quite high armour and are not easy to kill.

You will hate theese:



And these:



There is really no good counter to Cataphractoi elephantikoi Mother Fu..ioi (armoured elephants). They are just impenetrable and have high damage dealing/line breaking potential. You will probably sustain heavy casualties when fighting them. What should work (and sometimes works) shower them with fire arrows and try to hit them with peltasts/slingers from back. Your hope is to let them lock in some mercenary phalanx in order not to loose your precious Galateans.
Well, as long as you dont have some ballistas with you. They work quite fine on them. Especially when using fire arrows. And you hit them. But be prepared that it can happen, that you will just wont be able to kill em or amok them even if you will shoot them with everything you have with fire.

Indian elephants are much easier to get „amoked“, just use fire arrows and hope. It may take some time, but they will go mad.



And of course you do not want to fight horse archer armies (but it counts for almost any faction in my case J). If that happens, levy some phalangites, point them to HA and march. Phalanxes are quite good in taking damage from arrows as long as they come in from front.

[Bradley]

Strategy:
My council is: Take free cities and Sinope.

Kill Pergamon.

Make Ptoly cities riot (spy) and take. Ptolies may wage war on you for that, but they have nothing here and are probably in war with Seleucids.

When you have whole Micra Asia, Seleucids will probably attack you.

Same with Pontos. But Pontos is easy to break because Amaseia is so close and their other cities just suck.

You can always go USMC style – spies in cities from Alexandria to Antiochea and your „Marine expeditionary unit“ landing, sieging, conquering, anihilating, destroing, getting back on boats, rinse and repeat. By this you cripple good part of Seleuceia and give a really hard blow to Ptolies (Alexandria is so lovely in summer). But I would keep Selucids alive to make a border state between you and HA factions.

Same with Armenia, if possible.

So your next move can be going mad mode and conquering Egypt, or go west in search for uncle Brennus, who went to visit Rome.

On the way there is Greece and Macedonia. You can „reclaim“ your countries of origin – Galia, Bohemia, Helvetia, Belgia… So many options!

Go mad!
Earn a saga!
Die as a hero!

[ferike_2007]

Hi Bradley,

some observations after a quick review of Galatian Campaign files:

- in this campaign the "swap" faction is "thrace" (normal, non-roman campaign "Rebel" faction), so that's the reason Sparta is there.

- as far as i saw this campaign was converted from Capuan campaign, just take a look in starting diplomacy: Roma is enemy, Carthage is ally, that's seems to be a nonsense in this case (both are far-far away from your starting geographical position, without no impact on you at the game start).

- that could be also a reason you got roman "legatus legioni" general cavalry, even can't figure out yet how is possible ( one reason could be "thrace" faction has an entry in roman_praetorian_cavalry - roman armoured general/legatus legioni - list in DMB ).

We hope somebody will fix all of these bugs, good luck in your campaign, i like the posts and your style!

Edit:

I found more weird things in Galatian campaign EDB:

1. - as Galatia is barbarian faction they should not have triremes and quinquiremes or deceres, howewer at the port_buildings they could
"recruit "naval trireme" 0 requires factions { romans_brutii, thrace, } and hidden_resource naval" - shipyard
"recruit "naval trireme" 0 requires factions { romans_brutii, thrace, } and hidden_resource naval" - dockyard
"recruit "naval quinquireme" 0 requires factions { romans_brutii, thrace, } and hidden_resource naval - dockyard
"recruit "naval decere" 0 requires factions { romans_brutii, thrace, } and hidden_resource naval - dockyard

2. - at rivers, larg_river_port
"taxable_income_bonus bonus 30 requires not factions { britons, thrace, }" - seems the player don't really benefit the 3rd upgrade of river ports.

3. - tiny_treasury:
"recruit "barbarian chieftain cavalry" 0 requires factions { boii, slave, thrace, }" - the default Galatian general for this campaign is "barbarian chieftain cavalry2"

4. - medium_treasury:
"recruit "eastern generals cavalry" 0 requires factions { thrace, slave, }" - same as the previous

[dvk901]

Hi Bradley,

some observations after a quick review of Galatian Campaign files:

- in this campaign the "swap" faction is "thrace" (normal, non-roman campaign "Rebel" faction), so that's the reason Sparta is there.

- as far as i saw this campaign was converted from Capuan campaign, just take a look in starting diplomacy: Roma is enemy, Carthage is ally, that's seems to be a nonsense in this case (both are far-far away from your starting geographical position, without no impact on you at the game start).

- that could be also a reason you got roman "legatus legioni" general cavalry, even can't figure out yet how is possible ( one reason could be "thrace" faction has an entry in roman_praetorian_cavalry - roman armoured general/legatus legioni - list in DMB ).

We hope somebody will fix all of these bugs, good luck in your campaign, i like the posts and your style!

Edit:

I found more weird things in Galatian campaign EDB:

1. - as Galatia is barbarian faction they should not have triremes and quinquiremes or deceres, howewer at the port_buildings they could
"recruit "naval trireme" 0 requires factions { romans_brutii, thrace, } and hidden_resource naval" - shipyard
"recruit "naval trireme" 0 requires factions { romans_brutii, thrace, } and hidden_resource naval" - dockyard
"recruit "naval quinquireme" 0 requires factions { romans_brutii, thrace, } and hidden_resource naval - dockyard
"recruit "naval decere" 0 requires factions { romans_brutii, thrace, } and hidden_resource naval - dockyard

2. - at rivers, larg_river_port
"taxable_income_bonus bonus 30 requires not factions { britons, thrace, }" - seems the player don't really benefit the 3rd upgrade of river ports.

3. - tiny_treasury:
"recruit "barbarian chieftain cavalry" 0 requires factions { boii, slave, thrace, }" - the default Galatian general for this campaign is "barbarian chieftain cavalry2"

4. - medium_treasury:
"recruit "eastern generals cavalry" 0 requires factions { thrace, slave, }" - same as the previous

Thanks for sharing these, I have dealt with all of them. Also, FINALLY figured out why the generals were changing into Romans...like you, I could not for a long time figure out why that was happening. It's the 'upgrade_generals_bodyguard' lines in the last two core buildings. They have nothing to 'uprade to', so the game is giving them the Romans by default.

[Bradley]

And what about that one turn play - zero turn economy thing? Is that purpose or some bug?