Celtic strategy

[crdvis16]

The only strategy thread I saw about the Celts is nearly a year old so I figured I would start a new one as I plan to play them next!

First, their kit:

Druidic Lore
Has a unique set of Pantheon Beliefs that no one else can benefit from. Cities with your Religion generate nor receive foreign Religious Pressure. +3 Faith in owned Cities where your Religion is the majority.

Pictish Warrior, replaces Spearman.

+2 Combat. Comes earlier. Double Movement and +25% defense in Hills, Snow and Tundra. Can pillage enemy improvements at no additional movement cost. Earns 200% of opponents' strength as Faith for kills.

Ceilidh Hall, replaces Circus.

4 Culture, 2 Faith, 1 Happiness. Provides a modest sum of Culture when completed and 15 turns of WLTKD. Nearby Ivory provides +3 Culture. Reduces Boredom. Contains 1 Great Work of Music slot, and 1 Musician Specialist slot. Receives modest yield increases from Celtic Pantheons. 2 Maintenance.

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Usually when I play civ I decide ahead of time if I want to play an aggressive/war or defensive/peaceful game, a wide or tall game, and what victory condition I will go for. Looking at the Celt's kit with those decisions in mind:

Aggressive/Warmonger vs. Defensive/Peaceful

I think the Celtic UU really pushes us toward early warfare but not necessarily commits us to warmonger all game long. The Celts are a religious civ whose only aid in actually founding a religion is their early UU and the faith on kill mechanic so we absolutely need to spam that UU and find ways to get kills ASAP. It might be possible to capitalize enough on barbarians alone but I think it might be wise to also DoW a neighbor early on and kill some of their units as well, if not take a few cities. I might even decide to farm a few units from CSs and then peace them in order to tribute after their military is diminished. The early game seems similar to an Aztec who went God of War.

I think a spearman UU with extra CS that comes out early could be pretty damn strong. Spearmen have a short span of dominance before horsemen arrive so I'll have to capitalize early on. I will plan to go Authority as my opener to make the most of my early game military strength. Long term, though, there is nothing in particular that helps the Celts warmonger nor do they benefit in particular from warmongering once their UU obsoletes (I don't believe the faith on kill promotion sticks when upgrading to pikemen) so I will probably transition to a relatively peaceful game after early conquest.

Wide vs. Tall

As I plan to do some early conquest I will hopefully be able to claim a sizeable chunk of land to settle or puppet/annex so wide-ish is probably my goal. The UB also makes me lean wide along with the +3 faith in cities following my religion from the UA.

Victory Condition

I think a culture victory is my ultimate goal. The music specialist from the UB is really interesting- usually music/art/writing specialist slots are quite limited (the guilds and maybe an extra in your capital if you went Tradition) so being able to have an extra music specialist in any city with a Celidh Hall is pretty unique. Musicians are mostly only useful in the tourism game- whereas Artists/Writers can be bulbed for golden ages or extra policies, musicians are mostly there to just build up your tourism per turn and for big tourism bombs to secure influence in the late game.

The Celts also seem like a good civ to have an aggressive, spreading religion which is quite helpful in a culture victory. They have good faith generation and can focus on offensive spreading since foreign religions won't provide religious pressure in cities they convert. Shared religion is nice for an extra tourism modifier and if you can pass your religion as world religion you get a nice tourism boost in your holy city. So my plan will be to have a strong religion which tries to convert as many of my neighbors as I can and use that, along with my extra Musicians throughout the game, to game a culture victory.

Since I will plan to have a strong religion and go for a culture victory, I could see Artistry or Fealty being good choices in the Renaissance. I think I like the idea of going for Artistry though- being able to faith buy Musicians along with naturally generating more from all those music specialist slots could be fun- the more Musicians I can spam throughout the game the stronger those Musician bombs become at the end when its time to overtake a cultural runaway.

My Industrial policy will most likely be Rationalism as science is often very important in a culture victory to get to wonders quickly and to unlock techs that bump your tourism per turn. I could see Order being a good Ideology along with Freedom, but likely not Autocracy as I don't plan to continue warmongering into the late game.

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Religion

First up are the unique pantheons:


Bran, the Sleeping Guardian

+100% increase to Ranged Combat Strength, +25% Growth, and +8 Culture when a Citizen is born, scaling with Era. +4 Faith from Ceilidh Hall.

Seems geared for Tall/Tradition, not for this game

Cernunnos, the Horned Stag

+1 Food and Gold from Forests, +1 Production and Science from Jungles. +1 from camps. +2 Culture from Ceilidh Hall.

Might be useful if my surroundings are heavily jungle/forest

Dagda, the All-Father

+1 Culture, Gold, Production and Science for every 4 Followers of your Pantheon in owned cities. +2 Happiness from Ceilidh Hall.

Might be good for wide with that happiness bonus and all around strong yields, though might benefit the AI I convert since they tend to have higher population

Epona, the Great Mare

Receive +10 Science, Culture, and Food when your Borders expand, scaling with Era. +4 Food from Ceilidh Hall.

Could be really strong but would sort of step on the toes of a border blobs strategy that I think is more suited to Russia

Lugh, the Skilled One

+3 Culture, Science, and Gold in Cities with a Specialist. +3 Production from Ceilidh Hall.

Maybe better in a Tradition game where the capital is guaranteed to be working early specialist slots.

Mannanan, Son of the Sea

+3 Food, +3 Production, and +4 Gold in coastal Cities. +2 Great Admiral Points from Ceilidh Hall.

Might make sense if I find myself with prime coastal cities

Morrigan, Harbinger of Strife

Earn Gold, Culture, and Golden Age Points if you kill a unit. +2 Great General Points from Ceilidh Hall.

I don't plan to warmonger all game long and this option would probably step on the toes of an Aztec God of War game.

Nuada, the Silver-Handed King

+1 Culture for every 10 Gold per turn, +1 Golden Age Points for every 5 Science per turn, and +2 Gold from City Connections. +5 Gold from Ceilidh Hall.

Maybe better suited to a Progress game though it does work with wide play in general

Ogma, the Learned

+1 Science for every 3 Citizens in a city. +3 Science, Culture, and Great Scientist Points in Capital. +5 Science from Ceilidh Hall.

Scales better if you go Tall/Tradition, which I'm not

Rhiannon, Goddess of Sovereignty

+2 Culture in every City. +1 Gold and Production from every improved resource. +5 Golden Age Points from Ceilidh Hall.

This could be strong for a wide strategy, though I'm not sure I plan to pursue a golden age specific strategy


Overall, I'm thinking I'll go Cernunnos if heavily forest/jungle, Mannanan if heavily coastal, Dagda if I think I'll have enough food to support a relatively high population, Nuada if early gold is a problem, and Rhiannon if my cities seem to have a lot of resources handy for improvement.

For a Founder belief I will want to choose something that benefits from a spreading religion. Apostolic Tradition (food/golden age points when spreading) seems to synergize more with a Tradition game where your capital needs food like crazy. Council of Elders (science/production when a city is converted) could be pretty useful. Way of the Pilgrim (culture and tourism when spreading based on opposing followers) could be nice, especially as another tourism bomb against a cultural runaway in the late game. I think I'm leaning toward Pilgrim but we will see.

For Followers I like Churches (+faith/culture, religious pressure, WLTKD, and +1 faith from great works) as I will hopefully have lots of great works, especially music. Stupas could also be nice for some extra tourism when wide. Veneration (faith/poulation) also seems strong for an aggressive spreader as giving faith to those I convert might allow them to buy missionaries/inquisitors to help my religion become more dominant. The other yield/population beliefs could be good depending on what I simply need more of.

With the new Enhancers out I am thinking Prophecy (stronger/cheaper prophets, strong holy sites, more resilient to inquisitor/prophet erosion) could be strong for an aggressive spreader as well as Dioceses (stronger missionaries, faith/culture in capital, gold/golden age points scaling with cities following the religion) and Universalism (gold/faith for number of followers in foreign cities and missionaries erode other religious pressure).

And for Reformation, Faith of the Masses (happiness and faith bought culture buildings) could be nice if I'm having happiness problems or lack production to keep up with culture buildings. Knowledge through Devotion (more yileds for great person/landmarks, culture from great works, faith bought archaeologists) could be nice, especially if I chose Prophecy as my enhancer. And Sacred Sites (tourism from faith bought buildings and world/natural wonders) might be OK but would work better for a civ going Fealty and heavy on religious buildings of course.

 

[CrazyG]

You should note that Pictish warriors don't have a bonus against cavalry.

Might be good for wide with that happiness bonus and all around strong yields, though might benefit the AI I convert since they tend to have higher population

I think other civs do no get the Celtic pantheon's benefits!

Ogma, the Learned

+1 Science for every 3 Citizens in a city. +3 Science, Culture, and Great Scientist Points in Capital. +5 Science from Ceilidh Hall.

Scales better if you go Tall/Tradition, which I'm not

This is good for progress in my experience. It gives you a very strong early game.

 

[crdvis16]

You should note that Pictish warriors don't have a bonus against cavalry.

Ah- that means the window of opportunity to push the advantage of the UU is a bit shorter then. I'll probably need to make sure I save some unit cap space for horsemen of my own if I want to conquer anything once horsemen show up.

I think other civs do no get the Celtic pantheon's benefits!

Oh man, even more of a reason that the Celts should be aggressive spreaders of their religion- you end up denying AI that you convert a pantheon of their own! Unless they get to keep their own pantheon even after you've converted them or something weird?

This is good for progress in my experience. It gives you a very strong early game.

Yeah, I could see the early science being good for progress since so much of their culture gain is tied to researching techs, even if later on the pantheon doesn't scale very well for wide.

 

[crdvis16]

A quick update now that I've played my Celtic game nearly into the Industrial age:

1) Foreign cities do NOT benefit from the Celtic pantheons just as CrazyG mentioned. This is pretty rough for those who are unfortunate enough to be converted to your religion as they effectively lose their pantheon. Once they've been converted they only benefit from your follower beliefs. IMO it is imperative that the Celts spread their religion not only to benefit themselves but to also weaken those they convert.

2) The Pictish Warrior holds up quite well for a long time. The appearance of horsemen is not a huge issue for them, especially if you are fighting in tundra or (more commonly) in hills as the Pict's mobility almost matches the horsemen in that case. The Pict's 13 CS vs. Horsemen's 15CS is not such a huge deal when you consider the Pict's non-reliance on a strategic resource, lesser production cost, and defensive terrain bonuses/free tile pillaging. You have plenty of time to take advantage of the Pict before your power spike wanes, though of course it is strongest early so spamming it out asap is ideal.

 

[crdvis16]

This game has brought up an interesting (to me) question on great person generation. Do the extra music specialist slots from the Ceilidh hall actually lead to more great musicians if that city isn't also working music guild slots?

What I mean is: if you have 3 cities working 3 music specialist slots each (2 from guilds, 1 from Ceilidh) and a 4th city only working a single music specialist (from Ceilidh) will that 4th city working the single slot ever actually produce a musician? For the sake of simplicity I'm assuming all the cities have the same musician generating modifiers from gardens, opera houses, etc.

If the 4th city never produces a musician that makes the Ceilidh hall a bit weaker of a UB (though the slot is still useful for generating culture).

 

[Bromar1]

This game has brought up an interesting (to me) question on great person generation. Do the extra music specialist slots from the Ceilidh hall actually lead to more great musicians if that city isn't also working music guild slots?

What I mean is: if you have 3 cities working 3 music specialist slots each (2 from guilds, 1 from Ceilidh) and a 4th city only working a single music specialist (from Ceilidh) will that 4th city working the single slot ever actually produce a musician? For the sake of simplicity I'm assuming all the cities have the same musician generating modifiers from gardens, opera houses, etc.

If the 4th city never produces a musician that makes the Ceilidh hall a bit weaker of a UB (though the slot is still useful for generating culture).

Yeah realistically, you MIGHT start getting musicians from that 4th+ city in the industrial era

 

[ColonelCarter]

Ceilidh hall comes before Musicians' Guilds, so it at least helps you get your works of Music sooner.

 

[neo_arcadia]

I think the problem is that, as a unique building, the full potential of Ceilidh Hall is a rarity in your empire. For that building to reach maximum potential you need to fill its Great Work slot. A progress Celts is one example I can think of where difficulties to fill all Ceilidh Hall within your empire will be noticeable. Given that Great People born takes a long time to trigger it's quite hard to fill that slot. Maybe to fill all that empty slots you are required to take certain move like completing Artistry tree to be able to faith-buy Great Musician. It is a solution though, but kinda forcing you to take certain path. Is there any other unique building that contains Great Work slot where the non-unique version don't?

 

[CrazyG]

It is a solution though, but kinda forcing you to take certain path. Is there any other unique building that contains Great Work slot where the non-unique version don't?

Do people actually fill every great work slot very often in a big empire? I don't see not always using a great work slot as a weakness at all. It needs a great work slot because of how early it happens. You can generate a great musician before other music slots are available.

What I mean is: if you have 3 cities working 3 music specialist slots each (2 from guilds, 1 from Ceilidh) and a 4th city only working a single music specialist (from Ceilidh) will that 4th city working the single slot ever actually produce a musician? For the sake of simplicity I'm assuming all the cities have the same musician generating modifiers from gardens, opera houses, etc.

If the 4th city never produces a musician that makes the Ceilidh hall a bit weaker of a UB (though the slot is still useful for generating culture).

I don't think you ever get an extra musician from working that 4th city. However, you still can get a lot of extra musicians from it. Having 3 specialists instead of just 2 makes an enormous impact (4 in a tradition capital!)

Is the Celidh hall strong in a city that doesn't work that specialist? With the correct pantheon, I think it is. The Celidh hall leans a little bit towards tradition/great people strategies, but I think that helps balance that the pictish warrior leads towards warmongering to keep the Celts truly flexible.

 

[crdvis16]

I did a little simulation in a spreadsheet to model the birth of musicians. I didn't have all of the exact numbers but I'm pretty convinced at this point that once the music guilds arrive the cities that only have a Ceilidh Hall music slot won't contribute to musician births. The cities that work 2 music guild slots and a Ceilidh Hall slot (3 total) will continually raise the GP points required for the next birth such that all other cities can never catch up (unless for some reason you purposely don't work all 3 slots in those guild cities for some reason). The only exception I can see is if a Ceilidh Hall only city was really close to birthing a musician right at the time the guilds were built and so it's able to squeeze one musician birth in before it falls behind for the rest of the game.

Note that a big reason for the guild cities being so far ahead is that the music guild itself gives +5 great musician points per turn even without working the specialist slots! This means that a music guild + Ceilidh Hall city will have a total of 14 great musician points per turn (5 from guild + 3 slots at 3 great music points each) compared to just 3 great music points for the Ceilidh Hall only cities. These numbers are all before the great person point modifiers (garden, national monument, artistry buff, etc).

So the conclusion from all of this for me is that:

1. The Ceilidh Hall by itself doesn't necessarily push the Celts to go wide like I thought. Having lots of cities all working Ceilidh Hall music specialists won't result in very many extra great musicians once music guilds arrive. You would most likely end up with about the same number of great musicians if you stick with just 4-5 cities or go wider with 9-10 cities. Base your decision to go wide or stay tall on other reasons.

2. The Ceilidh Hall increases the Celts great musician births by ~30% overall throughout the game by my rough estimation. This is taking into account 1 or 2 musicians birthed via the Ceilidh Hall specialist slot before anyone gets music guilds followed by the Ceilidh Hall specialist slot adding roughly 25% more great person points to the 3 music guild cities.

3. In general, don't work the Ceilidh Hall specialist slot by itself if you have other cities working music guild + Ceilidh Hall slots unless you just really want the culture and don't mind the food consumption.

 

[Stalker0]

The math looks right to me. Just consider working the specialist is not all about the GP. It gives a wonderful culture boost that can push your borders out faster

 

[CrazyG]

1. The Ceilidh Hall by itself doesn't necessarily push the Celts to go wide like I thought. Having lots of cities all working Ceilidh Hall music specialists won't result in very many extra great musicians once music guilds arrive. You would most likely end up with about the same number of great musicians if you stick with just 4-5 cities or go wider with 9-10 cities. Base your decision to go wide or stay tall on other reasons.

Remember that all the pantheons boost the Celidh hall too. If you have +2 happiness on each one, or +5 science, its still supporting going wide.

 

[Bromar1]

Remember that all the pantheons boost the Celidh hall too. If you have +2 happiness on each one, or +5 science, its still supporting going wide.

What about Morrigan's Celidh hall bonus of +2 Great General points? I took morrigan in a recent game and I'm wondering if that's enough to support a great person/ historic event themed authority->artistry->imperialism game

 

[CrazyG]

What about Morrigan's Celidh hall bonus of +2 Great General points? I took morrigan in a recent game and I'm wondering if that's enough to support a great person/ historic event themed authority->artistry->imperialism game

This is really creative, but I don't think its a wise approach. Portugal gets more GG/GA points from here trade routes than the Celts will form Celidh halls, it wasn't enough to really push me towards tourism. (I think Morrigan's Celidh hall bonus is pretty weak, and a flaw of the pantheon)

 

[crdvis16]

Oh interesting point about the great general points- I assume great general/admiral points all go into one bucket rather than each city having its own individual bucket. So if you managed to go extremely wide you could probably generate a ton of great generals. I think CrazyG is right though- I really doubt it would be a huge source of tourism. It would probably be better to use that strategy in a domination game where the great generals more directly help your win condition.

 

[crdvis16]

Remember that all the pantheons boost the Celidh hall too. If you have +2 happiness on each one, or +5 science, its still supporting going wide.

Very true. I was just initially excited about the Ceilidh because I thought the great musician generation from going wide would scale but was disappointed when the math refuted that. In my current game I'm probably hurting my tourism generation a bit by going wide.

But yeah, it's still a UB that can scale well wide for other reasons (especially combined with the pantheons) much like some of the other UBs.

 

[Stalker0]

I thought the great musician generation from going wide would scale but was disappointed when the math refuted that. In my current game I'm probably hurting my tourism generation a bit by going wide.

Yep, GP remains a Tall mans game, but you can go a bit wider than you could normally. Now another option here which is a lot more micromanagement, is a rotation of GP. Just because City X could always produce your Musicians doesn't mean it has to. Maybe its worth sometimes taking City X off of specialists (to let it grow or produce a lot of stuff) and then let City Y take over for a while. That maaaaaaybe one option.

Wide Tourism is tough. France seems to have the tools to do, but usually CV is very much a Tall player's victory condition, and to me that is by proper design. I think there are ways for Wide players to get more influence levels for Trade Routes purposes, but enough to secure a CV is usually out of the question.

 

[crdvis16]

Yep, GP remains a Tall mans game, but you can go a bit wider than you could normally. Now another option here which is a lot more micromanagement, is a rotation of GP. Just because City X could always produce your Musicians doesn't mean it has to. Maybe its worth sometimes taking City X off of specialists (to let it grow or produce a lot of stuff) and then let City Y take over for a while. That maaaaaaybe one option.

Wide Tourism is tough. France seems to have the tools to do, but usually CV is very much a Tall player's victory condition, and to me that is by proper design. I think there are ways for Wide players to get more influence levels for Trade Routes purposes, but enough to secure a CV is usually out of the question.

I think to get wide tourism to work you need to have lots of culture tiles for hotels/visitor center/airport to convert to tourism and/or have a spammable building that generates tourism like the sacred sites method.

Agreed that France is a good candidate with chateau's giving lots of culture to convert to tourism and all those free great artists/musicians/writers from conquering. Though when I think of wide I think of a civ that settles as much as possible and probably annexes what they conquer whereas France could just as easily only settle a few cities and conquer a mostly puppet empire and probably better achieve a tourism victory that way.

Polynesia could work too if you are able to find enough good Maori cities and convert them to tourism. I would say Morocco might be able to pull it off as well with the culture that Kasbahs give, along with Brazil if you can settle enough jungle/forested cities for brazilwood camps. I'm not sure wide tourism would be optimal for any of them though- more like they could do it but maybe could win more easily another way.

 

[Stalker0]

Yeah, even with things like kasbah and Mali, the hotel/airport esque bonuses aren’t strong enough in my opinion to justify the tourism penalty. Musicians and trade routes gives a lot of tourism and favor tall.

 

[Legen]

Brazil may be the closest to a Wide tourism due to its ability to convert GAP into tourism. With Artistry giving +14 GAP per city (university included) and Freedom's Creative Expression granting up to 8 , it's easy to stack points that makes lategame artists into huge tourism bombs. It is probably better if you puppet everything in your way, though, since puppets do not have penalties for GAP generation.

Tourism penalty has a cap at 75%, any additional cities after that are always a net gain. If you go extremely wide, you just don't care with tourism penalties anymore.

The musician from the Ceilith Hall has the merit of giving every city a cultural specialist as a way to work for culture, which is usually locked behind guilds. Musicians are also the cultural specialist that produces more culture (3/4/5 base culture for writer/artist/musician, iirc). Adding it to the base 4 of the building and the instant culture bonus, this UB means the Celts can quickly fill their medieval policies, regardless of their pantheon choice. A +9 culture building is rare at this point of the game, the Amphitheather and the Writer's guilds don't compare to it.