Playing As Gaul

[Snoopy]

Any hints? I have tried it 3 times in the past, and here were the results:

(1) I was new to RTW. I moved most of my forces to northern Italy and was about to start sacking Italian cities when the Britons captured one of my towns. But I was determined. So I marched down and fought the Julii. I took Segesta, and beat their armies, but couldn't take their cities. Slowly the Britons took my towns, and Rome assembled and kicked my arse out of Italia.

(2) A while later (Having won as the Julii) I tried again. I did roughly the same tactics, but left fairly good garrisons in the event of attack. I attacked the Julii, but this time used Blitzkrieg, rushing their cities and killing their generals as fast as possible. Soon they were beaten. I decided I must move with all haste (Because if I didn't, we would get into a stalemate which the Romans would win from superior technology, a safer flank, and a better income). So I rushed towards southern Italy. I noticed the Senate army was wandering around in some mountains miles off from their town, so I besieged it and had it conquered the next turn. Bye bye SPQR.

Then things got tougher. The Scipii and Brutii caught on and built troops to hold their lands, occasionally raiding me. The Britons kept assaulting my northern towns, the Roman cities started rioting, and my income began to slowly decline. Eventually Rome revolted and the Romans launched a big attack as well as the British. My positions crumbled under the superior might of my rivals, and soon I was stuck in inland Gaul again.

(3) I did roughly the same as last time, only this time round planning to take out all the Romans at once. I succeeded in taking out the Julii, but THIS time the Senate had its army kill my troops when they attacked. This was an annoyance. Soon enough, the Romans amassed the usual large army and pushed me out, only this time the Britons left me alone.

[Trumanator]

I think you might be rushing too much. I only have experience on normal/normal difficulty, but I had a lot of success when I just spent some time building up. I kicked the Brits off the continent, and left a decent size army to kill any raiding parties that showed up, as well as deal with the Germans when they invaded. I had most of my troops down in N. Italy killing any armies the Julii sent out. After a while it got a good amount of XP and I took them down. I ambushed the SPQR army by sticking my army in some woods next to a road and putting a lone warband a little farther down it. That took care of them pretty easily. If I had waited a little longer I would have had some Forester warbands, arguably the best archers in the game, to deal with anything new. I was playing short campaign, so things were over once I took Rome, but I think this might still apply in principle.

[NobleNick]

Not trying to be antagonistic, but: I think you might not be rushing enough.

Gaul gets only 3 tiers of tech. You need to rush to the top of the tech tree, and get those fearsome warriors out there before others get to levels 4 and 5, and definitely before the Romans get to the Marius Reforms. Gaul is an early game power. So... ensure there is no late game!!

Study the temple system and building browser closely. Top priority: Get gold sword Foresters ASAP. Second priority: get Chosen swords to guard your Foresters and help create fear. It also helps to get and learn to use all-cav half-stacks. Do an advanced search for posts by me on all-cav strategy.

Here are some snippets and links I found for you. There are a few which are better which I know are out there, but I ran out of time searching. Maybe Monday, if you haven't found what you need by then.

A link to a thread I started BEFORE I knew how awesome Gaul was.

Here is a link to using cavalry in dirty, underhanded ways.

Below is my reply to someone asking if Gaul or some other faction was better....

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

...Gaul. I can't believe it is even a question. The Gauls start as the largest and strongest faction on the map. And can ANY Barbarian faction field ANY mix that can stand up to 6 gold-sword Forester warbands, 2 well-placed units of chanting Druids, a protective curtain of 10 upgraded Chosen Swordsmen, and an 8-star general or two (and the Gauls can afford to have two)? I think not. Most opposing armies won't even be able to close to melee with the Chosen Swordsmen: The pitiful, Forester-shredded remants of their units will pee their pants about 10 yards away, under the combined might of the Druid chant and the Chosen warcry, and start hauling out of there under blinking white flags. I say START hauling out: Once they turn their backs, it only takes one or two volleys to eliminate the unit.

It's happened to me so many times: Bring 10 units of Chosen to a fight, and they get NO kills. Zero. Zip. Nada. None. Foresters are the only archer unit I know of which has a higher missile attack -AND- a higher melee attack than the elite heavy infantry that protects them! High enough, in fact, to send their extremely capable protectors home empty-handed.

With proper training (Weaponsmith, combined with Sacred Circle of Abnoba) green Forester recruits can have a missile/melee rating of 15/15. Retrain at a nearby city with a Sacred Circle of Epona (or is it Teutalis? I forget.) to get 2 chevrons. Since they are typically protected from losses, they gain chevrons quickly; and it only takes about 3 bronze chevrons to bump them to 17/17. A ranged attack of SEVENTEEN?!?!? Yes, seventeen. That is insanely high: BETTER than most heavy cavalry attacks, INCLUDING the cav charge bonus! Factor in the fact that the enemy gets no defensive skill bonus against ranged weapons, and the Forester attack has about the same sting as an attack by heavy cataphracts! The only difference: The enemy can hit back at the heavy cataphracts. Oh, and let's not forget that the Foresters far and away outrange any other archer unit (not including scorpions, ballistas and other siege equipment), can hide ANYWHERE in the field, have great morale, have great stamina, and (GOOD NIGHT!! When will it end?) they get an ADDITIONAL combat bonus in woods or snow! The blood-thirsty Chosen and Druids must envy Foresters as much as the enemy fears and loathes them.

EDIT: As can be seen from the discussion, following this post, Foresters do not outrange other units like Chosen Archers, Cretan Archers and the Roman AA. I think the reason that my Foresters always seem to outrange other archers is because I am pretty good at always being on higher ground before engaging the enemy.

In virtually all my battles that include 4 or more units of Foresters, I lose more of my infantry to my own Forester fire than I do to enemy action. Forester kills are almost always in the two-hundreds or higher... per Forester unit! Foresters rule...

A discussion on using fear units to rout the enemy (Gaul's specialty)...

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

I think that fear effect is cumulative...

I agree. Take Gaul, for instance. I cannot count the number of times that a war cry from my front line swords, combined with the chanting of my Druids and the flaming arrows from my Foresters has routed the enemy before they could make contact with my front line.

There was one memorable battle in which a full Roman stack marched against my group of about 8 Chosen Swords + 6 (experienced + gold sword) Foresters + 2 Druids + General and a few cav units. The Swords were lined up with the Foresters behind (set on "no skirmish" + "fire at will"). The general in the middle. The Druids were 1/4 of the way in from each end of the line, behind the swords, set to chanting at the very beginning of the battle, and never moved. The Foresters took out lots of enemy as they advanced. When the enemy line was about 20 seconds away from closing, I set one unit of Forresters on my left flank to "Flaming arrows" and targeted them at an enemy unit approaching the right end of my line. At 7 seconds until meeting, I set every Chosen Sword to "War cry." The entire front line of Romans routed almost instantly. Within seconds, the entire Roman stack was in flight, getting slaughtered by the 17 or so attack value of the Foresters' arrows. I raced my cav up the sides, WELL AWAY from the Foresters' line of fire, and slew virtually all of the routers. Every Forester unit got well over 100 kills. All of the Chosen Swords COMBINED got ZERO kills.

I have not played as Germania; but seems that you could work a plan where many fear factors were used together to achieve a cumulative effect similar to the one I described.

More Gaul advice....

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Gaul: An excellent single player faction! Blitz early. Pay very close attention to temples. Build upgraded Foresters and protect them while they get experience --> A force with 2 or more experienced gold sword Forresters + 10 H.I. + 2 Druids (chanting) + 3 cav + 1 general is virtually invincible; even against multiple enemy stacks. Make it 4 Forester units instead of 2, and learn the meaning of shock and awe... I have had battles against full Roman (and other faction) stacks, where the enemy was not able to make melee contact... End the game (or at least the Romans) before the reforms have a chance to significantly impact the Romans.

[Blorg]

Well, I always thought that Gaul were good, but NobleNick turns them into world beaters. The unprotected chests and backs of the Germans, Britons and Spaniards do not stand a chance at all! Whilst routing the poor enemy is getting stung in the back whilst watching hordes of cavalry men lie in wait until the foresters are out of range, simply brilliant.

[Amaranth]

I dislike Gaul.
Too many "roaaaarghh" "we kill!! we destroy!!" and so little courage against a disciplined (civilized?) army.

[NobleNick]

Heh, heh, heh. I know I sound like a fanboi, Blorg; but the foresters really are overpowered for the single player game. If Gaul can survive until it gets them in quantity, and can get them in quantity before the Marius reforms, it's over.

[Yojimbo]

Gaul i cant get anywhere with as they have little pop low income and their early troops are just horrible.