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Thread: [TW Guide] RTW: Gauls

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    Default [TW Guide] RTW: Gauls



    Author: Morble
    Original Thread: Not Available

    RTW: Gauls
    GAUL STRATEGY

    The Gauls start the game as the largest and strongest faction. Surprised? If you’ve played one of the Roman factions and listened to their generals going on and on about hairy barbarians, you might think the Gauls were mere savages living in huts. Ah well, it’s the victors that get to write the history.

    The Gauls are indeed classified in the game as a barbarian faction. This means that they cannot use stone, either for cities or roads. They have an abbreviated tech tree, which ends at level three. Thus, while Romans might be building urban cohorts, the Gauls will still be churning out the same lowly level 3 troops.

    But the Gauls have great advantages to make up for these shortcomings. Although their units might appear obsolete, they are superb fighters. Add to this the excellent religious system available to them, which allows you to develop some outstanding military generals, and to buff all your troops in silver and gold. Thirdly, the Gauls have their western flank protected by the Atlantic Ocean and, once the Britons are gone, their north is protected also. The Spanish (and Carthaginians in Corduba) are to the south, but the Spanish worship the same Gallic gods, allowing you to easily pick up all the loose ends when you conquer a Spanish city. Once the Spanish are conquered, the Gauls really only have to worry about the Germans and Romans in their east.

    Because of the adds that their temples give them, Gallic troops are competitive throughout the game. After all, sword, spear, shield, ranged missile, and horse are the weapons of the age. New units are mostly just better implementations of these basics. By taking full advantage of the religious system, it is not unusual to end up with a couple or three full stacks of pure gold and silver weaponed and experienced troops, with bronze armor, each led by a 10 star general, rampaging around the map.

    The most overwhelming arms for the Gauls are their foresters and fear weapons. Foresters are the absolute best archers in the game, bar none. They are better than Pharoah’s bowmen, than elephant archers, than Cretan archers, than anybody! Add to this the huge fear factors generated by a combination of druids, dogs, and warcries, and the Gauls are truly a tremendous force in battle. Most enemy armies will make minimal contact, if any, with a fully developed Gaul army before routing off the field. Once you can field 5 forester units in your main army, with a dogs and a druids unit each, then your basic infantry battleline will serve only as a defensive shield for your foresters to shelter behind, and your cav will serve primarily as rout chasers.

    Gaul also has high morale in battle. When Gallic troops come to a battle, they’re there for a fight. The combination of high experience and high command ratings, coupled with an innate high morale for most of their units (thanks to temple-generated xp), makes their armies very dependable on the field. In addition, they are just plain scary to every other faction. With early game troops, line your spears and swords into a semi-circle around the enemy army, set your druids to chanting, and then have your battleline stop to give a warcry, and some inexperienced opposing armies will rout right away, without even making contact! In other words, these guys are so scary that other armies just look at them and have to run home and change their pants. (That’s assuming the ignorant infidels have advanced far enough to actually wear trousers like a proper Gaul!)

    This doesn’t mean that Gaul units never, ever rout. They are still able to be shocked into rout. But for a prolonged melee, or against a larger enemy, the extremely well-disciplined Gauls will hold their ground longer than almost any other faction. In fact, I recommend the Gauls for those players who are habitually frustrated by how fragile their armies are. The Gauls are tough and will stay on the field for you. (Of course, the drawback is that you have to tone down your expectations when you go back to playing another faction.)

    Strategically though, it is important to remember that you are working on a short clock with the Gauls. Although their buffed units are competitive through most of the game, eventually the advance of technology can make further conquests difficult. Thus, you want to strike hard and expand early. With superior size, demographically, geographically, and economically, you can simply swarm any remnants of more technologically advanced cultures.

    With this in mind, you should look to bring all of your cities up to 6000 population as quickly as you can. This will put you at the top of your tech tree and allow you to raid, loot, and pillage the rest of the world. You can’t build stone walls and highways, but you can certainly steal them.

    On your first turn, build ports in Patavium and Numantia, and build roads everywhere else. Set all your taxes to very high for the moment to generate income. Later you will want to hold taxes at low for as long as you can, to max your pop growth. When you play the Romans, the Brits attack Germania. When you play Gaul, on vh/vh, the Brits will ally with Germania at the very start and then turn to attack you—in spite of the fact that they just spent 3000 to secure trading rights from you the very turn before that. You need to consolidate your holdings quickly, grab the available rebel cities, and build up a large army, because generally every neighbor you do not have an alliance with, except (possibly) the Carthaginians or Spanish, is going to attack you early in the game.

    You can sell trade rights to the surrounding factions for about 1000 to Julii and Germania, 2500 to the Carthaginians, 3000 to the Britons, and sometimes 5000 to the Spanish. But, to get this high a figure, you need to have roads, ports, and traders established, because the AI figures the worth of the trade agreement based on trade income, and roads etc make trade possible. You may be tempted to sell map info to your next door neighbors. Don’t! They will attack you the very next turn, since you have stripped down your defenses to attack the starting rebel cities, and selling map info shows this to them. In general, only sell map info to factions that do not share a border with you.

    Still on the first turn, send Lugotorix with at least 2 warbands, a javelins, and a cav unit to Segestica. Send Vindex with the same mix to Massilia. Send your faction leader, Brennus, with the stack from Alesia (except a single warband garrison) to take Lugdunum. (BTW, this means you will have to set taxes in Alesia to no higher than high for the moment.) It doesn’t really matter where you send your spy just now, perhaps somewhere around the Julii—just be sure not to send him to Segesta, because the Julii will usually conquer the city on the first turn and kill your spy if he is in the city.

    On your second turn, build traders wherever needed and a diplomat in Alesia and Numantia. Your starting diplomat will seek out all the Roman factions, and then possibly move on to Dacia, Greece, and Macedonia. Your second will contact Briton and Germania. Your third will contact Spain and Carthage. The garrison in Numantia is mostly for show at this point—you just want to keep the Spanish from entertaining unsavory ideas until you have things sorted out on your other borders. Once you have a port, trader, and roads in place in Numantia, you are a very important income source to the Spanish. They will often want an alliance against the Romans, and this is cool, since the Julii will soon attack you. Carthage will also offer you big bucks for a trade agreement, and may also want an alliance.

    Keep in mind that the Julii are your enemies, no matter how friendly they might behave. They have nowhere else to expand if they don’t go to war with you, so don’t wait overlong before selling them a trade treaty. Typically they will offer about 600 gold at the start of the game, but around 1350 if you have a rudimentary infrastructure. The other Roman factions do not trade with you now, and will only offer 100 to 200 max. Still, they will soon be your sworn enemies, thanks to the upcoming attack from the Julii, so maybe getting a few gold off them now is better than nothing.

    These trade treaty sales come at exactly the right time for your development, because you are likely running short on funds. A big score, such as 5000 from the Spanish will allow you to drop all your taxes to low, but still build 1st level farms and temples. Don’t forget to build palisades in Condate Redonum and Narbo Martius. You should also upgrade your walls in Mediolanium and Patavium, since they are undoubtedly going to be the scene of battles very soon.

    Note that you seem to gain more diplomatic goodwill with a faction if you don’t bargain with them, but just grant them a trade agreement outright. So, don’t try to cash in on far-off lands—they aren’t good for much money at this point anyway. Your neighbors, however, are soon to be your sworn enemies, so make them pay as much as you can haggle for.

    It’s important to note that the Julii are not overly adventurous. As long as you can block them from examining your major cities, they will not attack you—at least not for a number of turns. To this end, block the two bridges in North Italy with a warband and cav each. After you take Massilia, do the same with the bridge in the Alps between Massilia and Mediolanium. This keeps Roman diplomats from examining your cities, and generally keeps the Julii well-behaved. Allow the Julii diplomats to cozy up next to your cities and you will be getting a visit from the Roman armies within a turn or two.

    As for temple choices, Abnoba in Lemonum, and Epona in Numantia and Alesia, would seem natural choices, since the appropriate military buildings already exist there. But I don’t always do this. Teutatis is your best temple for light weapons, and allows you to build naked fanatics. Naked fanatics serve as shock troops, with great attack but poor defense. They are superb for reserve forces behind your main battleline; send them in when your battleline has been crashed and is in danger of collapsing. So I typically put Teutatis in Alesia and Numantia, in spite of the more intuitive choices.

    You definitely need a couple of Adnoba cities where you plan to churn out, or at least retrain, foresters. Lugdunum and one of Northern Italian cities seem logical choices for this. (In practice, though, the cities I wrest from the Romans in Italy have always ended up being my main production cities.) You also need at least one Esus sacred circle so you can build druids. Druids are a rare item in battle orders; just one (or maybe 2) is sufficient to hold your battleline steady in, uh, “concert” with your general. Esus does not add any other military benefit, so an economic city that will be somewhat far from your capital seems the best place to put an Esus shrine. For now, I put Esus in Condate Redonum, since I typically move my capital to Massilia later in the game.

    You also need a couple of Epona cities. Note that your battle gods all give the same happiness gains. So this is not a deciding factor. But each god gives a different set of retainers, and you want to take good advantage of this. Epona will also provide an extra xp for heavy weapon infantry and cav that you can’t get elsewhere. Teutatis sacred circle gives 2 xp and 1 light weapons, while Epona gives 3 xp. Combine a weaponsmith with Epona to churn out your best-buffed heavy weapons units. Overall, I think it’s best to have relatively equal numbers of cities dedicated to each of the military gods, since there are multiple unit types for each class of weapon. I only use additional Esus shrines for large cities on the outside of my empire where I think I will need the extra happiness and order.

    Because the happiness adds from your battle gods are relatively modest, it is not difficult to absorb temples from other factions as you conquer. With the exception of the few cities in Italy used to produce military units, I typically allow level 2 and 3 temples to foreign gods to remain. There is a culture penalty to this, but the added growth and trade income to the city, and especially the added array of retainers made available to your generals, make it worthwhile to absorb the culture penalty—at least until the captured city reaches 6000 pop.

    Again, back to the starting few turns, you are besieging three rebel cities. Build two rams to assault them, just in case (Always build more rams than you need, in case the enemy destroys one or more during the assault.) But you would prefer to save your men and just starve them out. The cities only have palisades and can only last 4 turns. When you take them, just occupy Lugdunum and Massilia without enslaving or exterminating. They have so little development and the game is so early, that they will stay green with a minimal garrison. It’s much better for you at this point to have the population intact, so that they can reach 2000 pop and become at least of some use to your empire. Below 2000, you really can’t afford to build troops out of them, because a single unit will take such a chunk out of the total pop.

    Even Segestica will turn green after the first turn, but you will have a hard time defending Segestica from the Macedonians or whoever else covets it—and they will as soon as you build a mine there. I prefer to exterminate Segestica and let it be a small nondescript town on the outskirts of my empire until I am ready for bigger things. (And don’t spend the money on a mine there unless you want to be attacked.)

    I don’t think mines in general are such a great deal. True, they pay for themselves in 10 years, and provide a steady, dependable income for every year thereafter. But at the start I am concerned with the present value of money. That 2000 I spend on a mine in Narbo or Segestica can be spent on 3 1/3 traders or farms, which will generate more than 2000 gold over the next ten years, and provide added pop growth too. I build mines when I have spare cash and no other pressing needs, and I do try to build them fairly early, but I’m not about to strip out my finances just so I can have a mine in operation. As noted above, I wait a long time, until Italy is mostly conquered, until I build mines in Segestica. Why spend 2 grand to upgrade a town for Macedonia or Dacia, who will be able to take Segestica without much opposition if you are preoccupied with Italy and the Romans?

    As an alternative, you can enslave your rebel conquests, if you have a city or two with a governor and you want to pump up the pop there. Enslavement also adds some useful retainers to your conquering general. But I advise against enslavement or extermination for Massilia and Lugdunum, since they are so docile and ready to become part of your budding empire.

    Getting an alliance with either Spain or Carthage is quite valuable, because an alliance with one gives you some leverage against the other, thereby helping to avoid an early war in the south. If one attacks, you can ask the other to attack with you. Of course, they can’t normally do a lot of damage to each other at this point, because Spain is so underdeveloped and Carthage is busy with the Scipii, but the threat is more effective than the actual execution and this usually keeps the peace.

    You greatly prefer peace in the south, because Briton and Julii, and possibly Germania, are going to attack you. Maybe you can kind of get the sense of the Gallic game: war after war after war, battle after battle after battle, turn after turn after turn. It’s usually a slugfest, not a sophisticated, behind-the-scenes type of game.

    As noted, to postpone the Julii invasion, post troops on the bridge in Venetia and on the bridge west of Mediolanium, then block the bridge in the Alps. When Segestica is conquered, move your conquering stack back into a spot between your two big cities and leave them in clear view to the Romans. The Julii will go on spying and scouting expeditions into your territory, if they can, but will hesitate to start a war unless they can park their stack adjacent to one or both of your cities, and they won’t attack you across the bridges. Plugging the bridges and showing your stack is, in effect, mere saber rattling, but it does seem to work, and the Julii typically draw back and build a fort on your border until they build up a larger army.

    I don’t like forts, generally. In some places on the map, there is a chokepoint where a fort might make sense—the Alps passage north to Iuvavum, for example. A fort manned by a couple of warbands, within 1 turn’s travel from Patavium, can forestall any problems from whoever ends up with Iuvavum. A useful fort has to be placed in a spot where the enemy cannot pass, yet it can be immediately reinforced from one or more cities. Forts are a deathtrap without reinforcement. Your army and/or general cannot escape if the fort is besieged. Also, forts cost 500 denarii, which you can ill afford at this early stage. Forts disappear if unoccupied for more than one turn, but even a spy or diplomat counts as an occupying force for this purpose—though note they cannot resist an attack, you need a military unit to hold on in a siege attempt.

    Personally, I’d prefer to conquer the rebels in Iuvavum and use that city as my early warning system against the Dacians. However, if the Dacians get there first, a fort to the north of Patavium keeps the Dacians from sending you a surprise package while you are busy elsewhere. You should at least attempt to get an alliance with Dacia.

    The Briton initial attack typically consists of sending 2 spears to Condate. If you have 2 spears and a palisade there, they will give up the siege the very next turn. Briton strategy is invariably to land everything they build onto the area just west of Samarobriva. Even once you take this city, the Brits will continue to land full stacks there until you conquer the British Isles. So, it is best to exterminate Samarobriva when you conquer it. This reduces the pop down to 500 or less and generally makes conquering the city unattractive to the Briton AI. The Britons will still besiege Samarobriva, but that is really the AI trying to unbalance you strategically, not a dedicated capture attempt. Of course, you must win the battles against this besieging Briton force, or you will have difficulties in the north.

    You only have one puny boat off the coast of Condate. Thanks to the naval combat system, this boat is guaranteed to lose every battle it takes part in. To make matters more difficult, there is usually a 180 man pirate force just off the tip of Armorica, and it will be a while before you can build a port at Condate. If you have made an alliance with Spain, you can build more ships out of Numantia. If not, this one lonely ship is your only chance to get to Britain and destroy the faction. Thus, move it around a little bit to help your scouting, but never, ever, expend all its movement points. If you see something floating in the English Channel, get away from it. You have to conquer Samarobriva, then load a big army onto this one ship and somehow get it to England. The Channel is small enough that you can load and unload your invasion army all in one turn, but first your ship has to survive that long.

    The alternative is to try to bottle up the Britons on the Isles. This is frustrating due to the autoresolved naval combat system, especially on vh/vh. You can place 3 to 6 of your boats to blockade Londinium’s port, and a single Briton boat built there can still win naval battles against your flotilla and unblock the harbor. It’s a stupid and annoying combat system. Strategically, it makes sense to blockade all British ports and invade the Britons at your leisure. Tactically, the autoresolve system makes this very difficult to enforce and sending at least one stack to conquer at least Londinium early (with a diplomat to bribe any counterattacking armies) is preferable.

    Briton troops are structured very strongly around offense. Woad warriors, head hurlers, and chariots all have very high attack and poor defense. This means you prefer to engage in prolonged melee with them, and use cav charges to bust them open.

    Chariots are the most problematic Briton unit. They are fear-inducing to infantry, and have very strong offense. As long as they can keep moving, they can trash your army. Try to use deep formations of footmen, especially spears, to absorb their charge and trap them near your druids, then charge them with cav. Missile chariots are in general no match for your cav, but heavy chariots will eat cav for breakfast. In a melee between chariots and cav, the chariots will typically swirl, twirl, and kill, while your cav stands still and tries to poke them with their spears. A cav charge can be useful to slow chariots for a few seconds, but then you have to get the cav out of there and meanwhile make contact with your footmen.

    As noted, a deep formation (6-8 deep) of spear warband can absorb a chariot charge and make them stand still. Even better is to have a second foot unit next to it giving a warcry. Even better is to have this occur within chanting range of your druids. Once the chariots are stuck in melee, a cav charge is frequently all you need to rout them under these circumstances. But try to take on chariots one-on-one with unsupported cav and you will lose the melee, and likely the battle.

    Once you have secured Samarobriva, you should make ready to send a stack to England. Slip your boat in carefully next to your stack, moving only 3 or 4 spaces at a time and then checking for the location of the pirate and Briton fleets. You can often slip your boat to within 1/3 of your total movement points of the loading spot for your stack on the shore. Then on the next turn, with a full movement allowance, move your boat adjacent to your stack, load the stack, cross the Channel, and unload your stack in England all in one turn. You may still get attacked at sea, but you should be able to deliver your cargo, and hopefully won’t get sunk. For insurance, a second boat in your stack, built in Numantia, will increase your chances of surviving a naval battle—but not of actually winning it, thanks to the autoresolve!

    Once you take out the Briton main stack near Samarobriva, the wind is out of their sails, and conquering England should not be that difficult. You do need to make sure you brought enough men to take Londinium, because if you lose a battle with no province (or boat on the shore) to retreat to, you will lose the whole stack and have to start over. The same applies to the town on Ireland.

    The Romans are another matter. In spite of the way you have to struggle for every bit of cash when playing the Julii, the AI Julii will have nearly 80,000 gold. As long as they have their three cities and the population, they can pump out unit after unit. Eventually they are going to be strong enough to feel secure about attacking you. Then all the other Roman factions will also declare war on you. Since you have a lot to take care of during this time, I prefer to continue to build up as many men as I can in Northern Italy, place blocking troops on each of the bridges, and let the Julii start the war.

    You will need a couple of full stacks to prosecute the war to the tip of Italy. When you besiege a Roman city, try to besiege it from a hilly spot. You will almost certainly be attacked and outnumbered, and will need the terrain for your defense. Since the Roman infantry pauses to throw their pila, you have time to give your warcry and then charge. My general approach is to send my cav out early and deep to harass the Roman velites. It’s best to work your light cav in pairs—have two charge a single velites simultaneously from different directions. If you only send one cav, it will take too long to rout the velites and hastates or principes, or Roman heavy cav, will catch up to your lonely cav unit and destroy it. Remember that light cav has relatively low morale, so you have to be very careful with how much stress you let them receive. When they rout deep behind the lines, they will run through an assortment of enemy troops on the way back, and probably will not survive at all.

    Harrassing the velites also serves to break up the Roman line, and they will not likely arrive in good order to start their attack on your line. You really need this, because a well-formed Roman infantry line is more than your guys can bear in most instances. In general, I string my infantry out in a single line, with 1 or 2 units, preferably fanatics, placed behind near the center of the line to plug holes. If the attacking army has a lot of cav, especially heavy cav, I string my troops 6 deep. Otherwise, I’ll go as thin as 4 deep. Set up your infantry first, then group them. This will cause them to always seek the same relative positions when you advance them or right-click-draw them to a new location.

    When the Romans make contact, bring your light cav back to crash the rear of each end of the Roman line, and try to fold your troops around their flanks, then roll up the flanks as individual Roman units rout. Charge your 1 or 2 reserves into the inevitable Roman cav charge into the center of your line. If a Roman heavy cav manages to crash through your lines and into your backfield, you’ll have difficulties. Save your general back from charging the line until you have exhausted your other options for plugging holes. All the action in the center is basically to try and hold your position while you do your work on the Roman flanks.

    You will typically be outnumbered, against 3 to 5 star enemy generals. You need your very best troops and generals on this campaign. Spear warbands work a slight bit better against Roman cav, but are worse than swords at standing up to Roman infantry. Naked fanatics have the advantage of high morale, but are primarily reserve or shock troops, since they have relatively low defense. Once you take Arretium and Ariminium you should be able to build chosen swords and foresters, which are invaluable in your battles.

    You need to keep about 2 full stacks all the way through Italy, so try to avoid combining veterans at this point. Retrain them instead. Retraining adds raw recruits to your units and does not allow you to step up your xp very high, but your temples can help with this aspect immensely. Right now you need the total number of bodies to lengthen your battleline against the Romans, and you probably cannot build enough brand new units to replace your losses. Thus you should retrain all existing units instead of combining them after each battle. Even so, you will likely be outnumbered in most of your battles, so choose locations to end your turn on for their defensive potential (and keep winning the defensive battles!) and you will eventually prevail.

    Meanwhile, the Germans will almost certainly attack you once you conquer the Britons. The Germans are not actually much of a military power, but they have difficult terrain to conquer, with lots of ambush points, and they have those hugely long spears and screeching women.

    German spears will utterly destroy your spear warbands head to head. Basically there is no way to combat them from the front. You have to treat them like fast moving phalanxes. This means you should assault them from the sides and rear BEFORE they make contact. Wedged cav is the best option here, to break up the spear formation from behind and allow your guys in the front an opportunity to actually make contact with the enemy. Spear warbands are not of much use to you against the Germans, except possibly to stop the occasion German cav. Use swords, light cav and missiles where possible. In any event, do not charge from the front. Put the front unit on guard position, then quickmarch a unit up even with the Germans on either side, then turn and charge their flanks. Add a cav charge to the rear and you will totally disrupt the German spear formation. Your front men can then join the fray and the spears will rout.

    Screeching women are not supposed to have that strong a melee ability, but they are very demoralizing and can usually stand up against a single light cav. Don’t underestimate them and think you’re just fighting a bunch of girls, or you’ll be looking at the hind ends of your horses as they rout off the field.

    Germans, being barbarians, are quite susceptible to fear tactics. Use fire arrows if you’ve got them, and don’t forget your warcry. Probably the most useful unit against the Germans is a single druids unit. Time and again the German line will melt away under the influence of druidic chanting. Have a druids unit travel with each army for the German campaign. Druids are so important that I think they are the main benefit of an Esus sacred circle. Put them in the center, behind the main line, and keep them out of melee.

    I’m not sure if this is true, but it appears druids need some time to increase the volume (and hence effective distance) of their chants. They can’t chant while moving, although they will automatically resume chanting once they stop moving. It seems, however, that druid chants are not as strong when starting a second or third time. For best effects, move them into position first, then start their chant and leave them there for the battle. Soon you will be able to hear their growling chants pulsing over half the battlefield, and the Germans will scatter like a startled flock of birds.

    Wardogs are also invaluable, especially against barbarians, but even against Romans and other “high” civilizations. They are a fear unit, and they act essentially as berserkers once you release them. Your dogs will get killed in melee, so try to wait until they have a routed unit to chase. Then they will concentrate on chasing routed units, switching to the next closest enemy unit when they have destroyed the first one. One right click releases the dogs, double right click causes the handlers to charge the targeted unit also. Your dog handlers will breed new dogs during each six month turn, so wardogs are self-replenishing, like bodyguard cav, as long as you don’t lose the handlers.

    Wardogs can also be very useful in sieges, though I do not typically use them there. Dogs will follow a routed unit right into the city, capturing the gates as they go by. They will still get killed by boiling oil and will get creamed if the unit they are following makes it to the central plaza and re-groups, so make sure to have at least one other unit following them close behind for support.

    But far and away, the crown jewels of Gallic arms are the foresters. Forester warbands are simply the most awesome archers in the game; 25% better than even Cretan archers or Pharoah’s bowmen. Briton headhurlers and Roman praetorian and urban cohorts have slightly more missile power, but foresters can use flame, have a huge range, and I very rarely run out of arrows while using them in a battle—and then only in the largest battles where the enemies bring on one or more reinforcement armies. Five or six foresters can rout most armies. Five or six foresters can rout two of most armies.

    This, then, becomes my ideal stack once I have conquered enough Roman cities to build all my elite units: 5-6 foresters, 4-5 cav, 1 druid, 1 dogs, 2 naked fanatics, 5-6 chosen swords, and my general. String the foresters in a double line, 2 deep, in front of everyone else. String the swords behind them, wide enough to reach to the edges of the foresters’ formation. (Sometimes, when the Romans have lots of heavy cav, such as the main SPQR stack, I can’t stretch my infantry this thin and need to keep deep unit formations.) Back this line with the 2 fanatics, the druids, and your general. Put the dogs at one corner, and set the cav in pairs out wide.

    Against barbarian troops or low armor, I use flame. This will turn most armies away. Against more heavily armored troops, or enemy general’s cav units, I simply use arrows for better kill ratios. Strung out 2 deep, the foresters are going to be slow to react in skirmish mode, but they have enough defense to hang on in most cases while you bring your swords forward to rescue them. This sort of formation is very difficult for the enemy to crack due to the sheer firepower of the foresters. Inevitably, the AI will try to crash your archers with its cav. If (when) one of your forester units gets caught this way, rush the nearby infantry to help, while the rest of the infantry gives a warcry. If you have time, its best to have the rushers give their warcry also, since it increases their attack. It is rare to have enemy infantry survive long enough to crash your lines. If they do, hit back with the 3 swords closest to the action, then throw in a fanatics for good measure once the enemy unit is in melee. With your druids singing along, the enemy unit will rout. If it is a super elite enemy unit with extreme morale and is still fighting after all of this, loose the dogs on them.

    The hardest part about using foresters is keeping your own men out of the line of fire. Five or six forester units will simply paint the ground gold with their arrows, and they are not overly discriminate in targeting or reaction time. If you let your own guys get involved out in the center of the battlefield, ahead of your foresters, you run a very high risk of getting lots of casualties and having your own guys rout. You have to have faith that the foresters are going to do their job. This means you must hold your infantry line back as a sort of bulwark behind which the foresters can retreat. Don’t loose your dogs until the battle is mostly over, or in an emergency when your line is being crashed. Keep your cav out wide and deep; their primary job is to churn the enemy lines a little to delay and/or destroy the enemy’s cohesive advance, and to chase routers once they have run out of range from your foresters. With large enemy armies, cav can often get away with working in tandem to sandwich an unprotected enemy missile unit or two, but their modus operandi in this task has to be smash and grab—charge, cause a rout, and get out. Keep your men clear of the killing field and let the foresters do their thing.

    Curiously, foresters are pretty much worthless in bridge defenses. Unless you have 5 or so forester bands present—enough to completely destroy an enemy unit while it attempts to cross the bridge—you must not line up foresters to defend a bridge crossing. Because of the RTW missile targeting system, 1 or 2 foresters will shoot into the backs of, and utterly destroy, any of your own infantry units that you are trying to use to defend the bridge. In fact, I believe foresters will kill much more of your own men than of the enemy’s when firing into a melee. Unless you have 4 or more forester bands, or have a spot where foresters can fire from the flanks onto the bridge, you must not use foresters to defend bridges, but must allow the enemy bridge crossing and set up as for a regular field battle.

    Similarly, in field battles, you must turn off “fire at will” on foresters and send them quickmarching in the opposite direction (or withdrawing) once you have routed the enemy army and wish to give chase. Failing to do this will result in hundreds of friendly fire deaths. Even so, your stupid bowmen will likely launch a couple last salvos while marching away, in a miraculous footman’s Parthian shot, to kill a few dozen of your own men before they get out of range. (“Hey, Franco, I still have this one flaming arrow. What should I do with it?” “Aw, just shoot it in the general direction of the battle…”)

    Once you have pushed the Romans out of Italy and are able build foresters, chosen swords, and noble cav in their well-developed cities, you should be able to coast most of the rest of the game. Keep the pressure on the Romans, extinguish the Brutii Adriatic cities, and finish off Germany. In most games, Carthage has a hard time surviving, and either Numidia inherits, or Scipii conquers, North Africa. This means the Spanish will likely conquer Corduba, and then attack you.

    Because you start with no ships in the Med, it is easy to forget to make foreign trade treaties. However, you will find yourself short of funds if you neglect this, because all your nearest neighbors will be warring with you. You need to build at least a single ship out of Numantia to get a diplomat to North Africa and ultimately up to the Black Sea. You will eventually also want a flotilla to deliver an army to Sicily.

    Because the naval autoresolve is so bad, and the AI builds so many ships, it is virtually impossible to have a competitive navy. No problem; all you want is something that will survive a short trip. To invade Sicily, use the same sneak tactics you used to invade England—slip up to the shore of southern Italy, load your army, cross the straits, and unload in the same turn, if at all possible. It’s best to wait to invade Sicily until after you have eliminated the Brutii and Spain, since both these factions keep huge navies. Your flotilla can survive 2 attacks from Scipii ships, but 3-6 attacks in one turn from different enemies working as a tag team will sink them.

    After you have eliminated the Britons, but before you have completely exterminated the Germans, you will likely go to war with Dacia—who will have handily allied themselves with Germania. In the vast majority of games, Dacia is a faction with a large area, but no ports, and thus a poor economy and military. They are not that difficult to conquer, and you typically need their provinces to claim victory anyway. There are a barbarian faction, so use the same tactics you have been using against the Germans and they should provide no real problems.

    The Greeks and/or the Macedonians (depending on the political situation) will always backstab you and attack once you contact Northern Greece and finish off the Brutii there. But by this time, you should already be loaded with foresters, and experienced at fighting German spear warbands. Use the same tactics with phalanxes, which are just slower, but more deadly, as you did with German spear warbands. Rip the phalanx apart with your foresters, then charge from the rear with your cav. Few things are as satisfying as watching one of your cav units knock an entire phalanx over from behind like a bunch of dominoes stood on end. But the front end of a phalanx is even more dangerous than the front of a German spear warband. If you charge from the front, or let the phalanx have time to turn around, your cav will not survive.

    Greece/Macedonia is usually the last major faction you will need to conquer. You can pick up a few more provinces from the large, lightly defended wilds in the northeast to round out your list of 50 provinces. As the Gauls, I have never had to go into North Africa, or east or south of the Black Sea before claiming victory. Much like the Julii, the Gauls typically become sovereigns of all of Western Europe, with the Atlantic to protect them to the west and north. Once you have turned all of Western Europe Gallic green, you need only extend your hegemony a little further east and north to claim your Gaul victory.
    Last edited by Saint Nicholas; January 21, 2011 at 09:10 PM. Reason: updated

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