Civilization VI: New Frontier Pass – Gaul deity guide

The Gauls led by Ambiorix join the mayhem in Civilization VI: New Frontier Pass. While not as overpowered as Byzantium, Gaul is still a decent civ thanks to uniques that boast improved production on your path to domination. Here’s our deity guide to help you out.

Note: For more information, check out our Civilization VI: New Frontier Pass guides and features hub.

Civilization VI: New Frontier Pass – Gaul deity guide

Little is known of Ambiorix’s early life. He’s mostly remembered for leading the Eburones, a Gallic tribe that controlled the province of Belgica (modern-day Belgium). During the Gallic Wars when Julius Caesar conquered lands for Rome’s (and his) glory, Ambiorix led a revolt that crushed a Roman legion.

His wit and wiles allowed him to eliminate the threat, at least for a while, from 54 to 53 BCE. It was then that Caesar was able to counter with his own strategem that annihilated the revolt.

In spite of this defeat, Ambiorix managed to make his mark in history. He’s known as the “King in All Directions” and is celebrated today as one of Belgium’s national heroes for standing up against the might of Rome. Gaul is also quite a good civ to play as in your deity runs in Civilization VI: New Frontier Pass.

Gaul’s uniques

You can see Gaul’s uniques in the video above. Still, to make things clearer, here they are:

• Ambiorix’s leader ability: King of the Eburones – Each non-civilian unit you train gives you 20% of its cost as culture; +2 combat strength for melee, anti-cavalry, and range units for every adjacent military unit.
• Gaul’s unique ability: Hallstatt Culture – Mines give +1 culture, culture bomb adjacent tiles, and provide a minor adjacency bonus (+0.5) for all districts; specialty districts cannot be built next to the city center and they no longer receive a minor adjacency bonus for being next to other districts.
• Unique unit: Gaesatae (Warrior replacement) – Costs more than what it replaces, but has +10 combat strength versus other units with a higher base combat strength and +5 combat strength versus district defenses.
• Unique district: Oppidum (Industrial Zone replacement) – Cheaper and can be built earlier compared to what it replaces; has a ranged attack; unlocks the Apprenticeship technology when the first one is constructed.

Note 1: Ambiorix’s King of the Eburones ability also counts adjacent enemy units. As such, if your unit is surrounded on all six sides by friendlies and hostiles, it gains +12 combat strength.

Note 2: Regarding Hallstatt Culture, it only affects specialty districts. The “green” districts such as Aqueducts and Neighborhoods are not considered as specialty districts, so you can still build them next to city centers.

Note 3: As for the Oppidum, its attack can only be done to an enemy unit that’s adjacent to it (i.e., like a Slinger’s attack). It also gains a +2 production bonus when adjacent to a quarry, a strategic resource, or Government Plaza.

Civilization VI: Gaul deity run

Starting out

Below, you can see the settings I’ve selected. I chose a small Pangaea map and I was up against four deity opponents. Be reminded that I didn’t enable any of the special game modes.

Similar to two other civs in Civilization VI: New Frontier Pass — Maya and Gran Colombia — the Gauls are heavily dependent on terrain and resources. This is due to a variety of factors. First, Hallstatt Culture will mean that specialty districts (i.e., Oppidum, Campus, Commercial Hub, and the like) can’t be next to city centers. The lack of the minor adjacency bonuses means your usual district placements will be thrown somewhat in disarray. Oh, and because you can’t have a Harbor beside a city center, it’ll be kind of gimped too.

For the Oppidum, specialty districts, and mines take note of the following:

• Lots of flat terrain and few hills = Bad for district adjacency, production in general, and culture.
• Not a lot of resources that could be mined (i.e., diamonds, silver, copper) = You’ll might have several mines, but they’re just for empty hill tiles and aren’t improving any resource.
• Not a lot of stone or strategic resources = The Oppidum won’t gain production from adjacency bonuses.
• Clusters of resources close to the city center = The layout might not be optimal if you can’t place a specialty district that maximizes the yields.

The image you see above is actually not a good start at all. We lack additional boons without a nearby resource that can be mined — well, not unless you’re okay with just plain ol’ mines on hill tiles.

The image below, meanwhile, is actually a fairly decent start location. We’ve got the necessary resources (stone and diamonds), plus several woods and rainforest tiles for those production-giving “chops.”

You could go the extra mile by switching to strategy view to see the terrain features a lot clearer. Then, start dropping map pins at viable district/mine placements. Don’t forget that mines act as culture bombs which means there’s rarely a need to buy tiles.

Build order

My preference is Scout -> Slinger -> Builder -> Settler. However, you could adapt accordingly depending on the situation.

Techs

• Iron Working – It’s better to beeline for this so we can construct the Oppidum earlier and unlock Apprenticeship too (+1 production for mines and the workshop building). Mining, obviously, becomes our first pick in any deity run.
• Mathematics (optional) – You can consider this a bit later, and that’s only if we’ve got lots of desert tiles for the Petra.

Civics

• Craftsmanship – We want the Agoge policy to churn out more Gaesatae later.
• Guilds – This is due to the Craftsmen policy.
• Feudalism – Serfdom is a good policy to take since you could get two extra builder actions (more mines).

Policies

Below, you’ll see the policies I had after picking the Oligarchy government type. These are to help me churn out Gaesatae and Archers during the Classical Era.

Next up, here are my picks after unlocking the Monarchy government type. Again, the focus is on training more land units. However, you could swap out Urban Planning for Serfdom and, later, the Craftsmen policy.

Governors and Religion

From the get-go, Magnus is still your ideal choice. You don’t want to lose population in a city when you train settlers since that’d interfere with total production. You might as well have the Provisions governor promotion.

With regards to religion, this is something I didn’t bother with in my Gaul deity playthroughs in Civilization VI: New Frontier Pass. When you’re beelining for specific techs, there really isn’t a time to check out Holy Sites and apostle-spamming. Likewise, since specialty districts have population requirements, you don’t want to waste that growth on a Holy Site when you could have an Oppidum followed by a Government Plaza, Commercial Hub, or Campus.

How Gaul’s deity runs should progress

To be clear, not everything I outline will work out 100% of the time. That’s just how Civilization VI is, and you’ll obviously need a bit of luck. Generally, though, if you’ve got a viable start location, then you can have a go at a Gaul deity campaign.

Anyway, here are some tips for the Ancient Era start all the way to the Classical Era:

• Ensure that you’re following the aforementioned advice about resources, terrain, and district placements.
• It’s possible to get multiple era score increases as soon as you start your Civilization VI: New Frontier Pass deity game with Gaul (seen above). The Gaesatae already nets you +4 era score since it replaces the Warrior. Because the Gaesatae has higher production costs compared to the Warrior, you’ll want to spam it much later once Oppida are up and running.
• Your builder should get recruited once Mining has been researched. Go ahead and construct those mines. You could also chop down woods and rainforests for extra production (i.e., to get the Oppidum or workshop completed faster).
• Ancient Era wonders aren’t necessary, in my opinion.
• Eventually, once you’ve got Iron Working, start pumping out Oppida in your cities. Iron Working also unlocks the Swordsman which, coincidentally, is not an upgrade path for the Gaesatae. The Gaesatae upgrades to a Musketman instead.

The King in All Directions

This is from a different Civilization VI: New Frontier Pass game, but it’s still a deity run. As you can see, Kristina of Sweden attacked me during the Classical Era. I managed to hold her off thanks to the extra combat strength from Ambiorix’s King of the Eburones ability. That’s a +10 bonus since I’m surrounded by five units (two of those are hostiles and they’re counted for the bonus).

I’ll fast forward a bit after destroying Sweden. This time, you can see that Darius of Persia is reeling. My Gaesatae made quick work of his units, including the Immortals.

I’ve managed to counter everything Darius could throw at me since I could churn out military units within a couple of turns. Even if these units are still at the back lines, they’d manage to provide the extra combat strength for anyone that’s engaged with a foe. It’s just unfortunate since I was too late in building an Encampment district (and Kristina didn’t have one pre-built), hence, I’ve yet to spawn a Great General.

Ambiorix and Gaul – A great option for your Civilization VI: New Frontier Pass runs

Gaul is a great addition to Civilization VI: New Frontier Pass. As mentioned earlier, you do need to be lucky with the start location for your Oppida and mines. Moreover, the uniques such as Ambiorix’s King of the Eburones ability and Gaesatae will last you for a while. From there, you can follow up with a Domination Victory.

Honestly, it’s just Gaul’s Hallstatt Culture ability that holds the civ back by a bit. It throws off your district planning since many specialty districts (and wonders) rely on terrain, and you’re mostly trying to plop down mines just to maximize all possible adjacency bonuses and culture. Nevertheless, the extra culture from training loads of military units does help when nudging civic discovery in small increments.

I genuinely consider Gaul as an A-tier civ and a worthwhile one to pick for your Civilization VI: New Frontier Pass deity runs. However, when you compare Gaul to its counterpart in this newest DLC, Byzantium just blows it out of the water. Heck, Byzantium blows maybe 90% of other civs out of the water, when you think about it.

Civilization VI: New Frontier Pass is available on Steam. The Byzantium & Gaul Pack, already included in the season pass, can also be purchased separately. For more information, check out our guides and features hub.