What game elements do you consider to be better than they are widely given credit for? You don't necessarily have to believe that the feature in question is very powerful - just that it is criticised more frequently than it deserves to be.
The Gallic Warrior
I doubt there's a thread about the Celts that doesn't contain a post dismissing this unit.
A Gallic warrior is as good as a swordsman. Axemen are competent city attackers but swordsmen are far better city attackers. As the Celts, if you have copper you are able to build Gallic warriors - the risk in researching iron working is greatly reduced. If you don't have copper then you have good reason to consider researching iron working - access to metal.
The free guerilla I promotion does not make the Gallic warrior worse in any way. You are not compelled to immeadiately pick guerilla II or III as the first two promotions for the Gallic warrior. But it gives you the option to do so. Gallic warriors can make an excellent rapid invasion force.
The Dun
Simply put; if you're using city specialisation (and why wouldn't you?) you get all of the unique building bonus from building a single cheap building in one or two cities with high production (your production cities do have high production, don't they?).
Enviromentalism
If you have a very large empire, state property is the best. But if you have something smaller - a small to medium sized empire - enviromentalism is far better than it's given credit for. In my mind this is the most under rated feature in the game.
The halt on city growth inflicted by the health cap isn't as direct as that inflicted by the happiness cap - every new unit of population after the health cap just consumes 1 extra food and provides something for the city while every new unit of population after the happiness cap does nothing. But the halt on growth due to the health cap is a lot longer lasting. Once trade has been established with all corners of the world, the health cap is a much more difficult barrier to overcome than the happiness cap. Reasoning:
Comparing enviromentalism to mercantilism:
Count your cities. Count the amount of extra units of population that enviromentalism gives you. You need to have a fair few more cities than potential extra units of population before mercantilism becomes a better choice (at which point state property is looking very tempting) since each unit of population gained by enviromentalism trumps each unit of population gained by mercantilism in a number of ways:
1) Population gained by enviromentalism counts towards score, diplomatic votes, and domination victory. Mercantilism's extra specialists do not. Also note that city population increases at a greater-than-linear rate with city size so that even if mercantilism did affect city size, one extra worker in two cities is worse than two extra workers in one city.
2) Population increases are more likely to be concentrated in specific cities. 2 extra scientist specialists in Oxford are better than 1 in Oxford and another in a small city. Same for production cities, gold cities.
3) Trade routes. As noted in 1), population increases at a greater-than-linear rate with city size. Trade route income is linked to city population, not city size. Cities near the health cap already have the best trade routes so can easily see that income jump up. Mercantilism gives negligible income from trade routes.
Comparing enviromentalism to free market.
If you're too small a civ to be using all possible trade routes then it's highly likely that you have a low health cap due to the restrictions in resource acquisition that goes with controlling a small territory. In that case, enviromentalism is a far superior choice.
If you're making use of all of the best foreign trade routes available to you then free market will concentrate the best routes in the best cities. As noted already, enviromentalism can see the cities with the best trade routes increase their trade route income. This all depends on your city planning but also note that enviromentalism cities which do see an increase in population and possible increase in trade route income will also be able to work extra tiles or specialists.
And I haven't even mentioned the potential happiness benefits of enviromentalism.
The Gallic Warrior
I doubt there's a thread about the Celts that doesn't contain a post dismissing this unit.
A Gallic warrior is as good as a swordsman. Axemen are competent city attackers but swordsmen are far better city attackers. As the Celts, if you have copper you are able to build Gallic warriors - the risk in researching iron working is greatly reduced. If you don't have copper then you have good reason to consider researching iron working - access to metal.
The free guerilla I promotion does not make the Gallic warrior worse in any way. You are not compelled to immeadiately pick guerilla II or III as the first two promotions for the Gallic warrior. But it gives you the option to do so. Gallic warriors can make an excellent rapid invasion force.
The Dun
Simply put; if you're using city specialisation (and why wouldn't you?) you get all of the unique building bonus from building a single cheap building in one or two cities with high production (your production cities do have high production, don't they?).
Enviromentalism
If you have a very large empire, state property is the best. But if you have something smaller - a small to medium sized empire - enviromentalism is far better than it's given credit for. In my mind this is the most under rated feature in the game.
The halt on city growth inflicted by the health cap isn't as direct as that inflicted by the happiness cap - every new unit of population after the health cap just consumes 1 extra food and provides something for the city while every new unit of population after the happiness cap does nothing. But the halt on growth due to the health cap is a lot longer lasting. Once trade has been established with all corners of the world, the health cap is a much more difficult barrier to overcome than the happiness cap. Reasoning:
Spoiler :
Comparing enviromentalism to mercantilism:
Count your cities. Count the amount of extra units of population that enviromentalism gives you. You need to have a fair few more cities than potential extra units of population before mercantilism becomes a better choice (at which point state property is looking very tempting) since each unit of population gained by enviromentalism trumps each unit of population gained by mercantilism in a number of ways:
1) Population gained by enviromentalism counts towards score, diplomatic votes, and domination victory. Mercantilism's extra specialists do not. Also note that city population increases at a greater-than-linear rate with city size so that even if mercantilism did affect city size, one extra worker in two cities is worse than two extra workers in one city.
2) Population increases are more likely to be concentrated in specific cities. 2 extra scientist specialists in Oxford are better than 1 in Oxford and another in a small city. Same for production cities, gold cities.
3) Trade routes. As noted in 1), population increases at a greater-than-linear rate with city size. Trade route income is linked to city population, not city size. Cities near the health cap already have the best trade routes so can easily see that income jump up. Mercantilism gives negligible income from trade routes.
Comparing enviromentalism to free market.
If you're too small a civ to be using all possible trade routes then it's highly likely that you have a low health cap due to the restrictions in resource acquisition that goes with controlling a small territory. In that case, enviromentalism is a far superior choice.
If you're making use of all of the best foreign trade routes available to you then free market will concentrate the best routes in the best cities. As noted already, enviromentalism can see the cities with the best trade routes increase their trade route income. This all depends on your city planning but also note that enviromentalism cities which do see an increase in population and possible increase in trade route income will also be able to work extra tiles or specialists.
And I haven't even mentioned the potential happiness benefits of enviromentalism.
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