Domination celts

[Remito]

Hi

Playing with 5.03 I've been trying several games of Domination Celts on Emperor, but I feel it's stalling quite quickly.
Their strong early UU and incentive to go to wars to found quickly usually make it easy to conquer 2 close neighbours, but I find that after that they don't have many warmongering advantages, and at medieval I can already be 6-10 techs behind which makes it tough to sustain wars.
So I guess I must do sthg wrong.
I've tried going a border blob strategy (Epona + Authority + Tradition/Sovereignty), but to make the most of it I feel I need to play wide and then Authority really lacks science and culture. Do I make the wrong Pantheon choice ? Or should I try another victory with Epona ?

Happy to hear some advices (which may apply to other civs of course)

 

[Thibix Magnus]

It's tough to say, I've yet to have success with border blob despite it being supposedly OP. In 5.03 I'm seeing broken easy early war (AI now over-prioritises barbarian camps, making their units free picks and leaving cities undefended, it's probably the main tactical AI issue rn) but I feel I face more often a snowballing AI too for some reason, so authority is in a weird place where it is both super OP early but can't keep up if a remote AI snowballs, more feast-or-famine than in 4.22.

For Celts on paper I would use Epona border blob for "chill authority" (more flexible pantheon, conquest pivoting into peace with good infrastructure, continents) and Morrigan for eternal war domination (pangea). In practice, maybe I have the border blob wrong and I just need to use the Epona-Imperium-blob production to go way above supply and drown the oponent under suicidal waves of inferior troops, as the instant production is not affected by supply iirc. A very different warring style than Morrigan that encourages elite unit preservation and leveling. I also wonder about the right timing, I've been told to keep sovereinty after authority but because Epona (as opposed to Russia UA) has no inherent border growth (iirc?) I'm tempted to go sovereingty right after imperium to both proc Epona earlier and boost my capital to try angkor wat.

All in all on 5.03 I still feel more confident I can keep up the snowball with a forest Cerunnos progress start, early UU and messy AI being enough to secure early conquests without authority, but it's probably a matter of playstyle too.