Trying to play the Celts ...

[slobberinbear]

But having a rough time of it. I have tried two strategies thus far: the early gallic warrior rush (I can grab a few cities, until axemen appear), which puts me behind in tech and expansion, or the wonder-building super-city route.

Focusing on the capitol city and then slowly adding satellite cities seems to work fairly well, though the AI land-grab does get irritating. With all of the Spiritual/Charismatic bonuses, I've been able to build up a very nice capitol with several early wonders and huge borders.

I am thinking the uber-city *then* expand approach is best for the Celts. I'm thinking this is the only way they can keep up in the tech/economic race.

The other problem I run into is early research priorities. I want to simultaneously found a religion, get the worker techs (of which Celtia only starts with Hunting -- meh), and get iron working for the UU. In the uber-city example, I went for Polytheism out of the gate and immediately built a worker then Stonehenge. I picked up the worker techs next and the military techs last.

On multiplayer, which I have also tried as the Celts, that tech/build order is suicide if you have neighbors. However, the early celtic warrior rush hasn't really worked in MP.

I welcome Celtic thoughts on Single and Multiplayer.

 

[bovinespy]

Welcome to the CFC Forum!!

(always wanted to say that)

I might be a bit partial, seeing as how I started the thread, but you might want to check out http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=187687 for some Celt discussion...

 

[Psyringe]

I went for Polytheism out of the gate and immediately built a worker then Stonehenge. I picked up the worker techs next and the military techs last.

I'm playing a game as Brennus and did the same, however I had to get the military techs before the worker techs because Tokugawa choked me while Monty attacked me.

I got Stonehenge and the Pyramids rather easily (started near a stone resource and had a bunch of trees to chop), but since I was on the coast and Tokugawa choked me, I was limited to 3 cities (on a XXL - larger than huge - map) for the beginning of the game. The nice thing about that was that I barely had to worry about barbarians, the only city that was not shielded by Tokugawa was placed on a hill, and after building a Dun there, the barbarians posed no danger whatsoever. The bas thing was that Tokugawa had an empire of more than twice my size, as did Monty, and both declared war on me (not at once though). I had to pull their neighbors into the war to divert their attention, which worked pretty well (my allies lost 2 cities each, while I lost none ...). The money from founding Hinduism kept my research at 100% until I totally swallowed Monty's empire. I'm now running at -200 gpt deficit, sell tech for money to keep me going, and will have to go down to 20% tech eventually to prevent going bancrupt. One of the disadvantages of my approach was that my cities weren't properly developed for a long time, I never had the time to build some workers (and the two I built were lost in the war). I will need some time to develop my (now rather large) empire, and hope that the developed empire will work good enough to catch up with the others. One good thing is that I'm surrounded by civilizations with my religions, so I'm on good terms with all of my neighbours.

 

[phungus420]

Wow I always play Brenus like the warmonger he's meant to be, not as a builder. I think the cheap religious buildings are a great way to culturaly expand new borders. If you're playing on an easier setting Brennus can easily grab one of the ealier religions, then he's quick to focus toward war. On a harder level, I always focus on getting the Oracle (the only wonder I'll typically build early on) and shooting for CoL for Confusionism. You can always use the religion of a rival as well. Anyway Gallic Warriors aren't that great. Brenus doesn't rely on the use of his UU and UB for the early wars. It's really that synergy from spiritual and Charismatic that make Brenus such a brutal warmonger.

 

[Psyringe]

I thought about playing him as a warmonger too, especially after I found out that my neighbours were Tokey and Monty. But I had two strong reasons against it. The first is that this stone resource right beneath my captital begged to make use of it, the other is that my girl friend, who is a huge fan of Celtic culture, instructed me to play them peacefully.

 

[Polycrates]

I've given Brennus a bit of a go and I like him quite a lot.
His traits are GREAT, for starters, and I think they work well together. With charismatic, your people are going to be very happy, and even more with monuments/stonehenge (I'm normally not a fan of it, but Brennus pretty much begs to build it). Even more if you get an early religion, which you've got a reasonable shot at if you want to try for it. So you get serious whipping and later serious city growth.
On the war front, it's even better, since you can easily switch to warlike civics when you need to. This is especially synergetic with charismatic, since you can switch to theocracy/vassalage whenever you need and get the charismatic bonus out of it.

I think the UB and UU get a bit of a bad rap. I think the main problem with them is really the AI, which is pretty much hopeless at any sort of field combat. I think that against a decent human player, they could really shine a lot more. The key, I think, is being able to get guerrilla II straight away with a barracks (remember you normally need combat I AND guerrilla I). Now you've got a huge defensive bonus on some terrain and, even better, a fantastic movement bonus. That's a great bonus against enemy counterattack on your stacks in enemy territory, especially if you bring some archers along, and the movement can be potentially very deadly. I didn't really try it, but beefed-up archer defense keeping up with cavalry raids could be very cool.
Also, the extra speed on defensive units makes for some great pillagers (and especially against their mines - wow!).

I reckon the UU is really good now that it can use either copper or iron. Unless you're very lucky you're unlikely to get both close by, and it's likely going to take a while getting iron connected. And you're going to suffer if you go after both in turn instead of otherwise better city sites. This way, if you've got copper you can go for your normal axeman rush tactic, and then augment it with much earlier swords (that aren't weakened like jags) AS SOON AS you get Iron Working. Earlier means less defense means more valuable, and that extra strength and city raiding over axes means a lot. Oh yeah, and you can whip more, so that's even more even earlier .
So you can either have early super-axes and have much better chances against e.g. enemy capitals (taking CRI as your promo), and/or you can have a secondary fast-axes squad (with guerrilla II) who can (in the right terrain circumstances) make lightning raids into their furthest cities and easily beat their couple of archers before they've built up defense.
Plus the guerrilla means that if you can make use of hills, they have less need for supporting defensive troops, since on a hill they can easily beat any other early unit except axemen, and even hold their own against axemen.
Oh yeah, and they're only one fight (or instructor) from an extra city raider or guerrillaIII. I haven't really experimented with it, but the withdrawal chance and the hill attack bonus could probably make them great initial attackers against tough hill cities or an enemy's fortified copper/iron (even the AI seems to know to defend them sometimes).

I think there's probably a lot more potential I haven't explored yet, but I've definitely warmed to the Celtic UU and UB. They definitely make for a fun change of tactics, in any case. And if we ever get an AI that's better able to counterattack in the field, I think they'll really shine quite brightly.

I think I'm a Brennus convert

 

[Blake]

I reckon Brennus is pretty simple. Get a religion, grow big cities, kick ass.
He has a top-notch trait combination (Especially for higher difficulties) and a solid enough UU and UB.

The combination of Cha and Spi is interesting in that with a religion it's the maximum happiness possible (or cheaply possible anyway), having cities +4 means working 4 more grassland cottages... or a very strong wonder pump, or whatever. It's a nice combo, and being able to civic-switch at whim and getting the cheap unit promotions, it's all kinds of nice, a powerful flexible leader.

 

[phungus420]

...[He has] a solid enough UU and UB.

See, I'm not at all convinced. If Brenus just got normal Swordsmen and Walls, I'd still love and play Brenus for his trait combination alone. I've never had those Gallics or GI archers do anything impressive. Maybe I'm missing something, but I just don't think his UU or UB make Brenus any stronger, Brenus'd be brutal without them.