Thank you, that's interesting! A quick Internet search led my to a (German) page, that indeed describes this "Awen" symbol as the most important druidism symbol. There are other nice ones, too.
For those being interested, but not able to read German:
The right beam symbolizes male power, the left one the female power in our world. The ray in the middle stands for the balance between these polar powers. Nice!
It's only overpowered if you REX. And they have 2 UU instead of a UB. As a tall empire builder, myself, I played France once for the trophy, then promptly forgot about them.
That's a modern symbol used by neo-pagans, not an actual celtic symbol. Using it for celtic religion would be a bit like using the Christian Scientist seal to symbolize pre-exilic Judaism.
It's not the Wicca symbol and I don't understand one bit of what you're saying. If you're that great, you should provide an alternative yourself and stop dismissing others. Moderator Action: That second sentence was not really necessary.
It's not the Wicca symbol and I don't understand one bit of what you're saying. If you're that great, you should provide an alternative yourself and stop dismissing others. Moderator Action: That second sentence was not really necessary.
Sorry, I certainly didn't mean to offend you. No, you're right - it's not a Wiccan symbol, but neither is it a Celtic symbol. It actually has roots, if I recall correctly, in an 17th-18th century reconstructionist movement. I used the term "neo-pagan" because many in the modern reconstructionist druidic movement refer to themselves as neo-pagans - the category certainly refers to far more that simply Wiccans.
The thing is, using that symbol in reference to ancient Celtic druidism would be really inaccurate and anachronistic, as no ancient Celtic druids would have recognized that symbol, or have any idea what it represents.
On topic: doesn't it take 100 faith to get your first great prophet? If so, and we assume that it doesn't require working the unimproved forest to generate faith, it would still be a while before the Celts would be able to start a religion from their UA alone. Turn 51 (right?) given no other faith generation if your capital has three forest tiles nearby - which seems fairly late to me.
Of course, the point of the UA is to generate a small amount of faith that other civs don't get, so it will probably work well as an effect that, over time, greatly increases the amount of available faith for your civilization. It seems balanced, but we'll have to see it working firsthand to know how good or bad it really is.
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Off topic: Regarding the Celtic UU: it is a spearman replacement, but doesn't have an anti-horse combat bonus. I've not seen anybody talking about that (which is why I'm posting this here, in a Celt discussion), but it is a major change in the functionality of the unit. It seems like a replacement along the lines of camel archers/keshiks/hwat'cha/turtle ships, in that it is really good at doing something other than the primary function of the unit it replaces. Any thoughts?
First, we can't know the actual time-frame it takes to spawn a Great Prophet, because when you reach a certain threshold (which I don't believe has been released) you have a percentage chance to spawn one. The percentage increases every turn that a GPr doesn't spawn.
Second, their UU, the Pictish Warrior, creates faith when it kills units (I believe it's been stated to be 1/2 the killed unit's combat strength), so they won't have to rely on their UA alone to generate a GPro, even if they don't build any buildings. Also, I think it does have a bonus versus mounted, but I could be wrong there.
Ah. I had read (somewhere) that the first Great Prophet spawns at 100 faith, but this was after reading about the percentage chance spawn method of generation. After what you've said I'm no longer sure of either, but I'll accept the percentage chance one.
And yeah, I know that the Pictish Warrior generates faith. I was just trying to make the point that the Celtic UA is probably not meant as the main method of faith generation, but a useful, minor bonus. I was getting info about the UU from the Civ 5 analyst page that Arioch linked to in another thread, where the Pictish Warrior is not listed as having a bonus vs. mounted.
Well, if you aren't actually guaranteed to immediately spawn a Great Prophet after reaching a certain number of points, that certainly changes things. I was thinking that you could plan a strict timeframe around religion to make the most efficient generation of your faith. That isn't happening now, I guess.
Where did you read that it spawns at 100? If you read it after the percentage chance method, maybe this is a change? Do you have a link to your source?
If I remember right, you're both sort of right. It is a percentage chance and the percentage starts at 100 and gets higher the more faith you have. That's the last I heard anyway.
I'm...not sure I really like this development, though. I'm sure high-level players will appreciate the consistency, but I really liked having the random element to it. Now instead of just "Open liberty, build second city, rush buy library in second city, build GL in first city, build NC, finish liberty, use GE to rush HS and then to rush PT" you're going to get all of that with "Reach 200 faith and found religion x with y founder belief and z follower belief" thrown in somewhere.
Here's what I don't get. Everyone seems to hate the huns the most, but the celts are usually one of their top favourites. But the huns are very similar to the celts. They have a UU as the battering ram which is a spearman like the celts, and they have early game bonuses (celts get a religions bonus huns get a razing cities bonus and they start with animal husbandry). I for one think both seem kind of crappy.
Here's what I don't get. Everyone seems to hate the huns the most, but the celts are usually one of their top favourites. But the huns are very similar to the celts. They have a UU as the battering ram which is a spearman like the celts, and they have early game bonuses (celts get a religions bonus huns get a razing cities bonus and they start with animal husbandry). I for one think both seem kind of crappy.
I think the main reason that people are so excited about the Celts is that they have a religion focus. Because religion is a new feature, it's automatically shinier than the Huns' ability to utterly smash cities in the early game, which plenty of civs can already do.
I actually like both quite well. Getting an early game bonus is good because winning in the beginning is winning the whole game. Having a set of benefits for the duration is pretty good too, but the beginning is when having an advantage is most critical.
I'm...not sure I really like this development, though. I'm sure high-level players will appreciate the consistency, but I really liked having the random element to it. Now instead of just "Open liberty, build second city, rush buy library in second city, build GL in first city, build NC, finish liberty, use GE to rush HS and then to rush PT" you're going to get all of that with "Reach 200 faith and found religion x with y founder belief and z follower belief" thrown in somewhere.
Where did you read that it spawns at 100? If you read it after the percentage chance method, maybe this is a change? Do you have a link to your source?
I thought that I read it in the forums, but don't have a link to my source and anyway the point is moot. I prefer the hard number over a random chance for Great Prophet spawn, because A) you can now plan a game around it, and B) you can't get screwed over by random chance and not get to found a religion even if you put all of your early-game effort into doing that. Sure, it seems kind of arbitrary, but that's the same for every GP, and not just Prophets.
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As a tall empire builder, myself, I played France once for the trophy, then promptly forgot about them.
Yeah, that works well enough. And it is a nice round number to start with. Sure, I'll go with that for now.
Makes the game a bit too formulaic.
