Celts

Shold the Celts be included they are only a group of tribe after all i dont think they should be as they were never one political entitie just a group of waring tribes.

They should be.

They were politically seperated their entire existance, yes-be it from the Gaulish, Danubian, and British tribes of ancient times to the modern 'insular' Celtic nations today-but they shared in the ancient age a common language and thriving culture, had an interesting society, and unlike what Rome and Greece portrayed them as, even an urban society (even if their towns and cities never got to the size and grandeur of Mediterrean cities).

I'd love to have them in.

Question is if they should be modern-age Celtic nations somewhat lumped together ala Civ 2 or ancient Celts ala Civ 3. Far too hard to combine the two for the city list n' general focus on culture, which is what the civ games focus on.

They didnt all share a colective language there are diferent one across Europe.I dont think they should be in they did war between each other and were never one state at best they became a group of tribes in an alliance for war against either the Romans or other tribes.The romans would never have been able to conquer them if it hadn't been for the other tribes beeing bribed into fighting for them so they could settle old scores and gain power under the new administration.

As an Irish (Celtic) person who only ever plays the Celts, and has almost exclusively only ever played the Celts in Civ 1, 2, 3 and Call to Power 2, i think that yes they absolutely should be included. What other tribe would i pick with which to wage war against the english!?!

So do I with QC! But it isn't normally in, so I create it.

There are many groups of Celts in Europe, so I think it is hard to say "Celts" is a tribe. Celtic culture has no written history, it is passed by word.

Britons, inhabiting England, were Celts too. 90% of current day native Englishmen have Celtic DNA, not Saxon! (according to one study - no source)

It was possibly the Victorians who created the notion that modern English are more Saxon, but they may have made a blunder; they could not test their own DNA. Perhaps fairer to say that England was more influenced by Saxon culture at one time, but that is not an indication of physical bloodline.

Irish, Welsh, Scots are more commonly considered Celts... but as pointed out, Celts (sp. Britons) inhabited all of England too. Following Norman Conquest, the remaining Britons may have settled in the Lowlands (current day Lowland-Scots). There were many different Celtic Kingdoms but you could not put them all into a game.

It could be that the British Isles actually look like the following:
(Most invasions came from the south)

1. 100% Celtic British Isles
2. <-- Inject some Roman culture into the south
3. <-- Inject some Saxon culture into the south
4. <-- Inject some Viking culture into north, south, east and west
5. <-- Inject some Norman culture into the south
6. 95% Celtic British Isles

Despite the southern disruptions you can find a lot of Celtic history and culture in Devon & Dorset (southern English counties).

What I am trying to articulate is that the saxon cultural border was an invasion, which is perhaps distorting popular view of Britain more than it should.

Sure there is a lot of animosity in Britain, but the Celts living there were seperated from each other by external political forces. Had they never been invaded (which Civ actually assumes) then the British Isles might never have been fragmented and still be 100% Celtic

Maybe, just maybe, the natives of British Isles (English, British, Scottish, Highlanders, Britons, Lowland-Scots, Celts, Irish, Druids) can actually be the same tribe in Civ4. Maybe it it would be safest to call them Anglo-Celtic (which includes all) and provide them with a strong Celtic identity. One of many potential leaders is ..?... An ancient leader works quite well in Civ anyway.

Heroes: Bodicea, Macbeth, Arthur, Bruce, Richard, Henry, Drake, Aldon, Churchill (make it more mixed that this feeble list and unbiased)

Civilization really messes the English up anyway! The English Empire was during the medieval period so why do the English have Man-O-War? Seems someone needs to educate the Americans the difference between English and British.... maybe Civ4 should be that tool?

Similarly, it would be absurd to exclude the British Empire from a game dedicated to conquering. As much as the Scots may hate to admit it, the British Empire could never have existed without the industrial might of Scottish coastal cities. As much as the Culture-Vulture Victorians (who liked to think themselves as more Roman or Greek or something) may hate to admit it, the British Empire was built by Celts actually working together for once.

Edit: Just realised something. The Scots players would be really miffed to the extent of risking burst blood vessels if they started the game and discovered that London was their stinking capitol. A Celtic civilisation deserves an untainted Celtic capitol. Edinburgh, Lugdunum, or something prosperous from history...

antonio said:

They didnt all share a colective language there are diferent one across Europe.I dont think they should be in they did war between each other and were never one state at best they became a group of tribes in an alliance for war against either the Romans or other tribes.

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Very true, but the many Anglo-Celtic kingdoms (aka Britons) did unite once. They did this voluntarily in response to threat of Saxon culture.

Unity only lasted a couple of generations, and unity collapsed on the death of the lead diplomat, giving the Saxon culture inhindered expansion across middle-England.

I call it Saxon Culture because Saxon kings, merchants, traders, and stories spread and converted Anglo-Celts to Anglo-Saxons without actually physically replacing the individuals. There is no sign of genocide and only weak suggestions of actual colinisation.

There was resistance and fighting in the North (England) and West (Wales), but this could be because those regions were too far from Lower-Saxony to be influenced by travellers.

Britons or Brittonic Celts lived in England & Scotland so the idea of a British peoples is not far fetched. They are the most likely cultural-ancestors of current day Scots. The Picts who occupied Scotland in Viking times appear to have been completely wiped out - possibly taken as slaves to Ireland?

Ofcourse, they were united again some centuries later, but not until after their cultures had diverged slightly.

Isn;t the point that you create your own history and write the destiny of your chosen tribe? If the Celts had say built legions before the Romans, if the Aztecs had used horses in warfare before the Spanish, or if the Chinese had realised the combat potential of gunpowder then how very different our modern world would be. I dare say in the games you've played before that in the alternate Civ world the Celts are a major power whilst the English or the Romans have been relegated to a few mud huts under continual bombardment from heavily armoured stealh bombers.

That is my point exactly

English, British, Americans, &c. are not tribes. They are modern civilisations created by linear contributions from many different tribes.

If you go back to the ancient times are list tribes which might one-day be powerful civilisations then you find rivals are: Celts (Great Britain), Saxons (Germany) and so forth...

they should: I agree in that point with brrrrrett.

I would love to see at those "forgotten folks" some unique properties to open a way for a different civilization, which perhaps resist with druids, weather contol, psycho-contol... against the normal maschine and tank civilizations. that's difficult to make, but interesting if it would be possible.

antonio said:

Shold the Celts be included they are only a group of tribe after all i dont think they should be as they were never one political entitie just a group of waring tribes.

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Seriously man you need to get your facts straight, and for a start, considering you are Scottish what you say is heresey! The Celts are a single race, although in recent times due to geographical and cultural walls we exist through numerous states we are nonetheless a single people, as we were in europe against the itallien states under King Brennus. The Celts were one of the most highly advanced cultures in the world, and even today we remain so. Celtic society had developed to an ancient understanding of the solar system ahead of the theocratical solar beliefs of other civilizations, especially with the creation of the sky discs, rivalling an understanding of the world ahead of even ancient egypt before christ. The Celtic Languages originated as two- Brythonic; represented by the modern languages of Welsh, Cornish and Breton (notice the geograohical location in the south of Britain, also Brythonic = British) ; the second language being Goidelic; represented by the modern languages of Scottish, Irish and Manx Gaelic (notice the geographical location to the North-West, hence Goidellic = Gallic).

Celtic peoples are and have always been united foremost through there culture. Celts were the foremost skilled iron and bronze workers, with their expertese extending from war equipment to artwork. Every Celt in ancient times was primarily identified through their hair colour. Although it was the dominant gene it is incorrect to assume that means red, as every single Celt is documented to have bleached blonde long hair in pre- Roman times. The Mythology surrounding that their skill on the battlefield lies in Celtic blood may be true to some extent, but this colinearity and uniform in tactical and war techniques also confirms us as a people. It is widely thought that it is this skill which brought the British empire to such heights, it was very much a Celtic empire although based in Anglo-Saxon territory, theses peoples are largely misrepresented as English, when in fact even the ruling parties were commonly Celtic. Celtic warriors are said to be physically taller and better built, however they were also masters of psychological warfare. Celts painted themselves with Mude (a dye from a blue berry) which at night time made them seem completely 2D, stealthy and mezmerising (EDIT: hence pict and ceanne = painted ones). This made them devastating in night assaults where it is common to find almost no casualties in ambushed battles. A claxion like horn manipulated the physics of sound waves to create a noise louder than any airhorn which ripples across solid surfaces, sending echoes originating and receding into all directions, destroying any hope left in their trademark ambushes.

So you see, we are not just a bunch of warring tribes. Be we not defined by our borders you say, underneath the familiar we are by our lingual borders. We are one people, a single race under our undeniable similiarities in culture and warfare.

Branoic said:

As an Irish (Celtic) person who only ever plays the Celts, and has almost exclusively only ever played the Celts in Civ 1, 2, 3 and Call to Power 2, i think that yes they absolutely should be included. What other tribe would i pick with which to wage war against the english!?!

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You played the Celts exclusively in Civ1? Wow, that's pretty impressive, because I don't seem to recall them being in the game at all!

Ive got a bad feeling that; given only 18 civs in game, the large number of gauranteed 'ins' and the addition of civs like Mali; Celt lovers are screwed until XP1 for an additional $29.99.

hhmmm, thats a worrying point joycem10.... now youv got me worried! But i can think of a few lesser civilizations than the celts so i think were safe. I was hoping they werent gonna do the whole "sims" style expasion pack game again...

I dont think with only 19 civs they'll be able to fit them in.I think you will have 2 by the expansion acks for them.

Doesnt matter, some of the modders around here create better stuff than Firaxis themselves, just be nice to them and you might get Celts soon after cIV release .

stormbind said:

There are many groups of Celts in Europe, so I think it is hard to say "Celts" is a tribe. Celtic culture has no written history, it is passed by word.

Britons, inhabiting England, were Celts too. 90% of current day native Englishmen have Celtic DNA, not Saxon! (according to one study - no source)

It was possibly the Victorians who created the notion that modern English are more Saxon, but they may have made a blunder; they could not test their own DNA. Perhaps fairer to say that England was more influenced by Saxon culture at one time, but that is not an indication of physical bloodline.

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I think that study was a TV documentry.
Heres another study.
http://www.gnxp.com/MT2/archives/000648.html

Also see Gildas (contempory 'Welsh' Historian during the anglo-saxon invasions)
http://www.webmesh.co.uk/gildashomepage.htm

Anglo-Saxon Chronicles.
http://www.webmesh.co.uk/a-s-homepage.htm

The Irish annals also make clear distinctions between saxons and welsh/scots.

...Long before the Victorians.

Nationlism has made those distinctions ever more defined, but they were there already.

'Race' is a loaded concept that was galvanised later to distingish purity of people, its really bollocks though as the differences are tiny.
But people of certain areas do have certain dominant genes and culture, when they invade another place they take those with them.

The anglo-saxons were an invading foriegn people to britian, they would have come in bands of men mostly at the start and taken the local women.
I'm sure since the time of the invasons to now people have been mixing it up like rabbits as well.
So to think by a modern DNA study that because they aren't 'pure' german that it means it was just a cultural revolution and that 'great britian' was just the re-unifing of the same people, (celts), sounds a bit like clutching at political straws to me.


Also there is very little 'celtic' lone words in the English langauge, compared to French, which would indicate that if the anglo-saxons were british, they isolated themselves from everyone else, completly scraped every trace of thier orginal language and culture and started from scratch.

I find that hard to believe, especally since they would have been going backwards from Christanity and Roman/Greek culture already on the Island to a pagan Germanic culture.

...and then re-christianised again by the welsh and Irish.

It doesn't add up.

Despite the southern disruptions you can find a lot of Celtic history and culture in Devon & Dorset (southern English counties).

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Cornwall was a part of wales that got seperated by saxon expansion, the langauge then developed its own dialect distinct from wales.

One is the claim that &#8216;the results seem to suggest that in England the Danes had a greater demographic impact than the Anglo-Saxons'.

The other controversial conclusion is that the German/Danish element in southern England (south of the Thames) is limited, and that the male ancestry of this area &#8216;appears to be predominantly indigenous&#8217;.

At one extreme, which I call the &#8216;Wipeout&#8217; theory, it is believed that Celts were virtually exterminated or expelled by the invading Anglo-Saxons. At the other extreme, which I call the &#8216;Upper Crust&#8217; theory, the Anglo-Saxons took over as a ruling elite but left the peasants largely untouched (rather like the later Norman Conquest).

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A university study in the West Midlands (former Mercian stronghold?) found the local population to be predominantly indigenous too.

Thus I see no reason to doubt the 'Upper Crust' theory: that the Anglo-Celt to Anglo-Saxon change was predominantly a new cultural/language imposed on the population by trade and politics.

The 1066-1096 resistance to Normans in current north-England resulted in the land being pillaged. In 1096, that localised population (who never fell under Saxon rule) vanished with nowhere to go except north. Perhaps, not surprisingly, in 1096 the Scottish Lowlands adopted a new feudal-like system. This would lead me to believe that the current day lowland Scots are the British (from current north-England) who resisted Saxon & Norman influence.

Cultures were pushed around a lot. You have the Romans, Saxons and Normans forcing their culture & language onto local British populations but no evidence of Roman, Saxon or Norman mass-collinisation.

You are quite welcome to point out cultural differences, but they are largely in rememberance and not part of daily life. The English may have effectively sufferred cultural-amnesia but every regional group has changed a lot since 500BC. There is also modern post-unification culture: we all enjoy football, rugby, and drink too much.

gael said:

Also there is very little 'celtic' lone words in the English langauge, compared to French, which would indicate that if the anglo-saxons were british, they isolated themselves from everyone else, completly scraped every trace of thier orginal language and culture and started from scratch.

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The population you are homing in on underwent not one, but multiple changes to their ruling classes which spanned many centuries. They may also have actually have "culture flipped". Also, you will note that Celts did not write things down but Romans, Saxons and Normans did! This meas that within two or three generations, the Celtic culture is a distant memory. Infact, come to think of it, my parents didn't tell me anything about 2+ generations back.

To support the "Culture Flipping" theory, there is a document of a monk who records the influence visiting Vikings had on local populations. Despite being enemies, the local populations started braiding their hair and wearing Viking-like jewelry which the monk was none too happy about (hence why he wrote it down).

I would attribute the weak will of southern British to "the grass always looking greener on the other side". Biased stories from Rome, Saxony or Normandy could easilly have influenced the southern-British who were unable to see for themselves. However, the biased stories from southern-British to northern-British would not have the same effect: the listener knows better because he was just down there trading the other day.

when you look at english, the language itself is in no way english. many of the words have celtic and scandanavian origin, with the majority latin. The Britons (Celts = Brythonnic) were "Romanized", therefore it is naturally presumable that the bulk of the English language is not anglo- saxon, but a Latinized Celtic, making any culture flip theory seem pretty odd and muddled. It is more a social integration with the Roman Celts remaining dominant despite terminology such as Anglo - Saxon.

The portion of words of Latin origin is not a clear majority of the English vocabulary - more like approximately a half. And almost all of it comes from Old French (from the era of Norman rule) or directly from Latin manuscripts, not from Celtic languages.