The Celts

[Opera]

Here's a list of celtic deities, using Gaulish, Welsh and Irish names based on personal preference. Note, that's only from my own knowledge (however limited) and Wikipedia.

• Belenos, a sun god.
• Cernunnos, god of nature (poorly attested apparently but the name is pretty good).
• Epona, goddess of horses.
• Lugh (Lugus), a messenger god akin to Mercury.
• Sucellus, god of agriculture.
• Aengus, god of love, youth and poetic inspiration.
• Nodens, god of the sea and hunting.
• Sirona, goddess of healing.
• The Morrigan, goddess(es) of war.
• Gofannon, the smith god.
• Gwydion, a trickster god.
• Dôn, a mother goddess.
• Brigantia, goddess of victory.
• Toutatis, god of protection.
• Taranis, god of thunder.

Not many clearly associated with terrain however.

 

[Atlas627]

Here's an alternative tack for unique pantheons, perhaps they could correspond to play-styles throughout the game. Here are my ideas for some play-style-themed pantheons, each loosely based on a Policy Tree;

"Tradition" +3 Happiness in Capital, and +1 Faith for every known Civ with a Pantheon. Cities provide +30% Ranged Combat Strength.

"Liberty" +1 Faith, +2 Science, +2 Food in cities with a City Connection.

"Might" +15 HP healed per turn in friendly territory, +2 Faith and +3 Culture from each heal that happens this way.

"Piety" +1 Faith, Culture, Gold, Production, Food, and Science for every 6 followers.

"Patronage" +2 Faith and +3 Science for every CS Friendship, and +1 Faith for every known NW.

"Aesthetics" +1 Faith from every WW, 10% to WW construction.

"Industry" +4 Faith, +4 Gold, +3 GAP when a citizen is born.

"Imperialism" 5 Faith from border growth, 10% faster border growth. +5% Combat Strength in owned territory.

"Rationalism" +1 Faith per 9 Science generated empire-wide, +2 Science and +2 Production in capital.

This is something I can get behind, though I think the Aesthetics one is clearly the weakest. I would also make Imperialism +5% Combat Strength in non-owned to synergize with the UU. I also think you have the Tradition yields reversed, and it seems odd to have no growth there.


As for names, these are coming from D&D 5th Edition Player's Handbook, so take that for what you will. It seems they may have adjusted what each god's domain or name are.

The Daghdha - weather and crops
Arawn - life and death
Belenus - sun, light, warmth
Brigantia - rivers and livestock
Diancecht - medicine and healing
Dunatis - mountains and peaks
Goibhniu - smiths and healing
Lugh - arts, travel, commerce
Manannan mac Lir - oceans and sea creatures
Math Mathonwy - magic
Morrigan - battle
Nuada - war and warriors
Oghma - speech and writing
Silvanus - nature and forests

Seems pretty easy to find gods for each category.

Tradition - Daghdha
Liberty - Brigantia
Honor - Nuada
Piety - Silvanus
Patronage - Goibhniu
Aesthetics - Oghma
Industry - Lugh
Imperialism - Manannan mac Lir
Rationalism - Math Mathonwy

Or if you wanted to use the gods Opera suggested:

Tradition - Toutatis
Liberty - Sucellus
Honor - Sirona
Piety - Cernunnos
Patronage - Lugh
Aesthetics - Aengus
Industry - Gofannon
Imperialism - Nodens
Rationalism - Don

And if you did end up wanting to use tile improvement ones, that seems pretty easy to me too.

 

[Funak]

Here's an alternative tack for unique pantheons, perhaps they could correspond to play-styles throughout the game. Here are my ideas for some play-style-themed pantheons, each loosely based on a Policy Tree;

"Tradition" +3 Happiness in Capital, and +1 Faith for every known Civ with a Pantheon. Cities provide +30% Ranged Combat Strength.

"Liberty" +1 Faith, +2 Science, +2 Food in cities with a City Connection.

"Might" +15 HP healed per turn in friendly territory, +2 Faith and +3 Culture from each heal that happens this way.

"Piety" +1 Faith, Culture, Gold, Production, Food, and Science for every 6 followers.

"Patronage" +2 Faith and +3 Science for every CS Friendship, and +1 Faith for every known NW.

"Aesthetics" +1 Faith from every WW, 10% to WW construction.

"Industry" +4 Faith, +4 Gold, +3 GAP when a citizen is born.

"Imperialism" 5 Faith from border growth, 10% faster border growth. +5% Combat Strength in owned territory.

"Rationalism" +1 Faith per 9 Science generated empire-wide, +2 Science and +2 Production in capital.

While I would love to agree with these, if only so that people wouldn't think I just hate on all ideas that aren't mine, these are pretty horrendously balanced.

 

[void_genesis]

Will simply buffing pantheons be enough of a change to make the celts different and fun to play?

Maybe there is a different approach we haven't stumbled upon yet.

One thought I had....the celts gain faith from exploration (allowing an easier pantheon), extra faith and happiness from discovering natural wonders (again rewarding exploration). Extra yields from worked natural wonders. The Celts cannot found a religion, but other religions spread to the celts faster that normal (maybe especially along trade routes to allow some player control). When a religion spreads to the celt cities they retain their pantheon effects plus the pantheon and other effects of the adopted religion.

This will make them an exploration based civ, but give rewards even if they don't settle all over the place to get natural wonders. Because the UA abilities have other effects the natural wonder tile bonuses don't need to be so extreme, so settling one early isn't a win button. The addition pantheon effects should come a bit later and this will prevent them from being overpowered in the early game and causing snowball effects. Also it is more active and complex to actively organise settling patterns, trade routes and friendships to improve the chance of a preferred neighbouring religion taking over your cities. Since you don't have perfect control over which religion you adopt it is less likely to give you overpowered double pantheon effects, but more fun when you pull it off. As such I would include tile bonus pantheons. Finally you could give the celts much better holy sites as a way for them to use their great prophets (ties in with celtish megalithic sites).

Sound fun? Could the AI handle the changes?

 

[Funak]

Will simply buffing pantheons be enough of a change to make the celts different and fun to play?

Maybe there is a different approach we haven't stumbled upon yet.

One thought I had....the celts gain faith from exploration (allowing an easier pantheon), extra faith and happiness from discovering natural wonders (again rewarding exploration). Extra yields from worked natural wonders. The Celts cannot found a religion, but other religions spread to the celts faster that normal (maybe especially along trade routes to allow some player control). When a religion spreads to the celt cities they retain their pantheon effects plus the pantheon and other effects of the adopted religion.

This will make them an exploration based civ, but give rewards even if they don't settle all over the place to get natural wonders. Because the UA abilities have other effects the natural wonder tile bonuses don't need to be so extreme, so settling one early isn't a win button. The addition pantheon effects should come a bit later and this will prevent them from being overpowered in the early game and causing snowball effects. Also it is more active and complex to actively organise settling patterns, trade routes and friendships to improve the chance of a preferred neighbouring religion taking over your cities. Since you don't have perfect control over which religion you adopt it is less likely to give you overpowered double pantheon effects, but more fun when you pull it off. As such I would include tile bonus pantheons.

First of all, are the Celts really famous for their exploration?
Second of all, I really dislike the idea of any civ not being able to found a religion, it kills a big part of the game.
I think JFD have a civ that automatically gets the religion of the first religion founded, and acts like s pseudo-founder for that religion. Such an approach worked fine in vanilla, but in CPP that civ would be extremely weak in my opinion.

Finally you could give the celts much better holy sites as a way for them to use their great prophets (ties in with celtish megalithic sites).

Seems kinda harsh, if you can't found a religion you can't earn a great prophet from faith, meaning a part of the UA would be tied into giving a bonus for something you can only earn from one policy and some wonders.

 

[void_genesis]

I would see the celts as being nature worshippers, hence the extra natural wonder bonuses (and hence the exploration focus in order to find them). You could tie the exploration faith rewards to exploring forests or mountains or something if needed to balance it and keep it thematic (and more unpredictable game to game). Are any other civs really exploration based other than old vanilla Spain? I don't think any civ historically fits this role, though the celts as nature worshippers probably come the closest.

No religion founding could be a bit extreme but I'm looking for something to fundamentally change gameplay. Faster religion spread to celt cities through trade routes would guarantee a religion by the mid-game at the latest with appropriate adjustments, making it impossible to miss out on getting a religion. After that the double pantheon effect is potentially very powerful. You could even extend it to give pantheon effects of any religion over x% of city population (scale down with era?). A simpler mechanism would allow the celts to select an additional pantheon effect every era. That could be a different approach altogether: celts choose an additional pantheon or religious belief when entering a new era. This would scale across the game and allow them to be the only civ to explore all sorts of different religious effect synergies.

The celts could still earn great prophets through faith, just not use them to found a religion. As a trade off their remaining use of holy sites would be much more powerful to compensate, maybe extra culture to give more diverse rewards depending on social policy decisions, and maybe tourism in the late game. The AI should be able to handle that then....just make holy sites asap.

 

[Funak]

I would see the celts as being nature worshippers, hence the extra natural wonder bonuses (and hence the exploration focus in order to find them). You could tie the exploration faith rewards to exploring forests or mountains or something if needed to balance it and keep it thematic (and more unpredictable game to game). Are any other civs really exploration based other than old vanilla Spain? I don't think any civ historically fits this role, though the celts as nature worshippers probably come the closest.

But then again the spanish exploration theme was dropped because it was erratic. I'm not really sure remaking it on another civ would make much sense.

The celts could still earn great prophets through faith, just not use them to found a religion. As a trade off their remaining use of holy sites would be much more powerful to compensate, maybe extra culture to give more diverse rewards depending on social policy decisions, and maybe tourism in the late game. The AI should be able to handle that then....just make holy sites asap.

I think I asked G about this half a year ago and he said it was impossible.

 

[Gazebo]

Will simply buffing pantheons be enough of a change to make the celts different and fun to play?

Well, yeah, I think so. If the new beliefs are strong enough, they'll essentially allow you to 'build your own UA.' That, plus the bonus to natural wonders, puts the Celts in a good place (a much better and more flavorful place than the previous UA allowed, for certain).

G

 

[Funak]

Well, yeah, I think so. If the new beliefs are strong enough, they'll essentially allow you to 'build your own UA.' That, plus the bonus to natural wonders, puts the Celts in a good place (a much better and more flavorful place than the previous UA allowed, for certain).

G

Well since that wasn't really obvious from the start, and I forgot asking before.

"What kind of strength-levels are you looking for in these custom pantheons?"

 

[Gazebo]

Well since that wasn't really obvious from the start, and I forgot asking before.

"What kind of strength-levels are you looking for in these custom pantheons?"

Here's the current working version of the Celts:

Celts received a new UA: When selecting a Pantheon, choose from a selection of powerful Beliefs unique to the Celts. All Great Works produce +1 Faith and +1 Culture.

• Epona, the Great Mare: Receive +5 Faith, Culture, and Food when your Borders expand.
• Morrigan, Harbinger of Strife: Earn Faith, Food, and Golden Age Points from kills.
• Nuada, the Silver-Handed King: +1 Faith for every 10 Gold per turn, and +1 Culture for every 10 Science per turn.
• Cernunnos, the Horned Stag: +1 Faith from Forests, +1 Culture from Jungles
• Lugh, the Skilled One: +3 Culture and Gold in Cities with a Specialist, +3 Faith from World Wonders
• Rhiannon, Goddess of Sovereignty: +1 Faith, Gold, Food, and Production per following City.
• Manannan, Son of the Sea: +2 Faith, Production, and Gold in coastal Cities.
• Ogma, the Learned: +1 Science for every 3 Citizens in a City, and +5 Faith when a Citizen is born.
• Bran, The Sleeping Guardian: +20% increase to Ranged Combat Strength, +20% Growth, and +1 Faith in every City
• Dagda, the All-Father: +1 Culture, Faith, Gold and Science for every 4 followers

 

[hewkii9]

While I would love to agree with these, if only so that people wouldn't think I just hate on all ideas that aren't mine, these are pretty horrendously balanced.

Oh, I agree about the balance! I'm glad it's the only thing you find objectionable Here are my ideas again, hopefully balanced and revised to include new suggestions;

"Tradition," +3 Faith in Capital, and +2 Happiness for every known Civ with a Pantheon. +10% Growth in owned Cities.

"Liberty" +2 Faith, +2 Science, +2 Food in cities with a City Connection.

"Might" +5 Faith upon border growth, 15% faster border growth. +5% Combat Strength in unowned territory. (Fixed to work with the UU, urging you to keep pushing forward and retain the bonus)

"Piety" +1 Faith, Culture, Gold, Production, Food, and Science for every 6 followers.

"Patronage" +3 Culture and +3 Science for every CS Friendship, and +1 Faith for every known NW. (I figured these two things tied together well as many CSs are near NWs, and this way the player benefits from the NW even if unable to gain the +50% yield)

"Aesthetics" +1 Faith from every 4 citizens, and +5 Tourism in Capital. (This would pair well with Ceilidh Halls to give the Celts a unique early CV bonus)

"Industry" +3 Faith, +3 Gold, +3 GAP when a citizen is born.

"Imperialism" +2 Faith and +2 Production from Garrisons, 30% increase in city Ranged Combat Strength. (I removed the faith from heal pantheon since it feels redundant to have 2 ways to generate Faith from combat, alongside the UU)

"Rationalism" +1 Faith per 8 Science generated empire-wide, +2 Science and +2 Production in each city.

EDIT: Oh, wow, didn't see Gazebo's UA. Nice!

 

[Funak]

Here's the current working version of the Celts:

They look pretty good.

Celts received a new UA: When selecting a Pantheon, choose from a selection of powerful Beliefs unique to the Celts. All Great Works produce +1 Faith and +1 Culture.

I guess that means the NW bonus is gone?

Epona, the Great Mare: Receive +5 Faith, Culture, and Food when your Borders expand.

I like this one, and I'll assume it scales with era.
Also, thumbs up for the Zelda-horse

Morrigan, Harbinger of Strife: Earn Faith, Food, and Golden Age Points from kills.

I assume this is a normal %combat-strength scaling?
Also thumbs up for the dragon-age witch.

Nuada, the Silver-Handed King: +1 Faith for every 10 Gold per turn, and +1 Culture for every 10 Science per turn.

Interesting concept, no clue if it would be balanced or not, but interesting.
Thumbs up for Tyr.

Cernunnos, the Horned Stag: +1 Faith from Forests, +1 Culture from Jungles
Lugh, the Skilled One: +3 Culture and Gold in Cities with a Specialist, +3 Faith from World Wonders

This is quite a mix of non-related stuff, but sure, why not.
Thumbs up for "Cenarius, is that you?"

Rhiannon, Goddess of Sovereignty: +1 Faith, Gold, Food, and Production per following City.

I find this extremely confusing, which is good because I couldn't find any way to give her thumbs up .
Where do you get the extra faith gold food and production? in your capital? even if that's how it works. normally pantheons don't interact with "following" as you can neither spread nor keep it.

Manannan, Son of the Sea: +2 Faith, Production, and Gold in coastal Cities.

This one is really cool actually, I really like it.
Thumbs up for Aquamanannan.

Ogma, the Learned: +1 Science for every 3 Citizens in a City, and +5 Faith when a Citizen is born.

Not really a huge fan here, I'm not going to say it sounds underpowered, because it's a researchlab, but it just sounds pretty boring.
No thumbs.

Bran, The Sleeping Guardian: +20% increase to Ranged Combat Strength, +20% Growth, and +1 Faith in every City

Really not faith-heavy but I like both the growth and the defending bonus.
Thumbs up for the sleeping greenseer.

Dagda, the All-Father: +1 Culture, Faith, Gold and Science for every 4 followers

This might be overpowered actually. which i find really weird as it isn't much stronger than the God-king it replaces. And I don't think god-king is overpowered. Anyways I don't know so I'll just thumbs it.
Thumbs up for Odin.

 

[Gazebo]

I guess that means the NW bonus is gone?

Yes. More on that later.

I assume this is a normal %combat-strength scaling?

Yes.

Where do you get the extra faith gold food and production? in your capital? even if that's how it works. normally pantheons don't interact with "following" as you can neither spread nor keep it.

Applies to every city. Rephrased for release version.

Edit: Also, thank you to everyone who threw ideas out for this. Extremely helpful!
G

 

[Atlas627]

I like most of what Gazebo has for now, but I like the idea of being like the policies more.

When you say "no new stuff" Gazebo, do you just mean nothing that uses brand new mechanics? Because this just uses Pantheons of types we already have, so it seems on that borderline.

 

[Gazebo]

I like most of what Gazebo has for now, but I like the idea of being like the policies more.

When you say "no new stuff" Gazebo, do you just mean nothing that uses brand new mechanics? Because this just uses Pantheons of types we already have, so it seems on that borderline.

No brand new mechanics, yeah. We can't make them 'like the policies' per se because policies use an entirely different set of functions. There's no mix-and-match there, which means I'd have to completely rewrite all those policy functions for beliefs, and then integrate them as new initialized values, etc. etc. Also, because of how founder+ beliefs work (versus pantheon beliefs), you can't use all beliefs as they stand - only pantheon beliefs work properly. Limits us a bit, but that's the nature of pantheons.

G

 

[Atlas627]

No brand new mechanics, yeah. We can't make them 'like the policies' per se because policies use an entirely different set of functions. There's no mix-and-match there, which means I'd have to completely rewrite all those policy functions for beliefs, and then integrate them as new initialized values, etc. etc. Also, because of how founder+ beliefs work (versus pantheon beliefs), you can't use all beliefs as they stand - only pantheon beliefs work properly. Limits us a bit, but that's the nature of pantheons.

G

I wasn't suggesting that Boudicca fill out a tree of pantheons like policies, I was suggesting that the Pantheons be themed similarly to the policy themes. But either way is fine.

 

[Furkhail]

Morrigan seems a little underpowered. +1 Food, +1 Faith and +1GAP. Yes, I get that it scales with era but even then.

 

[Gazebo]

Morrigan seems a little underpowered. +1 Food, +1 Faith and +1GAP. Yes, I get that it scales with era but even then.

+1? It scales based on combat strength of opponent, like any 'yield from kill' bonus.

G

 

[Furkhail]

+1? It scales based on combat strength of opponent, like any 'yield from kill' bonus.

G

I'm sorry. It actually doesn't. +1. A whole point per kill. I'm glad to see that it is a bug. Do you prefer if I post it in github?

 

[Gazebo]

I'm sorry. It actually doesn't. +1. A whole point per kill. I'm glad to see that it is a bug. Do you prefer if I post it in github?

You tested versus higher CS enemies, yes? Always +1? I had it working just fine yesterday, but with no C++ optimizations in place. Who knows– optimizations of compiler can sometimes cause code to be skipped.

G