Most useless civ = Celts?

[LzPrst]

Taking a look at the celts I was almost laughing my rear off Let's look closer at these poor fools and see if they 're really as bad as they look.


Specialties
Their UU is just a swordsman with the Guerilla 1 promotion, +20% defence bonus on hills. Their UB gives all other units the same +20% defence bonus on hills. As far as warfare goes this is about as useful as a wet napkin against a tank. (I wont say spear against tank, cause we all know how that goes)

The ONLY use for both the UU and all the other Guerilla 1 units is defence, and only on hills tiles.

"Now now", some of you may mutter, that's not being fair. And I agree, the Charismatic trait allows in addition to a barracks gives a quick upgrade to Guerilla 2. Now we're talking! And with a barb-kill you can crank that nasty little soldier-boy up to Guerilla 3, giving you the AWESOME +25% bonus when attacking hills.

Irony? what do you mean you detect irony in my writing?

Ok, it isnt really THAT stupid, if you're wicked and clever And hopefully have a map with a few hill chains. You can pillage the snot out of your enemie's mines while continously screaming, "Cant touch this! Ah-ha-ha-ha!" at your computer screen. While standing on hills your units will be tougher to crack than a pair of walnuts coated with titanium.

Unfortunately, like titanium-coated walnuts the Guerilla 3 promotion is sort of a waste of time and effort. The bonus attack is only equal to the defence bonus gotten from hills anyway, so there isnt that much advantage there really. Especially if you do the math and look at what 3 +10% Strength increases will do for you instead. You wont be as tough or fast in hills, but the attack bonus is actually better with strength upgrades. So there's a lot of xp wasted. And if you want to attack cities on hills a few city raider upgrades is definitively the better value for money.
No honey there. Tough luck on the battlefield Brennus.

[LzPrst]

Traits

Continuing on the road to examinate the celts. They are Spiritual and start with Mysticism. Ok, not half-assed just there. Going for one of the early 3 religions isnt a bad idea and likely to succeed. Especially if you can get a few extra gold coins out of your first-worked square. Should be doable.

Right. So now we have a religion. That's nice. Unfortunately there will be a few more millennia before the one declaring that "the meek shall inherit the earth" comes around. Not to worry though, if you build all your cities on hills noone will be able to conquer them (see above post). This isnt necessarily very practical though.

Sorry, got sidetracked. Back to those traits. The Spiritual trait is one of the sweetest. It allows you to swap civics instantly, no anarchy, no hassle, especially nice on longer game modes. Combined with the Charismatic trait you can flip to theocracy\vassalage and really boost up your units with some xp, then flip over to organized for some neato buildings or pacifism if you want some great people to help you out. This is probably one of the actual strengths of the Celts. The ability to be very flexible and specialize your units by xp distribution and then flip over to something more productive while your armies are pillaging and ravaging thine neighbours improvements, cities and wives. Goodie! Guess Brennus isnt such an idiot on the battlefield after all...

[Prussia]

"John the Mad," indeed.

If you are playing on a hilly map, these guys kick ass, in case you didn't realize. I have totally destroyed everybody in my games with hilly maps because I have my UUs defending my hill cities, and other units attacking. They really aren't that useless, if you use them properly.

Warlords has brought in a lot of specialized warfare civs. Zulus are quick, small band warefare, the Vikings give you marines very early on, and the celts are hill warfare.

Also, as you mentioned, the traits aren't too shabby, so that's a +.

However, as you so pointedly pointed out, there UU could use some work. SERIOUS work.

But they aren't as bad as you are trying to make them seem.

[Gibsie]

Re: Most useless civ = Celts?

Originally posted by LzPrst

Specialties
Their UU is just a swordsman with the Guerilla 1 promotion, +20% defence bonus on hills. Their UB gives all other units the same +20% defence bonus on hills.

To give you a bit more ammniation, I'll point out that it doesn't give ALL units that bonus, only ones that can have it in the first place. It is most annoying!!

[Yuufo]

They can't be so bad, with their diplomacy sound theme !

[LzPrst]

Needs and Wants

Ok. Lets face it. Those Gallic Oarsmen are useless. They're just a swordsman, with a slightly higher survival rate provided that they can reach a hill quickly. "Run to the hills! Run for your liiiiiiiiife!!!" As mentioned above wasting xp to hike up to Guerrilla 2 and 3 doesnt really make much sense in terms of xp for value. A few Guerrillas will come in useful for pillaging and moving fast on enemy lands, but pillagers just slow down your enemies, they wont conquer anything for you, so all in all they're not all that useful. Iron is thus not a must-have in order to maximise your potential (as it is with for example the Romans).

As Brennus is Charismatic you can try to make for Stonehenge, that will allow your cities to grow a little extra and you will grab some more land from culture. If you got a religion (as mentioned in the post above) that should give you a little culture boost too. At least noone will take your city tiles easily, especially since Firaxis killed off most Creative leaders in the expansion

Also useful with Charismatic trait is The Great Wall. Having an increased Great General Emergence rate will give you lots of extra wellspent xp if you toss them in your military city as instructors, and you will get good value for them as your levelups are cheaper.

[OzzyKP]

Stonehenge is a terrible wonder for a Charismatic civ to have. Because once you get calendar then all those monuments are gone and you lose your +1 happy. Much better to build them yourself always.

[LzPrst]

And as Gibsie pointed out, the Dun (Walls) UB will only give Guerilla 1 to those units who can get it, in other words Recon, Archer and Gunpowder class units, that translates to Scouts, Archers, Gallic Warriors, Longbowmen and Musketmen, THAT'S IT. The reason is that it becomes obsolete at the invention of Rifling thus no longer providing the oh so magnificent bonus to your... oh why do I even bother. The Celts are awful. Compared to other civs the only thing they have going for them is the decent trait combo. I dont think anyone else has such a useless UU or UB. And in that sense they are BAD. playing on any normal map you wont get the amounts of hills that would make it worth it. Of course they would be decent on a hilly map, but so are most protective civs that can throw drill on their archers and put them on hills being roughly as bad.

Playing a random map, mostly, you'll get screwed by the extremely limited usefulness of the Celtic UU\UB. They should get Woodsman 1 as well and the Dun should give Guerilla 1\Woodsman 1 to ALL units, not just those five I mentioned above.

[One_more_turn]

Judging a civ's worthiness from UU alone is ridiculous. Whether Celtic UU is underpowered or not, it's certainly more useful than the Navy Seals or the Panzers.

Celts does have powerful traits though: Spiritual gives them lots of flexibility and cheap temples (good for culture), and Charismatic is absolutely the best new trait.

[monkspider]

Actually charismatic civs lose the +1 from monuments once they hit calendar, stonehenge or not.

[LzPrst]

It's not just the UU, it's also the UB. And the Marine isnt bad. Panzers arent all that I agree, but have you seen the Assembly plant!? Bismarck with exp\ind and that thing. holy cow. it almost equals giving germany every lategame wonder that exists by having a few cities with 5 engineer specials in. they'll have more great engineers than they can use.

mali's 10% wealth on forges is also nice, not to mention the fin\spi combo AND the very good skirmisher. even the civs that have more or less poor UU's have gotten a more or less ok UB. not celts. both is crap and that is kinda daft.

yes, UU's are not what makes a civ great (well, usually) but to have one that is as useless as celts is just silly.

[Dis]

Originally posted by One_more_turn
Judging a civ's worthiness from UU alone is ridiculous. Whether Celtic UU is underpowered or not, it's certainly more useful than the Navy Seals or the Panzers.

Celts does have powerful traits though: Spiritual gives them lots of flexibility and cheap temples (good for culture), and Charismatic is absolutely the best new trait.

I found both the navy seals to be useful. And I love panzers. Regular tanks aren't that great against cities, but panzers really crush cities.

Navy Seals were useful to me in the time between cavalry and tanks. As cavalry aren't strong enough to take on rifelmen in cities. But Seals can.

[One_more_turn]

Panzers have no advantages attacking cities vs regular tanks. Panzers have a bonus vs regular tanks.

By the time you get Navy Seals and Panzers, the game is usually decided. Most of my games end in the age of Cavalry.

[Dis]

sometimes I like that final push.

In fact, my last domination victory was with America. And I did have to resort to the seals, as my cavalry couldn't crack the cities.

But it is silly having a special forces unit as a uu. I feel stupid building 20 or more of them.

Is there a infantry uu in the game? A unit that replaces infantry? I'm thinking that's what america's uu should be.

[LzPrst]

why should america have an infantry unit as UU? marines would probably be a good UU for them. it's what people associate with the american modern military. of course that means changing the name of the basic unit to something else, like... something.

the marine unit looks as american as anything I could think of.