Ceaser in Gaul campaign inordinately difficult for anyone else?

[valencew]

Ceasar in Gaul campaign winning heroic victory after heroic victory only for enemy armies to sprout magically out of nowhere...how many multi-full stack battles do I need to win against an enemy with at most three settlements to their name?

I guess what I'm really asking is, any advice on Caesar in Gaul campaign? I've never had any real difficulty in any previous Total War games campaigns (and I've played the majority), this campaign is just insane if you ask me. Anyone else actually not find it to be difficult...or is the general consensus that its just a tough one? Wondering if recent patches made the AI more difficult for this campaign?

[valencew]

Managed to win finally, some tips for anyone struggling - make sure to simply use the demolish option on pretty much any barbarian buildings in settlements you capture - you get a nice influx of money in return, you can actually build the buildings back up relatively quickly afterward, and even if you lose the settlement - the enemy only gets the less developed buildings, rather than the old ones you tried to rebuild for 16 turns! Aside from that, keep as many armies in the field as you can support and each time a faction declares war on you, press the attack on them as much as possible and as soon as you capture a settlement or two, sue them for peace (a little gold often helps to convince them here). You want to keep from having to fight the entire rest of the map at any time and you can usually strong arm the AI into accepting peace after you've given them a bit of a beating. Tough campaign, but satisfying to win in the end.

[Charles XII]

Yes I played and eventually won on legendary following the ancestral update. But yes, extremely difficult campaign especially against armies stacked with chosen swords and later oathsworn.
Take a leaf out of Caesar's own book and divide and conquer. Try and keep some tribes friendly or at least neutral for as long as possible and eliminate your enemies one-by-one. Deal with the Averni and some of the lesser tribes before you have to take on the Gallic Confederation.

Build a strategy around creating impregnable strongholds that you can use to breakdown his offensives while providing a foundation for your own advances. My strategy was to hold onto Octudron as the gateway to Italy while I took the offensive in Gaul against the Averni and Gallic Confederations. First capturing and holding Burdigala (Bordeaux) in the west and Maslilia in the south were important milestones. The turning point was when I took Namentum: that gave me enough easily defensible territory and stability to contain his incursions and allowed me enough time to recover and deal with the next onslaught while denying him a hugely valuable base.

Seasons play a very important role in Caesar and can give you a big advantage used well. AI armies went into hibernation during the winter months which is a good time for you to consolidate or grab some key undefended or weakly held strongpoints. In the spring and summer expect to lose some settlements when he takes the offensive. But as long as you hold onto your main strongholds you will have a good position to regain much of what you've lost, so use the winter to regain lost territories and prepare for the next onslaught. It's a case of withstanding his attacks while waiting for your opportunity to counter attack and conquer. As he loses more territory his attacks will weaken. It's also important to try and wrap things up before he's able to recruit large numbers of super-heavy infantry like the Oathsworn which I found overpowering and almost invincible.

You also have a large number of agents at your disposal and needless to say they are indispensable to hold off and delay some of his bigger forces.I made a lot of use of dignitaries' ability to bribe his heavy infantry units into disbanding which gave me a big edge when the clash came.

[valencew]

I found that in my campaign (again, I don't know if its a case of playing on different updates), that the AI actually went on the offensive during Winter. I found myself unable to do much but hole up in my walled cities in winter as I would lose troops even during movement phase (let alone attrition taken if you leave a force out in the open at the end of a turn). I would only take weakly defended smaller settlements that were within shorter marching distance in winter, otherwise it was hole up and hope the AI didn't overrun me (I believe the barbarian factions in the campaign suffered much less attrition in winter due to their bonuses, that and they just didn't seem to care much about supporting their massive stacks...just get them, throw them at the player and then get more later without worrying much about their fate or even likelihood of success). Ahh well, glad we both found our way to success and brought a little bit of pax romana to these crazy bearded bastards.

[Charles XII]

Originally posted by valencew:

I found that in my campaign (again, I don't know if its a case of playing on different updates), that the AI actually went on the offensive during Winter. I found myself unable to do much but hole up in my walled cities in winter as I would lose troops even during movement phase (let alone attrition taken if you leave a force out in the open at the end of a turn). I would only take weakly defended smaller settlements that were within shorter marching distance in winter, otherwise it was hole up and hope the AI didn't overrun me (I believe the barbarian factions in the campaign suffered much less attrition in winter due to their bonuses, that and they just didn't seem to care much about supporting their massive stacks...just get them, throw them at the player and then get more later without worrying much about their fate or even likelihood of success). Ahh well, glad we both found our way to success and brought a little bit of pax romana to these crazy bearded bastards. :rbiggrin:

Interesting, my AI was passiv to invisible during winters but in other respects I encountered the same as you: extreme real-time attrition if I went "off road" in winter and virtually none for the Ai even during sieges, although native armies are supposed to be more acclimatised and less prone to attrition. Agents can give you a big edge as the AI's agent use seems limited to 2-3 actions it repeats over and over. Like your avatar - one of my heroes growing up!

[easytarget]

I found CIG to be a hard win, that's why I found it particularly interesting. It was like facing realm divide from almost the first turn facing off against the barbarians.

[Mouse]

Its mainly legionaries vs levy freeman, i can't see how it would be hard. There is the spawning event, but most settlements you can just defedn with your garrisons.

[easytarget]

haha, i can wear down your precious roman troops with wave after wave of barbarian zerg

[Charles XII]

Originally posted by noob:

Its mainly legionaries vs levy freeman, i can't see how it would be hard. There is the spawning event, but most settlements you can just defedn with your garrisons.

What level yre you playing on? Most of the factions I played had chosen swords and spearman and later Oathswoarn who are all but invincible. Romans don't have anything of that power.