Celts

## **Historical brief**

**Celt**, a member of an early Indo-European people who from the 2nd millennium BCE to the 1st century BCE spread over much of Europe. Their tribes and groups eventually ranged from the British Isles and northern Spain to as far east as Transylvania, the Black Sea coasts, and Galatia in Anatolia and were in part absorbed into the Roman Empire as Britons, Gauls, Boii, Galatians, and Celtiberians. For the centuries after the establishment of trade with the Greeks, the archaeology of the Celts can be followed with greater precision. Dates associated with the Celts in their movement into the Balkans are 335 BCE, when Alexander the Great received delegations of Celts living near the Adriatic, and 279, when Celts sacked Delphi in Greece but suffered defeat at the hands of the Aetolians. Rome was sacked by Celts about 390, and raiding bands wandered about the whole peninsula and reached Sicily.

## Rulebook entry

Difficulty: ★★☆☆☆

As the Celts, you will want to adopt an aggressive playstyle, concentrating on acquiring cards and spreading unrest through your powerful Druids. Without the prosperity available to other nations, you will need to collect using cattle raids and grow your population with your druids and the *Cauldron of Cerridwen*.

## Civilization spotlight

For the purposes of Imperium we have combined the Gauls (who lived in modern day France) with the tribes from Britain and Gaelic Ireland.  To give the Celts a different feel from the other nations of Europe, we have incorporated some of their myths into their cards. This, along with their attack cards and nation power, tend to make their play style more aggressive, or at least more likely to generate unrest for their opponents. It makes them an especially great foe versus the Romans, who rely on an expansive tableau to support a lean deck wanting to play Glory often. Celts versus Romans – thematically appropriately, we might say – is one of the most “meant to be” two-player pairings in the Classics box.
When eventually you become an empire, your accession card Celtic Gold will generate ample materials, especially if you have managed to conquer an additional fertile region or two. Your aggressive style does not need to end during your empire state – you can develop chariots to keep conquering and cattle raiding. You will certainly want to develop your other leader Vercingetorix, both for his end game scoring of uncultured cards and for his useful ability to acquire any market card. The complication is that your nation deck is quite large – at seven cards it’s one of the largest ones in the game, so if you don’t hurry, the game might end before you even get to be an empire! This represents the thematic and historical fact that the Celtic tribes weren’t prone to classic empire-building, and by the time they did mostly band together (against the Roman threat), all other Mediterranean civilisations have long been turned into an Empire or even to dust.
With this spotlight on the Celts it is worth shining a spotlight on unrest too. Unrest represents internal struggles your nation has to deal with: disorder, riots, famine, disease, and so forth. Rather than make these specific or have an event system, we have instead incorporated generic unrest into the game. Unrest is bad! It clogs up your hand and deck with useless cards and each unrest you have at the end of the game loses you two points.
Most nations start with some unrest in their deck to show how much internal stabilisation they need before becoming a durable nation. You might take unrest from opponents’ attack cards, but the majority of unrest you will take is when you acquire market cards. This represents the upheaval and resistance cultures experience with change and new ideas. You can remove unrest by playing it as an action card and paying the cost (either 3 materials, discarding 2 cards, or 1 population). Alternatively, you can spend your entire turn and return all the unrest in your hand for free. This is called a revolution turn, and early game can be a very effective way of cleaning your deck.

There are many cards within the game designed to mitigate unrest – the Celts with their Druids, for example. But beware! If the central unrest pile empties, the world plunges into chaos and the game ends immediately. If that happens, the player with the fewest unrest cards wins, and no other scoring matters. To avoid this happening too easily, civilisations that tend to generate an excessive amount of unrest for others or themselves (like the Celts in this case) come with additional unrest cards to add to the supply when playing with them.

### Strategy

Worth noting that the A side of the Celts is stronger (and fun!) than its B side. You should end up with more than 5 uncivilised cards at the end of the game so side B will "max out" in VP anyways.

### Barbarian

You'll want to play Druids and Advance at every opportunity you get to acquire or break through for uncivilised cards, which triggers your powerful nation ability and/or will earn you a bunch of VP in the end. You can use Cauldron of Cerridwen and Cattle raid to get the ressources to play those cards, so unlike other nations you don't really need to keep a lot of regions in play and you can use your Glory early and often. Acquiring fame cards is also your main way to try and close out the game before your opponents get their late-game engine setup. Don't try to rush through your dynasty deck and become an empire too quickly, as you have one of the best barbarian engine and Cattle raid in particular scales well into the late game. Don't worry too much either about clearing your unrest (this would slow you down and you need to stay aggressive), unless it's stopping you from giving more unrest to your opponents.

### Empire

Celtic innovation is usually your best first development. It puts a lot of unrest pressure on your opponents while letting you continue doing what you do best. After that, you should generally choose between Chariots or Ogham script (not both), the two playing the similar role of giving a utility to your leftover barbarian cards. You usually don't have enough attack cards to make Chainmail really worth it, but if you do it can also make a good 2nd or 3rd development (not if you picked Ogham script). Make sure to develop Vercingetorix before the game end as it will normally give you more VP than the other options, even if you don't get to play him. Your goal as an empire is to try to close the game out as soon as possible, generally through the fame deck, while slowing down your opponents. Try to keep in mind the number of unrest cards in your opponents' deck. This is generally not how you'll win, but Celtic innovation can deplete the unrest deck surprisingly fast and cut the game short.

### Best common cards

Uncivilised cards are obviously extra valuable to you, to the point that most of the time you'll want to get whatever's available in the market, maybe with the exception of Jade mask as it doesn't do much for you and you don't have a lot of ways to put it into your history. Don't be afraid to break through for a random uncivilised card if needed. Your deck contains all the regions you'll probably need so don't get out of your way to grab some new ones unless you're getting a bunch of progress tokens for it. You probably won't be getting many civilised cards as you won't be able to play them for a large part of the game, and many of the cards that let you get one would also let you get an uncivilised card (often a better choice). This being said, attack cards like Corruption and Exports can be really good late game picks to put on even more unrest pressure on your opponents.

## Epic matchups

* **Fight for survival:** Sack Rome and raid the italian peninsula . Resist the advances of Rome and defend your lands and way of life against the formidable Roman legions. Test your strategic skills and tactical acumen as you strive to maintain Celtic independence against the might of Rome.
* **Celtic Expansion**: Send a delegation to the Balkans to pay tribute to Alexander the Great, only to sack Delphi in Greece afterwards.  Test your strategy and military might against the cultural and military powerhouses of ancient Greece.
* **Celtic Resistance:** Recreate the conflicts and clashes that occurred when Celtic territories and settlements came under Viking attacks. Can you defend your lands and tribes against the relentless Viking raiders, known for their seafaring prowess and fierce warriors?

## References

1. ↑ https://www.britannica.com/topic/Celt-people
2. ↑ https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/2614609/imperium-civilisation-spotlight-celts
3. ↑ https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/2691786/advanced-strategic-tips-each-nation
4. ↑ https://www.britannica.com/topic/Celt-people
5. ↑ https://www.britannica.com/topic/Celt-people
6. ↑ https://medium.com/@tahmidlelo3704/celts-vs-vikings-an-overall-comparison-63a7347408c9#:~:text=Also%2C%20by%20the%20time%20the,Christianized%20long%20before%20the%20Vikings.