Summary
👥 A game for 1 to 4 players
⏳ Play time is 50 – 100 minutes
🏢 Publisher is Pythagoras
Introduction
Are you ready to lead a tribe of Celtae, farming to gather resources to later use to build and expand citadels or to convert them into the war effort against the invading Romans by recruiting more soldiers, building fortresses, and setting up traps?
The Celts, Latin Celta, plural Celtae, were an early Indo-European people who, from the 2nd millennium BC to the 1st century BC, spread over much of Europe. Their tribes and groups eventually ranged from the British Isles and Portugal to as far east as Transylvania, the Black Sea coast, and Galatia in Anatolia. Their tribes, including the Britons, Gauls, Boii, Galatians, Celtiberians, and Lusitans, were eventually absorbed in part by the Roman Empire.
Players will also expand your tribe by recruiting new workers to perform more powerful actions as the game advances. Only by cleverly managing your workforce will you be able to bring glory to your tribe!
Setting up the game
Place the game board in the center of the table.
Place the action marker on the action marker space on the southeast edge of the central area of the board.
Each player chooses a color and takes the corresponding player board, wooden discs, and wooden cubes, placing the discs in the holes in the center of their player board and then 4 cubes along the right edge in their garrison, with the final cube in space 0 of the strength level on the bottom edge.
Related to the player count, place discs of an unused color in all spaces on the citadels with the icons that will not be used. Place progress markers on the progress track. Place progress markers on the indicated spaces next to the Roman Army tiles and Druid tiles.
Place druids on each space of the druid tracks.
Give each player 1 farmer, 1 builder, and 1 soldier; then return to the game box 1 farmer, 1 builder, and 1 soldier for each player not present in the game.
Place workers on the action spaces around the central area of the board matching the types depicted. Place all the remaining workers in the bag; then randomly draw and place workers on the remaining empty spaces. Leave the bag next to the game board.
Sort the Druid tiles by value and shuffle the correct quantity related to the player count, then place them in the corresponding areas on the main board.
Sort the Roman Army tiles by value and shuffle the correct quantity related to the player count, then place them in the corresponding areas on the main board. Also, sort the Bonus tiles and place them randomly at each citadel and in the corresponding region.
Give each player a double-sided bonus token and place the rest near the main board.
Shuffle all player cards to create a face-down deck. Draw six cards for each region and place them face up in their indicated spaces.
Sort the progress tiles and place them according to the player count in the indicated spaces.
Choose the starting player and give that player the Teutates tile. Shuffle the leader cards and draw the player count plus one extra. Each player takes five cards from the deck and, counterclockwise, starts to choose a leader.
And everybody is ready to start!
Let’s get in on the table
Each round, a player needs to start by moving the action marker. Depending on how many steps the player wants to set, it will increase, decrease, or have no effect at all on the player’s strength track. This is already a good way to get everybody awake.
When the player moves a maximum of 3 steps, they will be able to swap workers from the action space they land on before they proceed. This way, a player can obtain the required workers or more workers, which can be handy for the action.
By moving the action marker around the board, a player can choose to visit one of the following actions:
– Farm, When you perform the Farm action, you immediately draw the leftmost card from the market of the region where you are performing the action for free. Then, depending on how many farmers you have in your pool of active workers and/or in your tribe, you may draw extra cards. The required number of farmers to draw a specific card is depicted on the board next to each card. After you draw all the cards that you wish and are able to afford, the remaining cards slide to the left, occupying any empty spaces, and the market is refilled from left to right. The cards that players will take are handy when players want to build and battle.
– Build, In order to perform the Build action, you must discard from your hand a certain number of cards of the color of the citadel where you wish to build. This is determined by the number indicated underneath the player’s leftmost available disc on their player board. After discarding, take the leftmost available disc and place it on the chosen citadel of the region where you are performing the Build action and that contains an available space for your disc. Then, you gain the bonus associated with that citadel.
When you build the last disc on a citadel, after gaining the bonus, flip the bonus tile face-down and place it beside your player board. This side depicts points you will gain for completing the construction of the citadel at the end of the game.
– Battle, When you perform the Battle action, you may discard from your hand a certain number of cards with the same military icon. There are three types of military icons, Warriors, Traps and Fortresses.
By defeating one of these military actions, players can place a cube on one of these spots in that region when they are able to discard a card from their hand with the needed military icon.
Depending on how many soldiers you have in your pool of active workers and/or in your tribe, you gain strength points per discarded card. This icon means that if you have one soldier total, for each discarded card with the same icon, you gain one strength point. If you have two soldiers, for each card, you gain two strength points, etc., with a maximum of four cards that can be used this way.
Discarding cards is a way to win a battle. You may also battle against the Roman Army by using your strength value on your player board. The strength value needed to defeat the Roman Army is indicated on the top of the Roman Army tiles of the region where you are performing the action. Each time you spend strength points, you slide your cube on the strength track the number of spaces to the left equal to the quantity of spent strength. Then, you take the Roman Army tile and flip it face-down beside your player board. This side denotes the army. Also, the VP that is indicated is counted with the final scoring.
– Recruit, When you perform the Recruit action, you immediately recruit one of your active workers into your tribe, taking that worker from your active workers’ pool and placing it in the leftmost empty space of your tribe along the top edge of your player board. Then, for each noble you have in your pool of active workers and/or in your tribe, you may recruit one extra worker from your active workers’ pool into your tribe. You may never recruit more than three workers during a Recruit action, as all recruited workers must come from your active workers’ pool, and you may never have more than three active workers. While recruiting, you may have more than eight workers in your tribe, but at the end of the Recruit action, you must discard down to a maximum of eight; the choice is yours.
When you recruit, players are able to have more workers that they can use during all actions. So, when you have recruited two farmers and have two in your active worker pool, there is a total of four that can be used during that action. Additionally, players can send workers from their tribes to train a Druid. The type of workers and the amount needed to train a Druid is indicated on the Druid tiles in that region. When players are able to fulfill a Druid tile, besides a Druid, they also take that tile, which will give VP at the end of the game. Each time you train a Druid and it’s in your player area, the player needs to discard cards from their hand. Why would you train a Druid? Well, it can be used as a Farmer, Builder, or Soldier, which can come in handy sometimes.
During the game, every time a player moves the action marker from the Northern region into the Southern region, meaning that the river was crossed on the right side of the board and the action marker returned to or passed by its starting position, progress is triggered, and the Celts will advance their civilization in pursuit of more interesting endeavors. The player holding the Teutates tile places the topmost progress marker from the progress track onto any progress card next to the board. Each progress card has spaces for a maximum of 2 or 3 progress markers, as indicated on each card. The number of progress markers on each card at the end of the game determines how many points will be scored. All players will score for every card that has at least 1 progress marker on it, provided they meet the card’s requirements.
Once there are only three progress markers remaining on the progress track, players have to immediately decide whether they want to flip their leader card from side A to side B for extra VP at the end. Finally, the player holding the Teutates tile passes it to the next player on the left.
When the last progress marker is taken from the progress track, the end of the game is triggered.
After the end game is triggered, each player takes a double turn. After this, the final scoring will take place. The player with the most VP will be the winner of Celtae!
Conclusie & eindscore
Difficulty: 2.75/ 5
Re-playability: 7
Our score: 7 out of 10 dice
Noticing the very good-looking illustrations from Celtae and knowing Mihajlo Dimitrievski and designer Orlando Sá from other games, this is our first game from the publisher Pythagoras. The first thing we noticed is the good quality of the components, board, and cards used in the game. This is very important when a card and draw mechanic is employed in the game. Even though the board is colorful, all the colors used for the workers and different sections on the board are still balanced.
After some evenings, we noticed that a player count of three and up is the best. With two players, it is nice, but the playtime decreases a lot and gives the impression at the end that you missed something. Of course, it’s still a lot of fun to play with two players; however, the setup time for this game is not really in line anymore. So, it almost takes more time to set up the game than to play it. Nevertheless, when you have a full set of players, the evenings are enjoyable.
Truly like the diversity of mechanics used. I like the way to achieve the battles, by using cards and worker combos or strength from your player board. Also, the way you get your workers and recruit is nicely done. Soon you will notice that when you set your goal on a progress tile, you will be drawn to the tile where other players are focused, which will create interaction between each player. That is where the joy of the game lies. Without knowing, you are slowly becoming a pain in the ass for all the other players and vice versa. Never a dull moment.
If there is an opportunity to have a good insert for this game, it would be very appreciated. But still, we enjoyed every evening and the theme, which really comes alive each time Celtae hits the table!
We want to thank Pythagoras for this review copy and the opportunity to write about this game.
