Senones

The Senones are one of two playable Gallic factions in the Invasion Sandbox of the Eagle King DLC. It is a land invader, with its possible starting locations consisting off various mountain passes of the Alps in the Po Valley and Venetia.

The Senones may also make an appearance in the main Unification Sandbox. Though they do not start with any territory, they may be spawned as a new AI faction in northern Italy through an event. The player will be given an objective to defeat them by ensuring they have no cities, rewarding a victory point. This event can even occur in the base game without any DLC installed, despite the fact that the Senones are not playable in any game modes there.

When playing as the Senones, the city at which the player ends up settling their capital will be renamed to 'Senigallia' when the player settles there. The same applies for whichever city the Senones spawn at if they spawn through the event in the Unification Sandbox.

In-game Description
"The Senones are a Gallic tribe that has migrated past the Alps to conquer portions of Italy; they have already taken a fertile part of the Adriatic Coast, and have been attacking other major cities from their Gallic field."

Possible Starting Locations

 * In the western Po Valley, near Vercelum and Taurasia.
 * In the Po Valley, near Bergomum.
 * In the Po Valley, near Verona and Vicetia.
 * In Venetia, near Bellunum.

Starting Brigades
When composing your starting army, the Senones have 16 points to spend, with the following options available: In addition, you will always receive 3 groups of Colonists, 3 groups of Scouts, and a Baggage Train.

The default loadout consists of 1 Skirmishers, 1 Slingers and 14 points to spare.

You will be given 2000 gold to start.

Historic Starting Generals
When playing this faction in a sandbox setting, the player may choose to start with one of the following pre-defined historic generals instead of a generic one. These characters usually have far better bonuses than can be obtained with the generic starting generals.

Strategy
The starting positions of AI factions in the Invasion Sandbox are slightly random, as factions will have randomly conquered an amount of cities from one another depending on the world age setting. As your fellow Gallic factions will be more friendly to you than the Etruscan or Illyric factions, this can make the starting difficulty somewhat random depending on which factions managed to grow at the expense of which other factions. Regardless, you are more likely to encounter friendly Gauls the further west your starting location is.

Compared to non-Gallic invader factions, you are given a smaller army to start but a larger amount of Colonist brigades to assimilate your initial conquests with.

Trivia & History

 * Historically, the Senones invaded Italy in the early 4th Century BC, settling an area in Picenum that was previously occupied by the mysterious northern Picentes. Shortly afterwards, their chieftain Brennus led an expedition into Etruria and ended up besieging the city of Clevsin, which in turn appealed to Rome to intermediate in the conflict. The Romans ended up antagonizing the Senones, however, culminating in the Gallic sack of Rome in 390 BC.
 * The Senones allied with the Etruscans, Umbri and Samnites against Rome during the 290s BC in the 3rd Samnite War, but their combined armies were defeated. The Romans entirely defeated the Senones in 283 BC, and the latter were not heard from again in Italy. It's possible they left the peninsula entirely and migrated further east to join with Gallic tribes in the Balkans.
 * Another tribe also known as the Senones existed in Transalpine Gaul, and were probably a different branch of the same tribe that stayed behind in Gaul rather than invading Italy. These Senones were conquered by Julius Caesar in the 50s BC.
 * The faction icon seems to depict a lion's head. The design is very similar to that of engraved coins from the Senones of Transalpine Gaul, though those depict the head of a human warrior rather than a lion, but with a very similar layout and the same 6 strands of hair.