[BNW] Civilization Guide: Celts (BNW)

[Browd]

Browd submitted a new resource:

Civilization Guide: Celts - Civilization Guide: Celts

The Celts

Boudicca

"We Britons are used to women commanders in war;
I am the daughter of mighty men.
If the numbers of our warriors, if the causes of war weigh out,
whether we win or whether we fail will be...​

Read more about this resource...

 

[Camikaze]

This article has been updated for Brave New World.

 

[joncnunn]

Comments:
The wide section on happiness appears to have just had the numbers updated from G&K to BNW but didn't consider the consequences of the nerf to CB. That was on the good list for wide empires on G&K but with the 50% cut it's no longer even in the running; go to the follower section where the happiness beliefs are stronger.

In addition IP & RT are in the wrong order for BNW (religious spread from trade routes make passive range extension less valuable)

Religious Buildings for wide empires: Not exactly the best source when you need to faith buy 5+ copies of a building to get max benefit out of it (5+ self built cities is the minimum size an empire can be considered wide); this works better for tall empires.

 

[Moriarte]

Worth noting that the Celts are incredibly strong in domination games. Late game enemy cities that are captured will have kaylee hall instead of default opera house, providing +3 local happiness. As a result, domination campaigns are easier, especially on larger maps, where more happiness is generally needed to rule the world.

 

[Halcyan2]

In the section on the Pictish Warrior, it may be worthwhile to note that Warriors who find advanced weapons in an ancient ruins become a Pictish Warrior (normally it would be a Spearman). This gives them the faith generation from kills, foreign combat bonus, and free pillaging. Having a Pictish Warrior within the first few turns can be a very strong advantage!

 

[beetle]

Are any of the faith-giving pantheon beliefs particularly likely given the forest start bias? I just would like to know what to be on the lookout for. This is all based on my subjective experience, so please let me know if I get some of this wrong!

• Desert Folklore: Deserts are not usually near forests, and desert expos are incompatible with UA.
• Dance of the Aurora: Tundra can be close to forest, but again UA demands forest, not clear tundra. OTOH one might get lucky (especially with expos) and have both.
• Earth Mother, Religious Idols, and Stone Circles: Mining resources tend to be on clear grassland and plains. Screen shot shows a stone, so maybe I am being too pessimistic? OTOH, just one quarry would not be enough to ensure founding.
• God of War: Pictish warriors will do most of their barb hunting further out than 4 hexes from cities. Also this pantheon does not seem like it would generate a reliable amount of early faith. Maybe I need to try it more?
• Goddess of Festivals: Does wine will spawn on forest? This might be what to hope for.
• God-King: I really don’t think +1 faith is enough to ensure founding. Am I wrong?
• One with Nature: Always nice, but very luck dependent. I guess about the same for Celts as with any civ?
• Tears of the Gods: It is not too unusual to find coastal forests and the screen shot shows gems. I don’t think I have ever had forest and pearls though, but that could just be bad luck.

 

[Browd]

My reactions to your bullets are below, but first I have to note that, unless I'm playing something like an Arborea map, the Celtic forest bias just means you should have some forest tiles nearby -- it does not assure you that there will be a sea of forest tiles as far as the eye can see, so your expansion sites may be forest-free or have only a couple of forest tiles. Anyway, as to your bullets:

1. I find deserts are often found near forests (the terrain can shift dramatically in a matter of 3 or 4 tiles), but I would agree that you won't usually find many useful desert tiles in a Celtic capital. But you can often find desert at attractive secondary city locations. Of course, scouting enough desert to make an intelligent decision by turn 5 is hard. But, if your capital city location does not present an obviously better faith-giving pantheon opportunity, then taking DF with the aim of settling nearby desert sites can make sense.

2. UA only provides benefits for forest in the 6 tiles immediately adjacent to the city center tile, and only to a max of 3 forests. Any other forests can be chopped for production and to get benefit from Dance of the Aurora. That said, I personally dislike DoA because it does require naked tundra tiles -- OK for tundra hills (you would probably mine or (if riverside) farm them anyway), but less attractive for flat tundra tiles (1 food), since the forest at least adds 1 production. Put another way, I'm not usually excited about trading 1 production for 1 faith.

3. Agree that 1 quarry is not enough justification to take Stone Circles, but I do see stone and (IIRC) gold/silver in tundra starts. But again, don't limit your survey to your capital. A tundra capital has so little going for it that is conducive to a faith pantheon, but nearby expo sites may be much more attractive.

4. Try raging barbs. I don't usually take GoW (perhaps 2 or 3 games), but when I do it's to farm faith. On higher difficulty levels, there's also the AI to consider -- Monty, Shaka or the Huns nearby? Steal a worker or two and then sit back near your cities and let their units die on your Pictish Warriors' spearpoints.

5. Wine doesn't usually spawn in forests (at least as I recall), but often spawns nearby.

6. 1 faith isn't enough for a religion. But 2 faith from the UA in a few cities, plus shrines and the 1 faith from God King should be enough. That said, you take God King for the other bonuses - the 1 faith is meh and you will usually take it because the other pantheon options suck or you don't expect to found a religion. If the Celts spawn in the only forest to be found for miles (so 2 faith is the max from its UA) and have no other faith-generating pantheon option, sure, take God King and later accept whatever religion the AI spreads to you.

7. Agree on it being luck dependent, but does provide nearly the faith output of Stonehenge without having to risk building it.

8. Can't recall specifically having pearls near a forest city site, but I'm not aware of any map script restriction.

 

[beetle]

Thanks Browd, that is very encouraging. Great article too, by the way.

FWIW, I have had very good success with Dance of the Aurora. Like Desert Folklore, one only needs a handful of tiles to found. I agree with you that plain tundra is not worth working, but in addition to tundra hills, wet tundra is okay for farms, and deer and luxes work well enough even after cutting the forest. Plus the tile you settle on. Also, one can stop working sub optimal tiles after founding.

 

[tastydish41]

When I first started playing civ v, I used the Celts. I thought it was cool to get a pantheon so quickly, until I realized it was difficult to determine which pantheon was the best for me, since I had so little scouting done by turn 5 or 10. Since reading your article, I have revisited this civ and have come up with a pretty cool start for them.
With respect to social policies, I start out with tradition (border expansion and +3 culture help out in the beginning) and take aristocracy (+15% wonder building). I then proceed to open piety and work my way through that policy. I generally open patronage prior to completing piety, but this is dependent upon the other civs I am playing against and what policies they are choosing.
My pantheon choice is monument to the gods (+15% wonder building). founder belief is dependent upon what your end game is. first reformation should be divine inspiration (+2 faith per wonder)
My first two tech's are pottery to calendar. After that it is up to you, based on wonders you want and luxuries you need to develop.
I start out by building a scout>>monument>>granary>>Stonehenge.
I have played this start on two separate occasions. I have played on small maps with 6 teams at king level. Check it out and let me know what you guys think. Have fun.

 

[Lord Yanaek]

Such a wonder strategy will mostly work on difficulty up to emperor. I doubt it would work that great at Deity or even immortal. That being said, in the absence of any obvious faith pantheon, taking monument to the gods to snipe Stonehenge might be a viable strategy if you have good production but you need enough forests to sacrifice for hammers as you should aim for T35 Stonehenge on Deity.

 

[tribefaninnc]

Are any of the faith-giving pantheon beliefs particularly likely given the forest start bias...

Would you need a faith-generating pantheon when playing the Celts? I'm only a little familiar with playing them (started a couple games, but I don't think I finished them). Can't they generate enough on their own between the forests and pictish warriors? I would think they would be the perfect opportunity to take one of the other ones that might give food (sword to plowshares) or culture (like the pasture one). The UA is basically a free faith-giving pantheon.

Maybe that strat would fizzle out after a while. At the very least, you'd need a mid-game supplement.

 

[beetle]

I am skeptical that the Celt UA is enough faith on its own for a reasonable assurance with founding. The faith fizzling out mid-game is not a big deal IMHO. I am thinking about Deity, so post patch SH seems unlikely, but the forest bias does help with chopping an early wonder. I have not tried Celts in a while, so I look forward to giving them a go!

 

[consentient]

I am skeptical that the Celt UA is enough faith on its own for a reasonable assurance with founding. The faith fizzling out mid-game is not a big deal IMHO. I am thinking about Deity, so post patch SH seems unlikely, but the forest bias does help with chopping an early wonder. I have not tried Celts in a while, so I look forward to giving them a go!

If Acken sticks to what he said about alternating new maps with the 'leftovers' I gave him, then you will have an interesting Celts map for the DCL to play soon.

 

[Evil Spock]

Like Iroquois before it i can't justify playing celts on anything besides arborea. Early pantheon meh and with no faith help besides forests there pretty mediocre on normal maps their building is nuts for wide but only really gets built in core cities, getting the achievement for their long city name i built about 10 of them but I had production in caravans everywhere and bought amphitheatres in total the celts are very situational and the early guaranteed pantheon is good sometimes if you land in a huge tundra, celts are only worth going wide on arborea where you don't need to bline for a mid game UB but you use it as a way to boost your pop or backfill Russia and Siberia on a huge earth map

 

[joncnunn]

Like Iroquois before it i can't justify playing celts on anything besides arborea. Early pantheon meh and with no faith help besides forests there pretty mediocre on normal maps their building is nuts for wide but only really gets built in core cities, getting the achievement for their long city name i built about 10 of them but I had production in caravans everywhere and bought amphitheatres in total the celts are very situational and the early guaranteed pantheon is good sometimes if you land in a huge tundra, celts are only worth going wide on arborea where you don't need to bline for a mid game UB but you use it as a way to boost your pop or backfill Russia and Siberia on a huge earth map

Celts will normally be first to chose a pantheon in any game they are in.
Of course if there isn't an appropriate faith pantheon to choose then it won't be much help for a religion and on a high level it might be better to not try for a full blown religion. But Forest bias greatly increases the chance that Goddess of Hunt will be a great choice for the capital, so it grows to be bigger than normal before you lose it. Even if your capital is landlocked, food caravans will assure your capital won't starve when that happens.

The UB basically means even if you don't found your religion and your end up with some AIs religion that doesn't carry happiness bonuses in it that you probably won't need to build Zoos. Of course you have to build the prereq to buildings, but by the time you can build your UB, Amphitheaters are relatively cheap.

Note that the built in Huge Earth Map does NOT keep start bias. It's a really bad one for Celts since on it you can start fall away from any forest.

As to the achievement, not recommended for a real game. For that, pick huge map (NOT earth) + reduce number of city states by at least a half + play on Warlord difficulty level.