I've been experimenting with my first serious Gaul and Britannia campaigns with mixed results. I had trouble with the Britons, I couldn't get my head around this idea of fighting a battle with no cavalry. Chariots do a certain amount in that regard but they don't seem as effective against routers and they're nigh on impossible to control inside a town. And I got fed up with chasing down fleeing Germans, only for them to decide to fight to the death, turn on my general, and do to him what we know all too well a phalanx does to chariots... So, not a happy experience with my native Britons.
Gaul on the other hand felt much better, but I am wondering about the nature of druids. In both games I was at war with the Germans, and with the Britons, despite having chariots handy to intimidate them a little, I found it extremely difficult to kill off those spear warbands - and who wouldn't because they're wonderful. One of my own warbands commits suicide on their pikes to hold them in place while swordsmen and woad warriors attack them in behind. Even so they took a damn long time to break, by which time I'd suffered heavy losses.
However I didn't have any druids in these battles. With Gaul though I had more or less the same units, technologically the same and theoretically weaker too with no woads to deliver a hammer blow or chariots to intimidate. Yet all of a sudden it was a different story, the Germans broke very quickly when they hit my warbands, and I don't take many losses. The only difference I can think of is that this time I had a unit of druids chanting along. Presumably they don't intimidate the enemy, but make my own men fight harder. Has anyone quantified how much harder? I believe war cries are worth +10 to an attack, what score for a chanting Druid I wonder? It must be something considerable to have made this much difference.
Gaul on the other hand felt much better, but I am wondering about the nature of druids. In both games I was at war with the Germans, and with the Britons, despite having chariots handy to intimidate them a little, I found it extremely difficult to kill off those spear warbands - and who wouldn't because they're wonderful. One of my own warbands commits suicide on their pikes to hold them in place while swordsmen and woad warriors attack them in behind. Even so they took a damn long time to break, by which time I'd suffered heavy losses.
However I didn't have any druids in these battles. With Gaul though I had more or less the same units, technologically the same and theoretically weaker too with no woads to deliver a hammer blow or chariots to intimidate. Yet all of a sudden it was a different story, the Germans broke very quickly when they hit my warbands, and I don't take many losses. The only difference I can think of is that this time I had a unit of druids chanting along. Presumably they don't intimidate the enemy, but make my own men fight harder. Has anyone quantified how much harder? I believe war cries are worth +10 to an attack, what score for a chanting Druid I wonder? It must be something considerable to have made this much difference.