Well, a bad choice for a maritime game, i suppose... BTW, I don't see what the first part of the UA has to do with Caral. Also, the starting bias is coastal...
Sorry Natan, I side with Sukritact and Hangman
Norte Chico only made fish nets from cotton. To be 100% historically accurate the ability should only work on cotton (not also silk and sheep as you stated). However, an ability like this that only fires when improving cotton would be completely impractical and noneffective. It would be throwing something onto the civ just to force a historical reference and not serve the civ's design (not to mention would add another level of terrain dependance). Generalizing it to all plantation resources not only makes it functional but also makes it simple and quick to understand (i.e. you don't have to remember which 4 different resources, just the 1 improvement).
A lot of other things in Civ V follow this pattern. All the pasture resources are often lumped together for abilities even if it only makes sense for horse (and not cattle and sheep). So a stable still boosts mounted unit production even if the city built the stable because of having sheep and not horse, etc.
Including a functional ability that draws inspiration from history = good
Being overly pedantic to force historical accuracy but produce an impractical ability = bad
I also don't completely consider Caral a maritime civ. A maritime civ will primarily settle coast and islands and there's no disadvantage in only doing so. To make the most of Caral you need to also settle inland. I did this on purpose to match the historical interdependence between coastal and inland sites for Caral. It has a coastal start because there's no "one city width from the coast" start. Historically, Caral was inland with Aspero as its coastal trading partner. However, the difference is relative; if you choose to do so, you can just move a few tiles and settle your capital inland. (A coastal start also lets me manipulate starting sea resources easier).
And yes, the civ draws from the Maritime Foundations of the Andes hypothesis. It was one of the most interesting angles to approach the civ. I should note that no one really considers this hypothesis as completely accurate anymore (and I point this out in the civilopedia). However, it is still generally agreed that Caral depended more on sea resources (especially as a protein source) than the other cradle civs (even if they still had an agricultural base). Inland sites also still imported a lot of sea resources (as evidenced from fish remains) from coastal sites, and there was a reciprocal trading relationship between the two. I feel my abilities are a nice nod to both the hypothesis and actual history without going too overboard in either direction. I didn't, for example, choose to have them start with sailing instead of agriculture or have them not be able to build farms.
