Call me completely crazy BUT: I think I nailed Celts as viable Civ

[Pavel Chichikov]

Okay I'm sure this has been asked about & debated a billion times before but I genuinely think I've gotten onto making it feasible.


Here's my outline:

- Spawn date 900 BC, 2 Settlers in Gaul, 1 independent city in Gaul and Northern Italy.
- Spawn DoW with Greece, Rome & Vikings, weak tech/military. Only possible friend civ is Carthage, again historical and potentially fun.
- Make a couple of European resources in the area spawn later too keep things balanced.

UHV: The Power of Migration
- Settle England, Wales, Scotland & Ireland by 1 AD
- Build a Christian Cathedral by 850 AD
- Conquer 5 European Cities (Important: this doesn't mean control)

Unique Power

- No Stability Penalty for losing a City (capitals still concur major penalty) [lame but necessary like Poland]
- Alternatively: Free Flanking Promotion for all Units.

Stability map
- Core: Brettony, Ireland, Wales
- Historical: Rest of France, England, Scotland
- Contested: N.Italy, NE. Spain
________________________________________________________________

- So the gameplan idea is that like Phoenicia in the Levant; the Celts would be born to lose in Gaul. The idea of them to spawn there is to give a race against time to settle the British isles before the Romans destroy them. Like Phoenicia with Carthage, the AI would probably need to get an auto-spawn London. This would also give AI Romans a chance to control Britain, & the human a challenge instead of un-historically settling it.

- Throw in some Pictish barbarians to make it a challenge. (Picts weren't Celts & possibly didn't even speak a Indo-European language.)

- Building a Christian cathedral requires control of at least 4 cities, they could be in Ireland, Scotland, Wales and Brettony. Despite all the modern pagan romanticization, Celts had the most vibrant Christian culture of Europe after the Romans collapsed.
Again, I think this goal is timed well to make it very challenging but possible.

- The Conquer cities goal gives the human player a fun non-timed but still challenging goal.

________________________________________________________________

- Vikings and Pict barbarians keep up pressure during the dark ages. Swarms of barbs in Europe prevent Celts re-settling the mainland.

- Later England spawn with a large stack outside London (whether Roman, indie or Celt), but no settlers.

________________________________________________________________

 

[BenZL43]

Where should their capital be?

 

[Sanguivorant]

What five cities did they conquer in actual history?

 

[Pavel Chichikov]

- The starting capital would be Aquitane or possibly where Paris spawns, I think. But a human player who wanted to live would have to rebuild a palace in the Isles later.

- They conquered, sacked & abandoned Rome & Delphi. A large tribe of marauding Celts somehow ended up in Anatolia and conquered Galatia from the Phrygians, Greeks or Lydians. They were also the major part of Hannibal's army that conquered Spain and Southern Italy. The Irish conquered Scotland from the indigenous Picts and the Britons fled from the Anglo-Saxons to retake Brettony, France.

The no penalty allows the Celts to conquer cities, break everything in them, and then just abandon them again. I thought about simply razing, but I think this would be more interesting gameplay-wise.
So the play can think over whether to just raze it and take a hefty penalty, or leave it to be retaken and get the extra stability from combat. This UP is fun because it allows the player to take much bigger risks with raiding but isn't OP because it's only a passive power.
(to prevent abuse for empire building, could make it expire at the end of the Classical era)

 

[brett0007]

Picts at the very least linguistically and culturally Celtic from 400 ad onward. From northern Scottish place names and a few personal names of Picts/Cealdonians recorded in Latin and Gaelic and a written record of the names of some of Pictish kingdoms. Pictish was definitely a P Celtic language related to Welsh and Cumbric.

I don't object to them being barbs but they were most definitely Celtic.

Wouldn't this require the English spawn pushing forward to stop the Celts from un-historically controlling England up until the current English spawn, not to mention a complete revamp of the British isles to stop London being choked by a city in Wales?

Other than that I can't wait to reconquer Prydain and Gâl from the Sacsons and Ffrangeg!

 

[citis]

It could be like:

UP: the power of druids
forests produce culture

Core area: Ireland
Histrorical: France, England

They will spawn in France. This is strange, but it will be an unstable civ all the time, which is right. Human will found a city in Ireland to survive. Dublinn will be autosettled for the AI to represent Ireland in later game. Vikings spawn at war with them.

They should start knowing only farming, mysticism, wheel, pottery (animal husbandry is the first tech they should discover). Gallic warrior is enabled by animal husbandry.

 

[merijn_v1]

But what will happen if France or England spawns and the Celts are still alive. I think that could lead to tons of problems. You can script a few thing to manage this a bit, but too much scripting is no fun.

 

[BenZL43]

But what will happen if France or England spawns and the Celts are still alive. I think that could lead to tons of problems. You can script a few thing to manage this a bit, but too much scripting is no fun.

Brest should be excluded from French Core Area. Just like Ireland is outside England.
When France and England spawn, well.... Ireland and Brittany is still culturally a Celtic nation to date

The idea of Celts contesting Roman domination sounds fun. Ancient Europe could have more attention, and the ancient world lacks the color Green (which I associate with Celts somehow)
Moreover, the Roman game itself could be more lively, with an active AI Celts with all their AI intelligence... compared to what is scripted here and there right now.

 

[soul-breathing]

I think it's not a bad idea, and the respawn could be Republic of Ireland

 

[Tomorrow's Dawn]

lol. I see all someone changed their mind about Celts:

edit: Disagree. Language is the determining factor. So although Ireland is country, I consider the Celtic Civilization to be moribund or dead for the main reason that only tiny pockets speak Gaelic and Welsh is the first language of less than a quarter of wales.
Only need to look at Jewish history to see how much impact language has in a peoples fortunes.

Anyways, Celts should start even earlier, 1200 BC.
They should NOT start in France.
However, there are few references to named Celtic settlements.
The closest we can get that would also be good for the setting is an anachronistic start in Vindobona (Vienna).

Celtic migrations into Greece and Asia Minor:


and to answer some questions,
I think people are forgetting the Celts were contemporaries of the Greeks before their famous clashes with the Romans:

What five cities did they conquer in actual history?

Troy, Miletos, Ephesos, Rome, Londinium.
Sack of Delphi is a myth.

http://historum.com/ancient-history/22133-galatia-celtic-state-ancient-turkey.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boudica

http://books.google.com/books?id=6o...0CDMQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=galatea celts&f=false

We can always steal the stablity map from RFC Civs in Abundance, but otherwise:

Core: Ireland.
Historical: Illyria, Central Europe.
Contested: Britain, France, Iberia, Western Turkey.

 

[Rorgloin]

I like this idea. It could also provide a more realistic starting situation for Rome with the Celts owning Cisalpine Gaul (Milan basically)-- the Romans didn't even consider that part of Italy for a while once they had conquered it, which makes the current flip seem wrong.

 

[BenZL43]

Flip system would have a re-design in the next version, if I remember correctly.

I would use Central Europe as the Core area instead, which was known as Halstatt at that time (Yellow)

 

[Pavel Chichikov]

Ireland respawn? I guess. Can't see how it could be fun for a human though.

lol. I see all someone changed their mind about Celts:

Anyways, Celts should start even earlier, 1200 BC.
They should NOT start in France.
However, there are few references to named Celtic settlements.
The closest we can get that would also be good for the setting is an anachronistic start in Vindobona (Vienna).

You're right, but I'm thinking more about gameplay here. Expanding from Central Europe that early would give the Celts a huge gameplay advantage, and probably wouldn't be feasible for the AI either. Were talking about prehistoric times here as well.

Celts in France & Britain are the only ones with any major history, and the only places were any vestiges of Celtic culture survive. Central Europe would at the very least be contested, Dacians & Germanic peoples replaced them quite early.

and to answer some questions,
I think people are forgetting the Celts were contemporaries of the Greeks before their famous clashes with the Romans:

Troy, Miletos, Ephesos, Rome, Londinium.
Sack of Delphi is a myth.

http://historum.com/ancient-history/22133-galatia-celtic-state-ancient-turkey.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boudica

http://books.google.com/books?id=6o...0CDMQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=galatea celts&f=false

We can always steal the stablity map from RFC Civs in Abundance, but otherwise:

Core: Ireland.
Historical: Illyria, Central Europe.
Contested: Britain, France, Iberia, Western Turkey.

I was thinking Turkey, but gameplay-wise it's just too far away & Celtic presence there was small and quite transitory. The human player can sack a city there if they want.

Originally Posted by Pavel Chichikov
edit: Disagree. Language is the determining factor. So although Ireland is country, I consider the Celtic Civilization to be moribund or dead for the main reason that only tiny pockets speak Gaelic and Welsh is the first language of less than a quarter of wales.
Only need to look at Jewish history to see how much impact language has in a peoples fortunes.

I still stand by this. I'm proposing Celts as a the only Classical civilization that continues through the Dark Ages. The victory would be prior or immediately after the English spawn.
The reason I never got on board with Celts before is because all the suggestions were orientated around late-medieval Scotland/Ireland, when all surviving Celt-cultures were collapsing in gameplay terms.
Wales would take it's resources from the sea, just add another fish resource. There's always 2 cities in south England anyway, and London would hardly be 'choked' it's still a guaranteed mega-city with horse/sheep/cow/wheat/fish/water-tiles.

'Unhistorical' doesn't mean too much as long as the general outline is well-done.
Did Carthage ever control Lebanon? Persia almost never takes Egypt & only gets Babylon after a protracted struggle. Spain & England are empty lands to be peacefully settled by Rome & Catholicism historically never existed until the fall of the Roman Empire.
These aren't complaints, just noting you can't make everything accurate.


I'm only suggesting Celts on the condition that I think it would be fun, & add a lot to classical gameplay.
No disrespect to Leoreth, they're all enjoyable Civs (except Maya but that's hard to make interesting), but for example I'd consider Celts over Tibet, Congo, Maya, Babylon (actually a favourite, but you got to admit for non-human gameplay Babylon might as well be independents) or Ethiopia (like the idea, but needs a lot of love).

 

[Leoreth]

I'd consider Celts over Tibet, Congo, Maya, Babylon (actually a favourite, but you got to admit for non-human gameplay Babylon might as well be independents) or Ethiopia (like the idea, but needs a lot of love).

 

[BenZL43]

Maya is more interesting now. Have you played the redesign? There's Zapotec now.

 

[Pavel Chichikov]

Some people just can't be pleased, I know.

I didn't notice the Maya redesign? I'll check it out when work gives me some time..

 

[Leoreth]

I'm just tired of hearing that. Even if A is objectively superior to B, it doesn't mean that the inclusion of B obligates me to include A.

 

[ales_]

What do you think about this idea?

 

[BenZL43]

By the way, I think we should really focus on Polynesia first.. else we won't have new civilization at all -_-

 

[Leoreth]

What do you think about this idea?

I have no opinion so far.