Is Gaul OP?

[Laurana Kanan]

Is that really so though?

Yes, it's setup that way in the 'StartingBuildings' table.

 

[Oberinspektor Derrick]

Yes, it's setup that way in the 'StartingBuildings' table.

I see, I'll keep a look out for it in my next game (hopefully tonight!), as I do recall seeing early walls at one point, but kind of forgot about it afterwards and thought they had just hard built the walls early instead of being given them for free after a patch.
Cheers!

 

[Lily_Lancer]

Gaul's strength ability is powerful, however its UU cannot upgrade to swordsman makes a swordsman rush more difficult. Have to wait until musket.

I haven't imagined but it turns out that the Gaul UU is negative.

 

[Kupe Navigator]

https://m.dcinside.com/board/civilization/163948
...
That's bit harsh and typical of them.
They are calling me out for editing unnecessary attack on Fraxis.
Oh well. This will be last post on this issue. The part will be removed in October as they will feel that Gauls are not that OP.

 

[Vilvatiktan]

First game with Ambiorix plus the new Highland Map:
Atuatuca's border can grow real quick like reaaaaally vast in no time, and I'm loving every bit of it.

Kudos to the devs for making Highland Map though, I thought it'd simply be like a usual map with 'new world age' setting turned on, but it turns out great with beautiful large lakes and hills without really crowded mountain ranges that will render the regions useless.

Can't wait to play as Byzantium against the Ottomans!!

 

[Tiger Genocide]

2 Techs for Archery, 2 techs for wheel. The Egypt archer is not later than Pitati, just faster and stronger.

Egypt is maybe the only Civ that can ancient rush neighbor Chandragputa on online speed. (Chandra will get war elephant & walls around T20, what else civ can rush him?)

It might be technically only two techs, but to beeline wheel kind of sucks, but you make a good point.

I haven't rushed a Chandy player in ancient era, on multiplayer yet, but if I were to try that, I would have to pick Sumeria or Nubia. Egypt would do well too, but that beeline isnt great.

 

[Lily_Lancer]

It might be technically only two techs, but to beeline wheel kind of sucks, but you make a good point.

I haven't rushed a Chandy player in ancient era, on multiplayer yet, but if I were to try that, I would have to pick Sumeria or Nubia. Egypt would do well too, but that beeline isnt great.

Sumeria and Nubia can't do that(rush an AI chandra on online deity) . Keep in mind that it has 50+ defense walls on T20. Only Egyptian archer can rush it.

Also, the eureka for wheels is actually much easier to get than the eureka for archery. All you need is to build a builder and settle next to a mine resource. This is much easier than having to find something to kill with your poor weak slinger.

Beeline wheel doesn't suck at all.

 

[Lily_Lancer]

Well, actually I shall say that Gaul is OP, in ancient rush and in general.

I was misled by its UU. Its UU Gaesatae is negative, sure. Costly and cannot upgrade, terrible,

However, its archers are very very strong under the UA. Gaul archers are actually better than Pitati Archers. They're really good at siege, easily stack to 10+ strength bonus, which is insane.

Ranged units are the key for Gaul's strength.

Also captured cities are usually larger and already have their districts built, so don't have to worry about district placement problems. Enjoy your enemy's harbor!

 

[lotrmith]

Color me shocked.

 

[MooFreaky]

I think that people have a misunderstanding of Gaul, and are simply declaring OP.
Gaul will be powerful early game and that's fine. Just because a Civ is powerful early doesn't make it broken, and saying there is no counter is false as it just requires a different style of play. You need to play very defensively against Gaul, don't try and fight them in the open. Delay them and turtle that side of your Empire. As the game progresses they are going to lose their strength, and will have a big opening while transitioning away from their UU which will leave them vulnerable for a counter attack. After that they probably won't be in a position to go on the offensive again unless you give them an opening.

The mine culture bomb isn't that bad for a few reasons. They need the land to get districts, and since they cannot set them next to their capital they lose their easy triangles for bonuses. The terrain that they will be building them on will mean that they won't be as efficient with their placements and will have to sacrifice mines or farms etc to get districts. And if they are playing a tight net of cities then those citites are going to be fighting over those tiles even more, so district placement will be tough.
Gaul will want key cities to have lots of space, which isn't efficient for early game domination (where you want to plonk down a couple of cities at minimum distance).

Plus if they want to take advantage of those culture bombs they need to build workers, which again is slow. Most Civs can easily be aggressive with minimal builders because growth is less necessary than a bunch of cities building units. Then once they have transitioned from the early game their homeland is going to be less efficient for later because they can't all be getting districts properly, so will only have a couple of genuinely good cities for later on, while a bunch of terrible cities have all their tiles stripped.

I think they seem like they will be powerful, but not broken. And their style sounds incredibly interesting, not nearly as run of the mill as some have suggested.

Perhaps they are just angry that Korea isn't as all powerful as it once was?

 

[Sostratus]

Color me shocked.

It was always going to be the ranged units that make Eburones shine. They are also the easiest to place for this bonus melee dps depends on blob perimeter, ranged dps depends on blob area.

You need to play very defensively against Gaul, don't try and fight them in the open. Delay them and turtle that side of your Empire. As the game progresses they are going to lose their strength, and will have a big opening while transitioning away from their UU which will leave them vulnerable for a counter attack. After that they probably won't be in a position to go on the offensive again unless you give them an opening.

The problem with this plan is that they don't fall off with their UU. The UU really just keeps you safe from being cheesed by War Carts or Eagles. The true power of the combat ability is making a ball of archers with swords in the front. They can leverage archers greatly; they can leverage swords greatly; they can then leverage crossbows well, and then muskets/P&S if for whatever reason you are still alive.
They get a big surge just after ironworking as they improve all their mines via oppidum and can start getting swords in front of the archer ball. The whole reason we think its OP is because it's gonna be hell to defend against that.

 

[MooFreaky]

The problem with this plan is that they don't fall off with their UU. The UU really just keeps you safe from being cheesed by War Carts or Eagles. The true power of the combat ability is making a ball of archers with swords in the front. They can leverage archers greatly; they can leverage swords greatly; they can then leverage crossbows well, and then muskets/P&S if for whatever reason you are still alive.
They get a big surge just after ironworking as they improve all their mines via oppidum and can start getting swords in front of the archer ball. The whole reason we think its OP is because it's gonna be hell to defend against that.

True, the archers are an issue.
Perhaps they should limit the bonus to melee units?

 

[lotrmith]

I think that people have a misunderstanding of Gaul, and are simply declaring OP.
Gaul will be powerful early game and that's fine. Just because a Civ is powerful early doesn't make it broken

I find snowballs that start at the top of the mountain tend to be biggest when they get to the bottom of the mountain compared to snowballs that only start halfway up.

and saying there is no counter is false as it just requires a different style of play. You need to play very defensively against Gaul, don't try and fight them in the open. Delay them and turtle that side of your Empire. As the game progresses they are going to lose their strength, and will have a big opening while transitioning away from their UU which will leave them vulnerable for a counter attack. After that they probably won't be in a position to go on the offensive again unless you give them an opening.

Not especially vulnerable given their UD comes at Iron Working as has a ranged attack, and their units gain super strong adjacency bonuses.

The mine culture bomb isn't that bad for a few reasons. They need the land to get districts, and since they cannot set them next to their capital they lose their easy triangles for bonuses. The terrain that they will be building them on will mean that they won't be as efficient with their placements and will have to sacrifice mines or farms etc to get districts. And if they are playing a tight net of cities then those citites are going to be fighting over those tiles even more, so district placement will be tough.

City planning isn't very hard, while quarries and strategic resource mines provide major adjacency for their UD and all mines provide the same minor adjacency for districts as district clumps would.

Free tiles for mines you're going to build anyways saves you a TON of cash and/or time, and you can even encroach on other civ's unclaimed lands faster as you can nab tiles even outside of your city's workable range as long as there's a chain of hills, and without triggering a nearby settlement dispute.

Gaul will want key cities to have lots of space, which isn't efficient for early game domination (where you want to plonk down a couple of cities at minimum distance).

Eh? If I'm planning an early strike I want to forward settle as close as my loyalty allows.

Plus if they want to take advantage of those culture bombs they need to build workers, which again is slow. Most Civs can easily be aggressive with minimal builders because growth is less necessary than a bunch of cities building units. Then once they have transitioned from the early game their homeland is going to be less efficient for later because they can't all be getting districts properly, so will only have a couple of genuinely good cities for later on, while a bunch of terrible cities have all their tiles stripped.

You get culture for building units. If you open scout>scout or scout>slinger or scout>warrior you get a 12/13/14 culture bonus right out of the gate. You get to Code of Laws in near record time, followed quickly by Craftsmanship, with which you can then slot Ilkum for 30% builder production and Agoge for 50% army production. Your builders build mines which provide +1 culture and even more production which you use to build more units which provide even more culture. Before you know it you have a sizeable army with huge adjacency bonuses, bolstered by a fast Military Tradition, you're first to Political Philosophy and you are bashing in skulls.

 

[BrotherInJah]

What amuses me most is clear an obvious thought process when they designed Gaul.

They came up with oppidum first, and to avoid city center - IZ shooting combo, they had to push it out same as military district. But oppidum was still to strong in second ring, so the rest of district joined IZ there to overcrowd the space.

Then the land problem kicked in, thus culture bombing mines. Additional culture is there to sweet flat land starts.

So everything they did was to counter balance overpowered UD, making mine spam possible as result.

 

[Lily_Lancer]

What amuses me most is clear an obvious thought process when they designed Gaul.

They came up with oppidum first, and to avoid city center - IZ shooting combo, they had to push it out same as military district. But oppidum was still to strong in second ring, so the rest of district joined IZ there to overcrowd the space.

Then the land problem kicked in, thus culture bombing mines. Additional culture is there to sweet flat land starts.

So everything they did was to counter balance overpowered UD, making mine spam possible as result.

The process also can be seen on the designation of the UU and UA.

They first come up with the warrior UU with +2 per adj unit and +10 vs. units, +5 vs. districts obviously this is too strong so they decide to reduce its power-- By limiting the +10 only to stronger units and add up its cost, and also cannot upgrade. This time it becomes too weak as they fail to fight against plain warriors. So they decide to move the +2 per adj out to apply on all melee,ranged and ati-cav units for balance.

Eventually they result in a negative UU, together with overpowered ranged units...

 

[Siddharth Venkatesh]

Gaul are definitely very strong. The archer ball of death is hard to stop without comparably broken early game units. The culture on mines is also a lot of early game culture. An Ancestral Hall rush also largely negates the penalty of not being able to place districts quickly. They get early culture that stays relevant well into Medieval (and you get this culture regardless of early war or early sim city), early production, early combat bonuses (that last for the whole game basically). I was skeptical of their IZ's but these come early enough to actually matter, and are much easier to get to decent adjacency. The fact you get production bonuses at iron working simply by building a few quarries and mines is so much better than having to build Aqueducts to get any value.

I think on maps with low amount of chops and a good amount of hills, their production bonuses will shine. You'll get every great engineer you want as Gaul, and while most of the time these engineers don't do much, if there aren't many chops, the wonder production can be useful for Kilwa or other wonders.

Stacking combat bonuses always end up overpowered. I hope it gets nerfed soon in multiplayer.

They also have ridiculous synergy with the highlands map. Inca are probably the only comparable civ on this map. War is incredibly painful on this map since every tile is basically a hill, so you have to lean more on their mine culture and early apprenticeship but it really snowballs.

 

[CrabHelmet]

Thirding the notion that early archer ball of death is incredibly difficult to deal with, Gaul are maybe even better than Nubia at Archer spam.

 

[Siddharth Venkatesh]

They are just such a flexible civ. You can adopt pretty much any game plan and do well, and there's 0 chance anyone can reliably rush you early.

 

[Oberinspektor Derrick]

Yes, it's setup that way in the 'StartingBuildings' table.

So this is weird.
I tested a game on Immo yesterday, and city states were not given free walls from the get go, though I don't dispute that it is supposed to be coded that way.

Gonna test a game on Deity later tonight to see if they have walls upon first contact.

 

[Republic of San Montuoso]

This is why their design is so boring to me. It's basically "just play Civ as you normally would" and you get some neat bonuses. Only difference is their district placement but that's not really something to get excited about

Kind of, but for me Gaul changes up the game significantly because you can leverage the culture boost (from units that is) to rush down civics you otherwise wouldn't be able to get that early, opening up interesting choices in regards to the early game.
The most synergistic seems to be the war path though, but even here you have some interesting options.

I have the same feeling that @Oberinspektor Derrick . You don't do everything as you usually do. In my first Gaul game, I realized I didn't build one monument until the middle of Medieval Era, because I had so much culture that I didn't had to. It changes how you prioritize things: I built much more military units than usually (I'm a pacifist player), focused first on builders rather than monuments, and I had to think more carefully for district placement. Founding cities too is way more tricky: you have to place them so that all your districts should not be adjacent to the city center. So I'll want to be one tile further from the quarries, the mountains, the geothermal dissures... I once realized too late that I placed my city to close from geothermal fissures, making impossible for my campus to have a +6 adjacency bonus, living only +2 possible locations (before mines).

Are they easier? Not necessarily. Are they boring? Absolutely not.