Ligures

Attributes: | +40% Missile Damage, +40% Melee Damage, -40% Unit Defenses

The **Ligures** are a large Gallic faction, located in the northwest corner of the map at the western extremity of the Po Valley.

Its main starting neighbours are the Insubres, with longer land routes also connecting their territory to the North Etruscans and Velathri.

### In-game Description

"The Ligures are a disunited group of tribes in the northwest distinct from other Gallic or Italic nations, but with strong enough Celtic influence for ancient people to call them Celto-Ligurians. They were typically smaller than the Gauls, but stronger and fiercer in combat."

### Starting Cities

* **Taurasia**: Taurasia is the primary town of the Taurini, a Ligurian tribe who lived near an Alpine mountain pass said to collect pine nuts. Taurasia would later become the modern city of Turin.
* **Caburrum**: Caburrum, later called Forum Vibii and Cavour, is a settlement located near the Rock of Cavour, a 162 metre tall hill that stands alone in a wide plain.
* **Bagiennorum**: Situated on a canyon cut by a small stream, this is the capital of the Bagienni Ligurians, known after Roman conquest as Augusta Bagiennorum.
* **Vercelum**: Vercelum (known to the Romans as Vercellae) is the capital of the Ligurian tribe known either as the Libici or the Lebecili. It is traditionally held to be the site of the final battle of the Cimbrian War in 101 BCE, though some have proposed other locations.
* **Clastidium**: Clastidium is a Ligurian city of the tribe Marici that controls a major route across the Po river to Ticinum. It would gain its largest claim to fame in 222 BCE as the site where Roman general Marius Claudius Marcellus would slay the Insubrian king Virdumarus in hand-to-hand combat, making him one of only three Romans to ever earn the prestigious honour of the spoila opima.
* **Libarna**: Originally a Ligurian settlement, Libarna reached its peak as a Roman settlement after surrendering to consul Q. Rufus in the century BCE. During the fall of the Empire the city was abandoned as the inhabitants fled to the hills for protection from invading barbarians.
* **Stalia**: The Ligurian city of Stalia is a harbor town with evidence of some Greek and Etruscan settlement. During the Second Punic War, it would establish an alliance with the Romans and be destroyed utterly by Carthage. The city of Genua, later known as Genoa, would be founded on its site after the Punic Wars.

### Strategy

Geographically, the Ligures have the easiest start of all Gallic factions as you have a large amount of native cities and are safe from attacks in most directions thanks to being on the edge of the map. Your starting city is also not located near any of your neighbouring factions, meaning that you probably will not have to deal with your neighbouring factions in the very early game while you are uniting your native territory.

Thanks to the Apennine Mountains, the approaches to the territories of the North Etruscans and Velathri are well-defensible. As such, the Insubres are probably the first faction you'll have to deal with extensively, and a logical choice for your first conquest.

Your faction attributes greatly enhance the damage output of your brigades at the cost of their defenses and may require some extra attention in micromanaging battles. Your units will not be able to tank missile fire for extended periods of time, but your extra damage output might allow you to take advantage of disjointed AI formations by concentrating force on certain brigades and overwhelming them before others have gotten the chance to join the battle.

The Ligures' penalty to unit defenses can make sieging walls particularly difficult, as your brigades will be forced to withstand missile fire for extended periods of time and you do not have a bonus to siege damage to compensate for this weakness. It may be wise to use other tactics when possible, such as cutting off the supply lines of cities to starve them into submission, or bypassing the fortified frontline cities of AI factions and striking at cities located deeper in their territory (through naval incursions or undefended land routes) where the AI tends not to build walls.

It can also be a good idea to use the military skill tree to boost your units' defensive stats and/or siege damage.

### Trivia & History

* As referenced in the in-game tooltip, the Ligures were not Gallic in reality, but a distinct ethnicity. Their exact affiliation is uncertain due to a lack of surviving evidence, with a wide range of theories as to their exact origins. In-game they were presumably given the Gallic faction group due to the fact that the Ligures received strong cultural influences from the Gauls after the latter settled in the Po Valley, and because it would have been very hard to design a unique faction group for the Ligures due to a lack of information regarding their original culture and fighting style.
* The Ligures originally possessed an even larger territory including most of the Po Valley and extending into northern Etruria, but lost much land to Gallic and Etruscan expansion. Their original territory included parts of the lands owned by the Velathri, North Etruscans, Insubres and Cenomani factions in-game.
* Besides the areas represented by the in-game map, the Ligures also inhabited coastal areas on the other side of the Alps in southeastern Gaul in the hinterlands of the Greek colony Massalia, as well as parts of Corsica and Sardinia. It is sometimes suggested that the natives of Sicily and eastern Spain were related as well.
* The Romans first encountered the Ligures in the early 3rd Century BC in their conquest of Etruria, but were not initially interested in conquering their economically poor territory. Some of the Ligures chose to ally with Rome, whereas others assisted the Boii and later Carthage in their wars against Rome in the late 3rd Century BC. It wasn't until the 180s and 170s BC that the Romans made a concentrated effort against the Ligures and conquered them after protracted warfare, though some isolated tribes would continue to resist over the next decades. The western Ligures of the Alps and southwestern Gaul weren't a part of this war, and weren't conquered by Rome until much later.
* Unlike many factions in the game, the icon of the Ligures was not inspired by ancient coinage but is instead a direct reference to the coat of arms of the modern city of Turin, of which the in-game Ligurian capital Taurasia is the ancient predecessor.