Help agianst Gauls

[StenKilla]

Im with my roman campaig (BI version) and i cant seem to beat Gauls, they are just tooo strong.
Im stuck in italy and cant get ovet the alps becus they have soo huge and strong armyes.

[TheAeneas]

so dont advance over the alps. hold a defensive line. If you feel really overwhelmed, you can always build lots of forts guarding the passages through the alps and down into italy. just dump one of the cheaper units into each one of the forts and the ai armies will be held up by all the forts. (Keep in mind that the AI can only do so much, so you will have them at rather a disadvantage by using all of the forts.)

Build up a few ships and then set sail with your armies and land on the southern coast of gaul. advance and trash there cities!

[C-Rob]

Tactics on the battlefield are equally important as the logistics of the land- can you post your minimap?

Are you post-marius?

I find it very difficult to fight Gauls/germans because their land is densely forested reducing the effectiveness of missles and cavalry, increasing their men's effectiveness, reducing yours, and even hiding tactical opportunities from you. I'd avoid open field battles like the plague.

You might want to send a lot of spies and diplomats into their land to bribe away forces and to look for places where you can send a boat full of an army of yours and kick them off of the coast and work your way inland. I would send a boat to take massilia immediately. It gives you an opportunity to defend a ford and you can ambush their armies in the alpine pass north of it as well. Hold them in the alps until you have taken a lot of land from them on the coast. It gets rid of a lot of their wealth too. A negative is that it could open up a large front for you but in other ways it shrinks it because it spreads their forces out and you can just fortify the area to make it difficult for them to even move.

You could just ravage the land you take through your amphibious assaults(relocate and sell all their buildings) and then leave it for them to retake. Eventually you'll be facing a bunch of spearmen, heavily weakened strong units, and the occasional general and you'll be a far more effective invader. That might be considered cheating though.

Telling you don't go over the alps isn't really effective I think, because there are cities there that are your victory conditions.

Edit++ But here's some battlefield strategy as well-

They are clearly barbarians. Work their morale. Siege weapons and flame arrows, make it all over the battlefield. Fire on their flanks. Use the forest to your advantage if you have to fight in one and hide your cavalry, or at least attempt to. Atleast one of your alae should be hidden, no matter how the enemy approaches. Recruit any strong mercenaries that you run into. They will help a lot because they have similar advantages as their gaulish counterparts and they also have warcry, meaning another tool to work against the enemy's morale.

[Ioannes Tzimiskes]

What´s difficulty you are playing?

[StenKilla]

Medium/medium
ive never taken pics, can u tell me how?
Yes ive already had the imperial reforms already. i must say my legion units are rather weak. those republican legions where much stronger in attack skill.
Every time i attack i win but when i get to the city i never get a chanse to siege and must return back cuz they have throw new full stack right in.
Thanks C-Rob ill try invading south. i had whole southern france but they took it from me. i managed to stop theyr advance at Milan(dont remember the real name)

[Titus Maximius Thongus]

move quickly to capture key cities in the spring/summer and hunker down for the winter. Barbarian troops get a advantage in snow, so the last thing you want is to fight battles within them in the forests during winter. Have your legions fortify themselves around captured cities, and after wearing down their men a little, make a rapid push towards the next city.

[torzsoktamas]

DO you have a strong economy?

Well in my old RS1.5 roman campaign gaul was strong.I then made 2 full stack armies with legionaries and guarded the passes in the alps till I made myself an effective conquering force in italy.They came like madman,but I could defend the pass.I took me big casualties but,when they throw away their nearby armies I had 1-2 turns unatacked.So I took over the initiative and with just 4-5 full stack armies I made and agressive attack.Took a few cities,leaved there a small garrison and went on.I constantly trained and sent reinforcements.Eventually they broke.

But make sure to have a strong economy.My war with them consumed mutch money.If you have a weak or averadge economy,than build 203 full stacks and defend the alps till you build your economy up and when you can afford a big army with 4-5 or 6-7 stacks switch to agressive stance and invade gaul.

Hope it helps.

[StenKilla]

Ha it works! i dont know how to remove the fog of war from the minimap

[torzsoktamas]

To remove the fog of war type this into the console:toggle_fow

Hmm,I see your northern cities aren't that happy.I suggest guarding the passes in the Alps till you make a good economic infrastructure to support a biger army and then "pay back time",attack gaul.

[StenKilla]

Yeah they are unhappy cuz of unrest and Squalor

[Footos]

Hmmm....Well I see you've got a bit of a rebel problem in Italy I would remove those armies. This can probably provide more income to build more legions. I'd go with what the others say and try not to cross through the alps if thats where the Gauls are coming from and try to invade from the sea.

Invade Iberia, if the Iberians are weak enough, and go through them to encircle the Gauls. There is also a pass through the alps near Patavium you can sneak a few legions through there if you didn't know about it. It really helped me against the Germans in my Roman campaign. Good luck!

[StenKilla]

Thank you all i was almost giving up Can you tell me what are the best units to train into my stack? i use ton of inf 3 archers and 3 cavalry

[C-Rob]

Destroy all of your growth initiatives!

That might help with the situation in Italy.

In my campaign my italian cities are shrinking or staying at 23-25K and are excellent and their citizens passive.

[StenKilla]

When i declared war i thought "What the hell, ill be assulting britain by Winter"

[torzsoktamas]

Hmm, they look quite strong.I see you have Carthage.Do carthage give any resistance?You could sacrifice the war with carthage,take your forces from there and repel the gauls.Thats the last idea that comes into my mind.

[StenKilla]

Im at peace with Carthage but i dont trust em they declared war many times. I took a legion back to carthage to retrain but they aint done yet

[King Nud]

sail a boat to Palma and take that from Carthage, then use it as a base/resupply/recruitment hotbed to launch wave after victorious wave onto the gaul beaches.

[General Brittanicus]

I would personally abandon the siege of genoa and either try to destroy those stacks above separtely by isolating them or using a night attack general in order to break the siege, then go back to genoa if casualties arent too high and if they are wait for more reinforcements to reach you from central italy.

Are you using 1 turn recruitment or 0 turn? Sorry if you already mentioned it already.

[StenKilla]

No need they came for me..And i won
Oooh and Ps: when i took carthage i took it from freepeople not carthage

[Scarrus]

From what I see your economy isn't supporting you a lot... Concentrate on making more money too