Celtic Sword Rush

Easy formula for Celtic world domination

Here is my guide to an easy game of world dominance using an early sword rush with my new favorite civ, the Celts. It is for C3C.

I believe that no one but the Celts can pull this kind of early sword rush off to such a great extent. It has to do with the agricultural trait for faster growth, starting with the ability to build a granary and not having to research pottery, ceremonial burial giving earlier access to monarchy, two turn anarchy and the extra movement point of the GS. Combine all those together and you will have the fastest sword rush with the greatest gain. The only work involved is acquiring iron.

Before you attempt this, you should know about archer rushes and settler/worker pumps (although you may not need a pump) and you should know how to check for trades. I did this on DG the very first time I ever tried the Celts and I won with 7091 points. So, I am sure it will work for any skill level below that. A player better than me could probably do it on Deity. This is for a standard continents map, but a Pangaea should be OK too.

This is a really fun game to play because the action gets going early and the result leaves you in a winning position.

Part 1 – Expansion Phase
Set your research to BW and then to IW at 100%. Adjust for happiness as needed. You have to go straight for the iron as soon as you see it. This means you may need to do an archer rush, but you will be setup with the ability to use veteran archers by the time you see the iron (see below).

Send out warriors (2 or 3 depending on terrain) to make contacts and make trades. Get Warrior Code if you can.

Start settling the world, making only settlers, workers, a few warriors for MP and start building barracks in your towns. Pack your towns in at 3 or 4 spacing. If you can, dedicate a key city or two with good food bonuses and build granaries here. These will be your worker/settler pumps. Chop for barracks in the other cities. You want three to five towns with barracks by the time you get IW and Monarchy. Note: you should have more towns than this, but at least 3 to 5 should be set up to make Gallic Swordsmen. Build veteran warriors for possible upgrade later. Note that they cost 90 to upgrade so you may never upgrade that many, but even 2 or 3 help. Make workers or cheap temples in your outlying towns to fill out your culture boundaries. But if a city is in a productive spot, it should be making a barracks and then GS.

If you manage to pick up alphabet through trade, send out a curragh or two to learn the coast and make contacts.

After you get IW, go to Monarchy at 100%. Use the tech you get on the Monarchy path to trade for other stuff. You should get to Monarchy first or close to first. Revolt and in two turns you will have increased production and reduced corruption. Most of the rest of the world won’t.

Part 2 – Golden Age
By now you should have iron hooked up and it’s time to pick your first victim. If not, start fighting with veteran archers and or veteran horsemen until you get the iron. Horsemen are better than archers so build them if you can, but don’t go out of your way towards monarchy. Now once you have iron, set as many towns as you are able to producing veteran Gallic Swordsmen and build a stack of 5 or 6.

Go ahead and hit your first victim. This will trigger your GA. You now have 20 turns of increased production which you will use to crush your enemies. Build nothing but GS and go on a rampage. A note about attacking: don’t attack peace meal with 2 or 3 GS hoping to get lucky. Make sure you have enough force even if it means waiting a turn or two for units to heal. GS are expansive so you will want to keep losses down. It’s not worth losing GS if you don’t take the town in the end. So use enough force and be a little patient. Any Great Leaders should make an army of GS. An army of three GS will have 4 attack and 3 movement points which means it can attack three times. It will totally dominate the battlefield and is nearly capable of taking out a city on its own.

Meanwhile, keep workers up front to build roads to speed up your newly arriving GS. You must maintain steady progress because you don’t have all the time in the world. It’s only a matter of time before the end of your GA and advent of feudalism and the pike man. At this point you may want to turn off science to slow down the tech pace and keep your period of relative advantage going as long as possible.

Keep killing stuff. You don’t necessarily have to finish off you opponents in this phase. Just pummel them to the point of insignificance, get something from a peace treaty and move on to the next victim. Use the time you would have spent finishing them to start in on somebody else. You can always come back later on in the MA to finish them off because they are no threat now.

Now is 20 turns later and your GA is winding down. The world is likely to have come out of the AA and has learned feudalism. Your window of opportunity is closing, but it’s not over yet. Look to see who has iron. Send GS over to pillage it. Hopefully you won’t face more than a few pike men and your advantage in numbers should still allow you to prevail, but you are likely to be left with several wounded GS. Use a few cats or trebs to take the last few juicy spots if you need to.

Part 3 - Republic
Now your GA is over and your GS just aren’t what they used to be. Make peace, step back and take a deep breath. Look at what you have done. You have most likely taken the life out of two or three enemy ai and what remains of their civ is groveling at your feet. You own most of your starting continent and all of the resources and luxuries that go along with it. You are likely to have the biggest army, the most money, the most people and the biggest potential culture base in the world. You have made lucrative peace deals and most likely have picked up republic.

Now it is time for the power of religion. Leave monarchy and go to republic. You can switch on a dime! Two turns later you have gone from brutal warlord to peaceful builder. Its likely no later than 500 or 600 AD and you probably control at least one third of the world. Get your cheap temples if you haven’t yet and start improving you cities. You should be on or close to Monotheism at this point so you can get Cathedrals too.

The choice is now yours, you can continue to go all out making war on the other land mass with knights and your remaining swords, you can finish off those left over civs and completely take over your continent, or you can sit back and build your way through the MA. It’s an easy victory from here no matter how you choose to finish the game.

i had always thought of the celts as a fast starting civ. but i didn't realize how awesome their traits make them.

great strategy!

i just won a game on regent... playing as the Aztecs.. got a score of 4200 or something, using this strategy pretty much. Seems to me the celts would have been even better.

Ah, but the Aztecs don't have to find iron.
Generally when I'm going for conquest on a small map, I choose Aztecs; on large or huge, I choose the Celts.

i am playing a game with this strategy, and in my golden age i conquered 8 german cities and got an army of gallics. but, unfortunately when attacking berlin with my army, it got down to 1 hp, and i mi**** a key so the army attacked again a died

when my last post said mi**** i wrote mis hit, so it automatically censored out the naughty language.

i conquered all of germany except one city, so i could get all techs for peace. i'm now the largest country in the world! could be my first demigod win.

I'm trying the CS "rush" on deity C3C.
I didn't research BW or IW, I researched Mysti 100% / poly 50 turns(traded for BW/WC/alphabet) / monarch 100% (traded for everything else litt/rep). I'm learning litt, 50 turns (hoping for little trade)

It's 610 AC (edit: BC...), just enter middle age and anarchy, and I begin to build CS. I'm stuck with the Incas but they don't have iron. There is a hope
5 barracks and 2 others in 2-3 turns (core cities) and barrack in 1 turn in capitale (just finish the expansion phase)

don't research fuedalism, or else you cant build gallics no more.

Nice article, I have a couple of points to make:

(1) "I believe that no one but the Celts can pull this kind of early (sword) rush off to such a great extent." -Do not forget about the Iro and the Mounted Warrior. It is 10 shields cheaper, and the chariot to MW upgrade is a lot more favorable than the GS upgrade tactic. Your choice of AIs, map size, difficulty, and shape, and surrounding terrain are all important in deciding between the Iro and the Celts. On tiny, small, and standard Monarch-Demigod, for a fast domination the MW is better IMHO, because of their relative cheapness. You should never have to change governments, and an earlier attack is best in that situation. On Deity and Sid, the Celts probably come out better- the tech pace is faster, you will most likely be changing governments for the production and gold increase, and minimum research gambits will leave you with a large amount of gold for a warrior-GS upgrade. Still, take your Golden Age in Despotism, and trim those AIs ASAP. If you let them wait around, they will become too powerful in the middle ages.
-Another note, the Iro start with alphabet, and therefore can get writing much more quickly than the Celts. if you're like me and you have AIs who are getting too powerful or they're on another continent, it pays to declare and get the AIs fighting each other through Military Alliances. You then have better control over who, how and when you attack, and when you start your GA.

2) Dependant on nearby luxuries and resources, limit your expansion to 5-8 cities. You really dont need more than that. On lower difficulties, the AI wont fill in those tundra and desert tiles with cities just yet, letting you do so a little later; on higher difficulties, the AI will fill in, but its easier to let them build you (AKA their future master) some cities which you can take with your elite Gallics, than to lose two pop points and production on building a settler to found a city that wont be able to produce a single useful military unit for your campaign(s).

3) On a continents or a pang map going for domination, if you are first to polytheism, trade it/give it to neighbors and increase their chance of building ToA more quickly. They'll be nice enough to build it for you on Emperor and above usually pre 300 BC. If Monarch or below, either hope for an SGL or build it yourself, though the second option sucks when you are pressed for more military. If you ARENT going for domination and are on a continents/archigpelago map, skip it; build more military or the Great library or whatever as you see fit.

Well, if you have a good start, you can have lot of cities.. I've finished the expansion phase in the middle age with 14-15 cities. It's better to have lot of units with low upkeep. I've built spears/warriors before having IW, 18-20 spears, and 5-6 warriors (veteran one I mean, not scouts). With 20 workers, and then 25 CS, and always good gpt :à)

It's to everybody to play like they feel but I don't like a really early war with AI on demi-god and above.

I won at 50BC by domination on Deity with the Celts basically using this strategy. Researching full speed to Iron Working is best in my opinion. By the time you get it, you will have 8-10 cities, lots and lots of workers, 4-5 barracks, and in my game, no military. Then turn off research and build nothing but Gallic Swordsmen, or where possible, warriors, for the rest of the game. Literally. If you keep a few cities disconnected and run 0% research, you can build a few GS/turn. At the higher levels, ToA will be built by someone. Take a decent amount of land, capture the ToA, and five turns later you win. A date much better than 50BC is doable with this strategy, but at the moment my game is still one of the top ten scores in the HoF on C3C Deity, and the fastest domination on a standard map. Some of you all should give it a try and fill up some slots in the HoF.

You can do similar stuff cheaper with the iroquois. Iroquois also have better traits and better starting tech. Although the warrior to G. swordsmen might be a better upgrade than the chariot to mounted warrior upgrade, the mounted warriors upgrade all the way to cavalry.

I've found that any kind of early unit rush on the higher levels, say demi-god and above is doomed to failure. By the time you get enough units for the rush built, the AI is ahead in technology and military capability. After i've finally built enough cities, units, and researched the required techs, my units ( swordsmen, archers, jaguar warriors, impi, gallic swordsmen, etc..) are up against a city defender too strong to beat.

bed_head7 said:

I won at 50BC by domination on Deity with the Celts basically using this strategy. Researching full speed to Iron Working is best in my opinion. By the time you get it, you will have 8-10 cities, lots and lots of workers, 4-5 barracks

Click to expand...

lol and how many cows/wheat around the capitale?
A "normal" game you are happy with a river... (talk about 1 cow + river?? ) where a domination at 50BC is not even probable...

Anyway, what is BC? Before Christ? I'm confused with this..

@ Minstrel- DG and DEI rushes work quite well. You need to attack at the right time however. For example, a current deity level standard pangea game inspired by Bedhead's post: 6 cities at 1250 BC, with 4 barracks, 3 Mounted Warriors, a chariot, 3 archers, and a warrior in each city for MP duty (2 in capital). A neighbor demands gold, I tell him to shove it. He has a wandering settler pair close to my capital which I destroy, starting my golden age. Normally I WOULD have waited longer to get more units for the initial invasion push but it worked out decently well. At 550 BC he's gone, along with two neighbors now playing as OCCs, and Im up to about 30 mounted warriors and numerous cities. There is simply no way that the AI will be to pikemen by 1000 BC unless on Sid. I think feudalism was discovered around early 600s BC in the game I mention above, and thats max opponents with 3 scientific civs. With no scientifics, it would be a bit later. Ive also used early archer rushes to take a nearby city with an iron or horse resource pre-1600 BC with very good effectiveness.

@ Sorky: You can download Bedhead's game at http://hof.civfanatics.net/game_info.php?entryID=337. He did benefit from a plethora of cows, but he is an excellent player and cows alone dont guarantee a quick domination. Jungle near your start is a killer, a neighbor with swords/horses to counterattack you are painful, etc., etc. You just have to play the game and see how each one goes. Speaking of, you should submit some games to the HOF, theres plenty of spots available. BC is before christ. AD is anno domini, meaning In the year of the Lord.

Thx for the link, so much cows huhu ^^

Yes, even with lot of cows Bedhead did very well to finish at 50BC. I won't do HoF games because I don't want to seek "good" map, and without it, I think you can't enter HoF.
Perhaps if I see a multi-cow start, I will save the 4000BC and check where I could place it..
I will try an early deity rush anyway

PS: BC/AD all right thx. It's the AD that confused me actually.

Thx for the tip. Used it on emperor and wiped Hittie and Ottoman ass!

Yeah, the only reason that ended up HoF was just because it was such a good map. I rolled a few random maps, looking for one that would be doable on Deity Pangaea (basically, just a settler factory was all, meaning a river and cow/wheat) and when I got this, I decided to go for HoF. Even with six cows, I was completely cramped from the start, definitely no time to take advantage of those cows as they should have been (like setting up three settler factories). However, I did pump tons of workers early from my second and third cities, which did help a great deal. I think with a more normal map, and a more refined technique on my part, or any other player's part, that BC domination is not terribly difficult. I could probably do very early AD on the first map I got with a settler factory and iron within range.

Did you build settlers before granary in capital? And worker before granary in those 2 other towns? I used to do it but I don't know if it's good to lose 2 pop without granary. :/