Liberty or Piety for Celts?

As has already been said here, the answer is "No".

After experimenting I found that best strategy for warmonders/religious civs is combination of honor and piety. Usually I open honor, put 2 points into piety to get +1 fault from shrines and then honor until happiness/culture. after that finish as situation dictate.

I found that this combination get early culture/happiness and combat ability form honor and lots of happiness from religion. Religion scale very good with city count, so I finish usually founding 7-8 and taking 1-3 cities in peace deals early on. Wide empires, after learning how to play them I start to look with distaste on tradition.
My useal game setting normal speed, normal size fractal map, imortal dificulty.
I experimented with pure piety or honor - does not work. Combination does though, they compliment each other perfectly.

kb27787 said:

Go play some deity games and you will understand that 90% (but not 100%) of the time using anything other than tradition is a handicap.

Click to expand...

what a stupid argument, i dont play anything else then immortal. deity is about exploiting not about strategy.

and yes liberty works in immortal setting with right land, and right civ.

es honor and piety do too. tradition is only the best setting if u play legendary start or balanced resources but else? nope.

If deity has no strategy, I wonder where Immortal stands then.

I think his point is quite valid.

He doesn't say that there is no strategy involed, just that abusing exploits becomes more and more important as the difficulty level increase. So deity is by no means the standard difficulty the game is adjusted to, becaus there are disparities caused by the AI bonuses from the difficulty setting. On deity the AI has much more ressources, which makes certain strategies (e.g. early luxury / strat sales or science income from early trade routes) much more potent compared to lower level difficulties. That in return means that certain social policies will vary in effectiveness depending on your difficulty level.

I play on emperor instead of immortal because immortal is so frontloaded for the AI that it more or less forces me to abuse the potential exploits of the game (CS worker snatching, cancelling AI deals by pillaging own ressources, hammers from growth, etc.) instead of just focusing on the game. The tech bonus means I won't get any early game wonder, but these wonders make up a big part of my enjoyment. I am also not playing the game to micromanagement each and every last citizen, even if that is more effective - that is not exactly fun for me (but probably for others). I could go higher, but why? To get a more cheaty AI that I in return abuse by exploiting the game?

Antarion said:

what a stupid argument, i dont play anything else then immortal. deity is about exploiting not about strategy.

and yes liberty works in immortal setting with right land, and right civ.

es honor and piety do too. tradition is only the best setting if u play legendary start or balanced resources but else? nope.

Click to expand...

I wasn't an argument, it is the consensus of the usual posters that Tradition is the most efficient way to play on Deity 90% of the time. I can think of 5 examples where it wouldn't be; 1. Heavy jungle starts with no hammers without removing jungle, 2. Tundra starts where the capital is only going to have 7 or so workable tiles prior to Trading posts. 3. SS CV Cheese 4. Domination games where you want to combine Liberty with Pyramids for one turn Pillage repair. 5. Non-Standard Starts Starts, like Huge Map or Modern Era starts.

Below Immortal basically everything works as the AI is inept at everything from combat to locking citizens.

In certain situations opening tradition, filling out Liberty, then snagging legalism when you are ready for four free Ceilidh Halls can be pretty amazing. On Diety I'd only recommend it over tradition for Domination or dom-assisted CV, and if you are comfortable utilizing Liberty. Also, as with any hybrid start, an early culture ruin really helps (the beauty of it is that since you open with tradition, you have some leeway to decide where to go from there based on such in-game circumstances).

<3 the Celts

GAGA Extrem said:

I think his point is quite valid.

He doesn't say that there is no strategy involed, just that abusing exploits becomes more and more important as the difficulty level increase. So deity is by no means the standard difficulty the game is adjusted to, becaus there are disparities caused by the AI bonuses from the difficulty setting. On deity the AI has much more ressources, which makes certain strategies (e.g. early luxury / strat sales or science income from early trade routes) much more potent compared to lower level difficulties. That in return means that certain social policies will vary in effectiveness depending on your difficulty level.

Click to expand...

Game varies by how loaded the AI is yes. But that does not make Immortal more strategic, or Emperor. It just makes Immortal easier, and Emperor easier than Immortal etc. There is absolutely no point regarding strategy here.
If I play chess with a bad computer and that I have to give him an extra Queen to have a challenge then yes there is added pressure and he is basically cheating. But I would still play chess, with the same rules, and having to account for at least as many things than if I were playing a normal game.

I play on emperor instead of immportal because immortal is so frontloaded for the AI that it more or less forces me to abuse the potential exploits of the game (CS worker snatching, cancelling AI deals by pillaging own ressources, hammers from growth, etc.) instead of just focusing on the game.

Click to expand...

That is just no true. You can play without these if you don't like them, even on deity. All of these are available from every difficulties too.

The tech bonus means I won't get any early game wonder, but these wonders make up a big part of my enjoyment. I am also not playing the game to micromanagement each and every last citizen, even if that is more effective - that is not exactly fun for me (but probably for others).

Click to expand...

That is true that you won't get many wonders. And if you enjoy more a relaxed game having a fun time making an empire I'm not going to say you're doing it wrong I certainly do play at lower settings like Prince or King when I want a game full of Wonders.
Or if Emperor, Immortal, King or whatever is your ideal challenge then good.

But sorry, saying Deity is only about exploits is just a dumb statement that reflects badly on the even lower difficulties.

Deity limit possible strategies because of how AI is loaded. For example, in deity it is mach more difficult or next to impossible to go wide. Ai plank 3 cities almost instantly and then have spare happiness to put more. you expand - you just piss off more ai who are loaded with units. That make tall empire the only valid choice in standard cases. So there we have to go tradition..

I found deity not fun not because it is difficult, but because:

1) you can not work with any starting position, on immortal i can play any start and find suitable strategy.
2) you are limited to 1-2 strats.

GAGA Extrem said:

I play on emperor instead of immortal because immortal is so frontloaded for the AI that it more or less forces me to abuse the potential exploits of the game (CS worker snatching, cancelling AI deals by pillaging own ressources, hammers from growth, etc.) instead of just focusing on the game.

Click to expand...

FWIW, I am mediocre, but I can win (about 50/50) on immortal and I don’t use any of those exploits. I don’t think it’s accurate to say you’re forced to do so.

It depends on the terrain. I've had Deity games where I wanted to go wide Liberty (peaceful or maybe 1 or 2 annexations) but i end up in jungle next to marsh next to barren desert land. So i only have one good spot (capital) and one above average (1st satellite)

Or I have tons of good land, but then the lemming Deity AIs start spamming like mad. I have a Babylon game now that I'm going for 4 cities. I wanted to get more, really I did. But there just isn't enough land, unless I want to take out wondermonger Pacal's capitol or take on a rabid Oda or Assurbanipal.

Celts are one of the most adaptable civs in the game, you could really go any direction with them.

However, my favored way to play them is to open tradition. I might build a shrine or two, but other than that I let the UA get a religion for me.
Pick a pantheon that will get you some food, like goddess of the hunt or sun god, and grab swords into plows and tithe. These are all pretty low priority for the AI so you don't have to build many (or any) piety structures to get it set up.

This combined with Tradition will see your capital growing like a weed. Build two or three other cities at some point, depending on the terrain, and send as much food to your capital as you can.

After tradition I'll take 3 points in Patronage down to the science bonus, then open Rationalism in time to hopefully get porcelain tower.

Try to maintain as many city state alliances as your income (tithe helps with this) can manage, preferably cultural and maritime. Don't waste money buying buildings or units.

Win somehow.

The Celts and Siam are my two favorite tall civs, and I play both very similarly, if that gives you a better idea. However, I'm not sure if this is the best way to play them, or if there is a best way to play them, their UA is pretty much a blank check for anything you want so... do whatever!

Ryika said:

Playing the Celts and going tall doesn't have any synergy though. You'll not get as much faith as you would with more cities, and you'll have to chop/improve the forrests later on. It does make sense to go wide when playing as the celts.

Click to expand...

You can create any synergy you want. You're assuming you have to focus on faith for some reason, I'm not sure why. Their UA and UU are designed to give you Faith for roughly as long as it takes to get a religion, then stop giving you faith.
What makes the Celts unique isn't faith generation, it's being able to completely ignore faith and piety, and still be guaranteed a religion. Further, being able to structure your religion without any +faith pantheons or follower beliefs if you want.
It turns their UA into essentially a grab bag of UAs, leaving you free to pick and choose whatever will best fit your situation after you've explored you starting area.
I would almost think that building any more than a few faith buildings with the Celts is actually pretty redundant, and the complete opposite of synergistic. Like paying for passage, then opting to spend your time shoveling coal.

If you want to play a civ with a faith steroid, play Indonesia or Ethiopia. Both are much better in that regard.

They are one of my favorite warmonger civs. Easy religion to support happiness, Ceilidh further down for even more. Load up on bows and throw a couple of upgraded pictish warriors on the front lines to distract. They get a bonus in foreign lands and can pillage for free, meanwhile you rain death from behind with bows.

I think they are also a good civ when going for the partial warmonger game. The ones where you take over a neighbors empire, then tech up off of ~6-8 cities.

My experience with the Celts is pretty blank, but thanks for the advices. I think I'll open Tradition, fo for Piety, than get Legalism. All the BNW games I play end up in Diplo VC and this time I might try a Cultural one (because I suck at warmongering) and Sacred Sites seems really OP.