Battle Tips? + a big story

**Spajjder** · June 27, 2006, 04:46 PM

Hi. I Must say I'm utterly amazed that I can't seem to beat gauls army even once If the prebattle ratio or the numbers are the same before a battle in my julii campaign. It starts to feel like MTW 1 :original: (I play on VH/Vh large unit settings)
Only in mtw there was obvius counter units to each other so I could come up with a strategy.

This is my story: I start out with the usual provinces, Take segesta pretty easy. Then the gauls show up.
They come with an army of two warbands and one barbarian cavalry. I Counter them with a small army consisting of 2 hastati 1 princepes and one general unit. They are the attackers so they walk to me, I throw a pila rain and then charge with my princepes on one warband and a hastati on the other. The other hastati I move around and charge from the flank. This doesnt work at all though. While doing this manouver very many of my orginal hastati group are killed and the group are greatly reduced in numbers.
Also the enemy general charges at my princepes that are engaging the other warband. In responce I charge my general at his from the rear but it has no results whatsoever. in the charge that I do in his back I loose 6 men and some as well.
well, I move out and charge again, my general dies. My units that are almost are all greatly outnumbered already sees my generals deaths and starts running.

Well, I send an equal army against the gauls this time since I took out at least 1/3 of their infantry and some of their cavalry.
This time it's only 3 groups of hastati 1 archers 1 general unit.
It's the same result, no matter how I shot them in their flanks with arhers and charge them there they don't rout!
Rock-steady!
This time i rout with my general before he will be killed as well, but I loose most of my infantry and it's a defeat.
I'm starting to take this group seriously now so I take all my forces from arrentium and segesta to crush them, and I do. They were greatly outnumbered in this fight so I only lost a few men.

The gauls for some reason propose a ceise fire so I accept.
I get a mission to capture caralis from carthage for the glory of the empire so I send down a brute force consisting of 6 hastati units whereof some of them are experienced and upgraded weapons.
I land on caralis, but does not have enough mp to go besieging the settlement.
Guess what happens next turn? 2 armies bigger than mine show up from nowhere... (Never ever seen this before but it's great, maybe RTW 1.5 upgrades) and the battle turns out to a close defeat. The carhaginians are easier to kill than the gauls but their phalanx and generals unit are nearly immortal to my hastati

Well another generals dead, and so is my army. Now the gauls attack from up north. at segesta. I manage to destroy this army with my big force in segesta, mostly princepes. In this fight I took all my army and attacked one unit at a time. It somewhat worked in the begining, but I got a big part of my army surrounded but snatched a close victory al the same.
Now I was getting desperate, My money was almost of but fortunaly both the spanions and the macedonians and the greek wanted a cease fire this turn and I got some money this way.

So now I mustered the largest army yet, about 700 hastatis princeps and 2 generals.
The gauls meet me with 800 men + 500 in reinforcments.
Again I surround the enemy and they surround me, After some heavy manouvering, flanking and heavy losses I actually grab victory, I thought. I have about 150 men left when the gallic reinforcements are attacking me. well, I loose, obviously.
so now I have 2 big gallic armies at my lands, one at my eastern city and one just outside my capital.

My army Is nonexistent since everything is dead... !

I won 3 victories, one was pyrrhic... eh, or how you spell it.
Lost 7, (didn't bring them all up)

How should I have played this to have won?
How the hell do you win against the gauls? is there some tactic? Because I think I used the terrain good, flanked them, used repeating cavalry charges etc. how do you manage?

Great mod btw!

**Joudahmon** · June 27, 2006, 07:31 PM

Maybe because you play on VH/VH? That difficulty, usually no matter the mod, is extremely unbalanced and unrealistic. The AI gets ungodly bonuses (money in campaign, moral in battle). I think H/H is the most realistic yet challenging difficulty setting for most mods and even vanilla.

**Spajjder** · June 28, 2006, 04:17 AM

there must be a way even on vh/vh
h/h is never hard

**Pietrak** · June 28, 2006, 05:27 AM

h/h is simply realistic.

**Bearhugger** · June 28, 2006, 10:47 AM

try to take those two near gaul cities in the first 5 turns. then you can defend the borders (mountain paths). then you can even decide not to fight gauls anymore and concentrate on another enemy.

I tried it but got squished on vh/vh.
problem with gaul is that it's full auf gauls!
seriously, julii are the weakest roman faction as their temples are weakest. gauls though, are one of the strongest factions in the beginning. good temples, many provinces. and they even get stronger over time.
no idea how to beat them on vh/vh. try hard campaign difficulty, so the enemies won't gangrape you

**Grand Duke Vytautas** · June 28, 2006, 11:26 AM

Originally Posted by Bearhugger

problem with gaul is that it's full auf gauls!

that made me remember the good old movie Braveheart

Well when I played Julii on h/h, I can tell that you should try to concentrate your early military entirely on those 2 Gaul cities near the Alps in northern Italy, blitzkrieg them or whatever but try to do that as quickly as possible, otherwise you'll have huge problems with Gauls invading you with massive armies. Once you've done that defend, stabilize your lands, economy for a bit, build up infrastructure and additional units and then you can concentrate on the futher war with gauls or try to capture Carthage's islands or maybe send an expeditionary force to Greece to capture Zeus wonder. Good luck with Julii, the sexiest looking romans