The Gauls

[Necrontyr]

I can never seem to get past the gauls, all they do is mass and mass and sawrm my northern bases and i am having to repeatably fight there and with only afew pronvinces to generate income, its becoming hard to build structures and maintain a military army to the north, does anyone know any good ways to defeat Gauls in Northern Italy cause at the moment I have 10 fully armed egions there and are currently engaged against uncountable armies of Gauls

[suspect_2]

this is normal in the beginning. do you play on m/m difficulty settings? do you use the tactics explained here and in the documents in your SPQR folder? what are your losses in a regular battle? the first gaul armies are not that much of an elite and can be routed pretty fast. if you use shieldwall and let them exhaust themselves you should be able to make them run in no time

[czePowerslave]

Hehe, you can easily keep Gauls at bay with about 3-5 legions. Depends on how good you fight. If you want to steal steam from them, just take these 10 and push. Trust me, with 10 legions you can take like 5 cities from them and see they will be teethless.

[Ejergard]

Gaul will lose steam when you start taking lands in Iberia aswell.

[czePowerslave]

Gaul will lose steam when you start taking lands in Iberia aswell.

Nor to mention the MONEY there.

Ok, i usually play on medium difficulty and the Gauls just dont stop, ive decieded to abbandon Northern italy and leave the SPQR to defend while I conquer the East, thats much easier and with Hannibal dead and Southern Italy mine, ill leave Northern Europe to last

Baaad, take the north! Thats one of the keys, there are several very good natural obstacles and defendable routes

[Necrontyr]

Ok, i usually play on medium difficulty and the Gauls just dont stop, ive decieded to abbandon Northern italy and leave the SPQR to defend while I conquer the East, thats much easier and with Hannibal dead and Southern Italy mine, ill leave Northern Europe to last

[Knight of Heaven]

hehe someone has problems wiith the gauls, well i find efective, is to take the fight to the gauls, dont wait arround for then to atack you , they will lose resources and steam if you push then back , also atack ibéria is anice thing becouse they wil not be able to spand to much, and they will take more time to raise armies and atack you in any fronts.

[Necrontyr]

o kk thnxs pplz

[Darkangel87]

Your legions against the Gauls should consist of a General with appropriate companions (like a "Barbarian Turncoat etc.), 4 Hastati, 5 Principes, 3 Triarii, 2 Velites, 2 Slingers and 3 Mercenary Noble Barbarian Cavalry. After upgrading the Roman units by finishing armourers and academies in Mediolanum and Darantasia, they are almost unbeatable by the Gauls. Place 3 legions in Gaul, the first on rising ground northwest of Darantasia. the second on rising ground in the mountains north of genua, guarding the mountain pass and the third legion north of Patavium. Furthermore, a fort should guard the border to Dacia/Thracia. Now you are in a very strong position against the Gauls AND the Germans
Regards
Marcel

[Darkangel87]

By the way:
I stoped the Gauls and the Germans in the north, but in the south Sicily is consistently the aim of Greek and Carthagian invasions. My legion there is composed as follows: 1 General, 2 Equites, 8 Principes, 2 Mercenary Hoplites, 2 Mercenary Sword Hoplites, 2 Rhodian Slingers, 3 Illyrian Peltasts. This army wins the day again and again with 100-200 losses in comparison to 3000-4000 enemies. The Illyrian Peltasts kill the Carthagian Elephants with ease on great distance.

Regards
Marcel

[czePowerslave]

Thats against the house rules composition it removes the challenge from playing in my opinion. But suit yourself, its your way to play the game

[Darkangel87]

Yes, I know. And I promise that I shall play in the houserule-style when my Roman Republic is tightened. I wondered about the house rules and arrived to the conclusion that I, if I had been Roman Supreme Commander in the Republic times with the Carthagians, Greeks and Gauls assaulting the gates of my cities, had assembled every mercenary money could buy in order to rescue my realm. Later is enough time to fight my battles with gentlemen-army-compositions!
Regards
Marcel

[czePowerslave]

Yeah I go with that too. But the composition of hastati princepes triarii is simply the best

[lt1956]

Except in SPQR there are more mercs available than in real life, also the armies at the time were composed that way because you couldnt build men, they are born in their station with alot of them being poor land owners with no armor hardly, etc.

[Necrontyr]

yea, the main problem for me is actually getting money which starts to get me angry LOL, ill figure it out

[Darkangel87]

In the beginning it´s essential to build ports, traders, roads, mines (if affordable) instead of military buildings. Focus your military buildings in just a few towns near the frontier (e.g. Genua) and try to upgrade this towns to the next stage of development by sending peasants and then dissolving same. You soon will be able to recruit upgraded Principes and Triarii in these towns in order to stop the Gauls and Germans. The rest of your settlements ought to develop a strong economy. Also look after the retainers of your characters. E.g. a “priest of vulcanus” is very useful in a city with mines, a “decorated hero” is fantastic in cities with barracks to recruit your army etc.
Regards
Marcel

[Raglan]

yea, the main problem for me is actually getting money which starts to get me angry LOL, ill figure it out

you should have a look for hesus' 15 turn guide, i have a link in my help guide (my signature) as he explains things far better than me. But first thing to build is the mines in Arretium, after that i rely on my SPQR experience to use those three starting armies to produce great results (since my losses are usually in teh hastari i can pull it off)

i then spend about the first four or five turns building as many roads and ports as possible, this usually sets me up good for capturing everything south of the po river, i then build a couple of extra legions (via capua which starts with a larger population and is the only place i ever bother building military buildings rather thean economc at the start) place them on the northen border (making sure that i've reconquered taras) and then sit still til about 200BC. While i'm sitting there i just focus on building as much economic as possible, but still upgrade the baracks when i get the opitunity.

This gives me a huge bank balance for when i finally role out of italy - it works out more or less that i can have a legion for every city, with a little spare for building projects.

[Bellus88]

Im not having trouble with the Gauls right now, I easily took Nothern Italy and Southern Gaul, they made a counter attack and took 2 cities but I managed to get them back. Im playing on Hard/Hard difficulty, I do admit though I used money cheats (only to recruity mercenaries). I don't see how its really "cheating" since almost every time I used them I had a lot less money on my next turn then I normally would. The Germans are the ones to watch out for piss them off and they send hordes of armies against you, I took Patavium and they just kept sending more. Ive had to make forts just to hold them off, they just don't stop attacking. They are also one of the best Barbarian armies in the game with there axe specialists and chosen axe men. I have yet to see Beserkers.

[czePowerslave]

Im not having trouble with the Gauls right now, I easily took Nothern Italy and Southern Gaul, they made a counter attack and took 2 cities but I managed to get them back. Im playing on Hard/Hard difficulty, I do admit though I used money cheats (only to recruity mercenaries). I don't see how its really "cheating" since almost every time I used them I had a lot less money on my next turn then I normally would. The Germans are the ones to watch out for piss them off and they send hordes of armies against you, I took Patavium and they just kept sending more. Ive had to make forts just to hold them off, they just don't stop attacking. They are also one of the best Barbarian armies in the game with there axe specialists and chosen axe men. I have yet to see Beserkers.

Thats cheating. Big time actually and for meh, money cheating is one of the worst and no matter how hard difficulty you have, you use cheats so you can survive the game. NOt right, not good, nuffin. Having to manage with your resources is hard in the beginning and adds much fun to the game. Using cheats to overcome this is just cheap. ALso making many forts what for? WEll, read house rules and learn to play the challenging game. Cause from what I read all around, your gamestyle is just cheating and forum spamming. Howg

[Necrontyr]

lol i was getting close to using cheats but i forced myself to say no