S3rgeus
Emperor
On to Cairhien!
With our intention to make Cairhien into a Science-y civ, since it's one of the few that has good flavor for it, it's worth mentioning that the main Science civs from BNW (Korea and Babylon) have only one unique each that relates to Science (their UAs). So we don't need to hit the Science mechanics too hard in a given set to turn them into a Science civ!
Also, Culture does seem like it could fit well with Cairhien's flavor. Given the number of Culture civ options we have already, it seems unlikely that we'd make it Cairhien's focus though. I say this mostly because having one unique that's Culture-y could also work, especially given the above that Cairhien can be a Science civ without most, or even more than one, of its slots going to Science uniques.
Agreed, it doesn't make them stand out much.
It doesn't seem to be just a slum, from what I've read in the Companion. It seems more like a low-class part of town, but it's more circus/market than slum. I'm still more toward the Foregate, flavor wise, being a wonder, since it's one of the few recognizable unique, single-instance "structures" that are built in the latter part of our intended timeline.
This UB is also outside the intended time window for Cairhien (Gold 1 is too close to the start of the tree). I find it's a bit too much of just a bunch of yields, rather than them working together specifically.
Agreed, we'd need to reflavor this once we know how the Illuminators are represented elsewhere (which I think we have briefly discussed before). The mechanics of it seem ok.
Agreed, we don't want a duplicate of Rome.
I like the 2 Population instead of 1 idea - I'll come back to this below.
Agreed, there doesn't seem to be much UU flavor to go on. I've read several wikis and looked through the Cairhien entry in the Companion and you've got most of it here already. I think with what we have we could fit most mechanics we might want into that flavor somehow though - I wouldn't be inclined to include something completely generic here just because flavor is scarce (rather than non-existent).
I really like this one at first glance, but the dependence on other players' actions will make it much less fun than it first appears. It's also only helpful if Cairhien is already winning, which isn't great. I'm going to mark this red.
Possible, it's simple and makes spies be used a bit differently.
I think players would find this very frustrating, since it would make it much more of a juggling act to keep CSes happy. It feels like your own actions are defeating you, which isn't very fun.
Noble produces an appropriate yield for the building it is in, then? Do only buildings that have at least one Specialist slot provide a Noble slot, or do *all* of them? (The latter is kind of crazy.)
I agree that the Daes Dae'mar flavor is definitely the strongest we have for a UA though, so good that we're trying so many! I've got some new ones below as well.
This one is pretty cool and quite evocative of the flavor.
Also looked through this, but I feel like there are more defined classes in some other civs (Shara, Seanchan) that didn't make the cut there and would be a better fit for the kinds of mechanics this suggests.
This is pretty cool, although X, Y, and Z might have to be quite low given how many technologies there are. We could make it splashier by taking a cue from Poland and putting it on the era boundaries?
Mm, not a big fan of this one because it doesn't feel particularly special, compared to other uniques we've seen before.
This does feel a bit strange - it's difficult to see how this bonus works in the world of CiV. Like, I see how the mechanics could work, but what's the flavor mechanism for sending the food back? Any basis in flavor for these units sending back food?
Agreed, I don't think this one works out too well, for the reasons you've stated.
This one is awesome! I love this UU because it turns Cairhien's approach to Culture and Science completely on its head, without denying them any of the standard options. This unique alone can turn them into a Science civ without the others even touching Science.
Like above, this will produce a lot of Gold and Food since there are so many techs. It's a good concept though, encourages Tall quite well.
Influence with City-States, I assume? With the CS at the trade route destination?
Should this also replace a later Happiness building since Cairhien is supposed to be an NE civ?
Also agreed, the Topless Towers seem like good candidates to be wonders rather than uniques.
Not big and splashy, but does some interesting stuff.
I think this is a bit of double jeopardy - particularly with the Unhappiness at the top end. Increasing Food output and having a high Populaiton will already create Unhappiness, and the hard part of using the ability would be managing that. I don't think it would be very fun for the ability to also work against its most difficult challenge.
I've found one of the times we discussed it before in the backup file, and it seems to be the most recent one. (Next mentions of Illuminators after it are in Tarabon's flavor dive.) We basically decided to wait and see which NWs or other aspects of the game would be best suited for the Illuminator flavor. The specifics of this UB would depend on our choices there, but we can throw some mechanics at it for now and, if needed, rework them later.
This one is fairly straightforward at the moment, I assume because of the idea you forgot!
Yeah, I like the way the two work together, and it also emphasizes Cairhien as a Science civ without actually increasing their Science output, so it combines well with other Science uniques.
This will be crazy strong as it is. Like crazy strong. An early Governor that reaches upgrade 2 around turn 125 will contribute ~50 Population to a city before Cairhien reaches the end of the tree (researches all techs). Still, we can tone that down to a Food bonus, but that's a bit less interesting. Like one of the others above, this might work well as an era bonus, where it could give multiple Population at once. It would create a bit of an Unhappiness problem though - a sudden spike on the era boundaries.
Recap! And some new stuff!
Cairhien (Era 5-9, Tall, Science/Diplomatic)
UAs:
UUs:
UBs:
UIs:
UGs:
UTs:
So, all of the various Daes Dae'mars here:
(culture) tries to turn enemy Prestige influence against them toward a Cairhienin Science victory. However, this will encourage Cairhien players to keep their Culture low, which is weird, and it's also dependent on enemy actions.
(trade) is a straight up Science bonus through trade, but also denies enemies Science (note: only when Cairhien is establishing the trade route are enemies denied, they get their normal Science from their own trade routes, but Cairhien also gets extra.) This may make other players trade with Cairhien less though.
(diplomacy) is similar to your (Gold), the two could be merged if we wanted. I like the idea of letting Cairhien negotiate Compact votes all the time, since that will make them quite a different presence in the Compact. Aside from that, it's a simple later-game Science bonus.
A "trade deal" in this case is anything like accepting embassies, trading gold for resources, anything that pops up the leader screen basically. I really like the mechanic, but the difficulty here is avoiding abuse - players constantly gifting the AI 1 Gold to get the bonus and the like. Even if we only allow for trades that involve exchanges (both sides must give something), there is a decent chunk of stuff the AI will have that the player wouldn't normally trade for that could trigger this. Still, maybe that part wouldn't be a problem. The AI can know that Cairhien benefits from this, and value their own stuff more accordingly.
Royal Academy completely changes how Cairhien approaches the Science victory, and allows them to grab benefits from other players on occasion as well. (The crux of the bonus is the first part, the ability to Exhibition at home.) It still gives the usual free tech that this building does.
Foregate (Pop explosion) is an evolution of my original idea for the Foregate doing double-Population-increased each time. But it ties into the last section, which I'll go into first:
Academics is a unique technology, that only Cairhien can research. National Wonder (Food) is not a building that exists in BNW (or at least I don't intend it to be - if it does then this is National Wonder (Food) 2). The tech does three things:
Unlocks the Lightning Jars Innovation early, which reduces the number of techs Cairhien needs to win the game via Science (by about 5). We could pick a different Innovation if we wanted to reduce that number less or more, or pick one of the non-leaf-node Innovations if we just wanted to give them a head start, but still need the same number of total techs.
It unlocks the Food National Wonder, which normally creates a normal Food bonus, as you would expect from buildings like the other national wonders.
It also gives Cairhien a Scholar, to partially offset the Science they've lost researching a tech that no one else can research (other civs catch up in that time, so we don't want it to just be a sunk cost, but we could adjust this - make it a Science dump, or even take it away, if it was too strong).
Academics can be stolen by other civs - hence the existence of the non-unique national wonder (other civs can build it that way). It also makes spying on Cairhien much more enticing in the late game, if any of Cairhien's other uniques particularly want that.
Another balance point for this tech would obviously be moving it to elsewhere on the tree, if we found its current position problematic.
So that's how the tech could work. The Foregate (Pop explosion) unique is a big, very late game UB that needs to have a massive and splashy effect to be worth it. Doubling might be too high, but that's the general idea - a ton of new Population at once. The difficulty is in how much the Unhappiness spike would be manageable for that.
And then there are the two Feast of Lights Celebration UIs. I figure this is like some kind of festival grounds Improvement. The idea with both is that it has a very significant yield output, but fades away after some time. What I was trying to avoid was making that busywork for the player ("Oh, I've got to go make the Feasts again"), and also restrict it so that it doesn't scale based on land (otherwise it would favor Wide).
I'm not sure if (culture) hits the mark. It's for a more cultural approach to Cairhien, which I think could work with their flavor, as mentioned above. But I think (science) is a much stronger candidate since the mechanic is much more helpful, and unlocking in the endgame it doesn't have much time to become busywork before the LB stomps on everybody, or somebody wins.
And now I'm out of time! I'll come back on the planning stuff tomorrow!
With our intention to make Cairhien into a Science-y civ, since it's one of the few that has good flavor for it, it's worth mentioning that the main Science civs from BNW (Korea and Babylon) have only one unique each that relates to Science (their UAs). So we don't need to hit the Science mechanics too hard in a given set to turn them into a Science civ!
Also, Culture does seem like it could fit well with Cairhien's flavor. Given the number of Culture civ options we have already, it seems unlikely that we'd make it Cairhien's focus though. I say this mostly because having one unique that's Culture-y could also work, especially given the above that Cairhien can be a Science civ without most, or even more than one, of its slots going to Science uniques.
ksb's D D'm I think kind of missed the mark. He argues that its because the nobles are constantly striving to show off and outdo each other, so build stuff. To me I feel like it might actually lead to *less* efficient production. Also, not a very fun ability. The reference to Luca is ok, I guess. Don't think we need it for a civ, though
Agreed, it doesn't make them stand out much.
Foregate (gold) is brokenly powerful, probably. Also, I don't really get the foregate providing gold. Isn't it kind of a slum?
It doesn't seem to be just a slum, from what I've read in the Companion. It seems more like a low-class part of town, but it's more circus/market than slum. I'm still more toward the Foregate, flavor wise, being a wonder, since it's one of the few recognizable unique, single-instance "structures" that are built in the latter part of our intended timeline.
This UB is also outside the intended time window for Cairhien (Gold 1 is too close to the start of the tree). I find it's a bit too much of just a bunch of yields, rather than them working together specifically.
KSB's Illuminator, mechanically, might be fine. Simple science and hap bonus. I don't think we'll want this flavor used this way, though. Assuming we actually want the illuminator's guild's to have any civ-specific ties (we know they're going to be generic, but we could have theoretically a "special" one in one of the two cities that have them in the lore [was the other Tanchico?]), we definitely don't want it to be a random building. It'd need to be a replacement of the Nat Wonder we already know we want (Factory replacement).
Agreed, we'd need to reflavor this once we know how the Illuminators are represented elsewhere (which I think we have briefly discussed before). The mechanics of it seem ok.
Calavente's UA (which he didn't name) is a duplication of Rome, so we won't want that. Put here for posterity.
Agreed, we don't want a duplicate of Rome.
Your old Foregate is kind of nuts. No idea what building it replaces. Not sure if we want something this big, but it is a mechanical dimension we could consider.
I like the 2 Population instead of 1 idea - I'll come back to this below.
OK, my stuff now. I found coming up with UUs to be very very difficult. There isn't much flavor there. I think this might be a civ where a UU we use might be more "generic," sort of just a different kind of footman or something, without much direct reference. That's not terrible. For me these first-round passes are mostly about flavor capturing, so there are certainly more UU options, mechanically, that could be suitable, that are simply not here now.
Agreed, there doesn't seem to be much UU flavor to go on. I've read several wikis and looked through the Cairhien entry in the Companion and you've got most of it here already. I think with what we have we could fit most mechanics we might want into that flavor somehow though - I wouldn't be inclined to include something completely generic here just because flavor is scarce (rather than non-existent).
Daes Dae'mar (theft) is meant to change the way you play with spies. The idea is that, if we set Cairhien up to have a tech lead, people won't be able to resist spying on them. Cairhien then can gain science from that. I can't figure out how to balance the % capture thing, though. I don't *want* to boost the kill chance, since then people won't spy on you, but I want a way to make this pay off often. Probably not a good ability since it relies on other civs' actions too much.
I really like this one at first glance, but the dependence on other players' actions will make it much less fun than it first appears. It's also only helpful if Cairhien is already winning, which isn't great. I'm going to mark this red.
D D'm (Gold) is also probably not a good ability. The idea is that you're spying on yourself instead of others. Not a very compelling mechanic, but I put it here in case it inspires something else.
Possible, it's simple and makes spies be used a bit differently.
D D'm (CS Balance) is weird and probably bad. Tries to approximate the whole piss-off-one-person while you make someone else happy thing. Maybe an idea there....
I think players would find this very frustrating, since it would make it much more of a juggling act to keep CSes happy. It feels like your own actions are defeating you, which isn't very fun.
Daes Dae'mar (specialist) might not be possible. Meant to reward really huge cities with big yield payouts, but majorly cut into your happiness. Not sure how to make this one work.
Noble produces an appropriate yield for the building it is in, then? Do only buildings that have at least one Specialist slot provide a Noble slot, or do *all* of them? (The latter is kind of crazy.)
I actually really struggled with D D'm stuff that felt flavorful and *not* a huge penalty. There's probably a better diplo answer somewhere...
I agree that the Daes Dae'mar flavor is definitely the strongest we have for a UA though, so good that we're trying so many! I've got some new ones below as well.
can't figure out the Silk Path one. It's either too good or kind of lame...
This one is pretty cool and quite evocative of the flavor.
Note that I also considered a "Class Divisions" UA, but decided against it because it was likely to yield similar mechanics to the D D'm stuff. The flavor's there, though.
Also looked through this, but I feel like there are more defined classes in some other civs (Shara, Seanchan) that didn't make the cut there and would be a better fit for the kinds of mechanics this suggests.
King's Gift is weird. Would need to be paired with something that fuels science... Another "build big" ability (funny how we're doing all the tall civs back-to-back)
This is pretty cool, although X, Y, and Z might have to be quite low given how many technologies there are. We could make it splashier by taking a cue from Poland and putting it on the era boundaries?
The Con is the little square banners the 'hien use to state which house they are with. My unit is pretty lousy, I know. Not a lot to go on, here.
Mm, not a big fan of this one because it doesn't feel particularly special, compared to other uniques we've seen before.
Noble Cavalry is a super weird bonus... Not sure how to balance this...
This does feel a bit strange - it's difficult to see how this bonus works in the world of CiV. Like, I see how the mechanics could work, but what's the flavor mechanism for sending the food back? Any basis in flavor for these units sending back food?
for Master of the Lances, (apparently a flavor thing), I decided to go with the GC thing. I think it's somewhat problematic, though, in that it's probably hard to keep these guys close enough to the GC to make it work. Also, it encourages horse carpeting.
Agreed, I don't think this one works out too well, for the reasons you've stated.
Academic (historian) is a way to turn what would be a Culture process into a science one.
This one is awesome! I love this UU because it turns Cairhien's approach to Culture and Science completely on its head, without denying them any of the standard options. This unique alone can turn them into a Science civ without the others even touching Science.
School of Cairhien might be a Wonder, but we could reframe it to work this way as well. Meant to add onto the free tech you already get with that wonder.
Like above, this will produce a lot of Gold and Food since there are so many techs. It's a good concept though, encourages Tall quite well.
the Topless Tower is another likely wonder - we could frame it appropriately. This one is designed to encourage tall, but im' not sure how to make it useful in non-trading cities (maybe it isn't). This would be in addition to normal happiness bonuses, though.
Influence with City-States, I assume? With the CS at the trade route destination?
Should this also replace a later Happiness building since Cairhien is supposed to be an NE civ?
Also agreed, the Topless Towers seem like good candidates to be wonders rather than uniques.
DW Gate is another trade-route-does-something-else building.
Not big and splashy, but does some interesting stuff.
Foregate (population) is kind of complicated. The idea is you'd build the city really huge, and get benefits, but also get some drawbacks. Not sure if it'd work.
I think this is a bit of double jeopardy - particularly with the Unhappiness at the top end. Increasing Food output and having a high Populaiton will already create Unhappiness, and the hard part of using the ability would be managing that. I don't think it would be very fun for the ability to also work against its most difficult challenge.
For the illumination one (obviously not a real name), I've lost track of *which* nat wonder the chapterhouses are. I sort of thought it was associated with Sulfer. But I see that "Gold (Nat)" is the one on Fireworks. Is that right? I had an idea of a third component to add to this that would add some depth (and happiness), but then completely forgot the mechanic. Oh well.
I've found one of the times we discussed it before in the backup file, and it seems to be the most recent one. (Next mentions of Illuminators after it are in Tarabon's flavor dive.) We basically decided to wait and see which NWs or other aspects of the game would be best suited for the Illuminator flavor. The specifics of this UB would depend on our choices there, but we can throw some mechanics at it for now and, if needed, rework them later.
This one is fairly straightforward at the moment, I assume because of the idea you forgot!
Royal Library might be flavorfully weak, but it's an interesting fusion of money and knowledge
Yeah, I like the way the two work together, and it also emphasizes Cairhien as a Science civ without actually increasing their Science output, so it combines well with other Science uniques.
The academic provides a kind of weird bonus, turning science into population, which presumably leads to more science. Definitely not mutually exclusive to the Philosopher (the other science gov).
This will be crazy strong as it is. Like crazy strong. An early Governor that reaches upgrade 2 around turn 125 will contribute ~50 Population to a city before Cairhien reaches the end of the tree (researches all techs). Still, we can tone that down to a Food bonus, but that's a bit less interesting. Like one of the others above, this might work well as an era bonus, where it could give multiple Population at once. It would create a bit of an Unhappiness problem though - a sudden spike on the era boundaries.
Recap! And some new stuff!
Cairhien (Era 5-9, Tall, Science/Diplomatic)
UAs:
- Daes Dae'mar (production), Each city receives +15% production towards buildings. Can build <Happiness (horse)> in all cities (kidshowbusiness)
- Better Production, +25% building construction if building is already in the capital (Calavente)
- Daes Dae'mar (theft), +X% to capturing foreign Eyes and Ears. If a foreign Eyes and Ears is captured, Cairhien may steal a technology from that civilization, or, if no such technologies are available, +Y Science.
- Daes Dae'mar (Gold), Cairhienin Eyes and Ears stationed in Cairhienin cities generate +X Gold and +Y Science per turn.
- Daes Dae'mar (CS balance), Completing quests and giving gifts to City-States produces X% (high, like 200%) more influence, but causes Cairhien to lose Y Influence with all other City-States.
- Daes Dae'mar (specialist), All Cairhienin buildings have an additional slot for a Noble specialist. Filling the slot increases yield production of all other Specialists of that type in the city by X, but lowers Happiness by Y (both stacking).
- Keepers of the Silk Path, Land trade routes have X% increased range. If the destination city has a resource not currently produced by Cairhien or gained through another Silk Path trade route, Cairhien gains a copy of that resource.
- King's Gift, every time a new technology is acquired, gain X Food in all cities, Y Gold, and +Z Influence with all known Maritime and Mercantile City-States.
- Daes Dae'mar (culture), Cairhien gets +X Science and +Y Happiness per level of cultural influence each foreign civilization has in Cairhien.
- Daes Dae'mar (trade), Cairhien receives at least X Science from international trade routes (including with City-States). Other civilizations do not receive Science from trade routes established by Cairhien.
- Daes Dae'mar (diplomacy), Cairhien can negotiate for Compact votes with civilizations it doesn't have a Diplomat in the capital of. Cairhienin Eyes and Ears stationed in other civilizations generate +X Science per turn.
- Daes Dae'mar (trade), completing a trade deal with another civilization grants Cairhien +X influence with all City-States allied with that civilization.
UUs:
- Con Bannerman, replaces era 5-8 unit, Increased combat strength. When earning a promotion, gains a yield of X Gold (high).
- Noble Cavalry, replaces era 5-8 Mounted, +X% (high) combat strength against Melee units. Pillaging worked enemy tiles produces Y Food in the Cairhienin capital.
- Master of the Lances, replaces Great Captain. +X Movement. Mounted units within 2 hexes of the Master of the Lances can pillage without consuming movement, ignore enemy zone of control, and gain +X% combat strength against Melee units (all units gain the standard Great Captain bonus)
- Academic (unit), replaces the Historian, When exploring a Site of Power, has the option of Studying the Relic, which destroys the Site (and its relic), but produces +X Science (very high).
UBs:
- Foregate (gold), replaces Gold 1, +25% gold, +1 Gold, +2 Gold per incoming trade route (+1 Gold for the owner of the trade route), +1 food, +1 happiness. (kidshowbusiness)
- Illuminator's Guild Chapterhouse, replaces Happiness 2, +3 Happiness, +1 science (kidshowbusiness
- Foregate (big pop), replaces <building>, The city gains 2 population points each time it gains population.
- School of Cairhien, replaces Science National Wonder 2, Each time Cairhien acquires a new technology, +X Gold (high) and +Y Food (high) in this city.
- Topless Tower, replaces Happiness 2, Trade routes from this city to City-States produce +X Science and +Y Influence for every Z points of population in this city.
- Dragonwall Gate, replaces Defense 2, Each trade routes based in this city produce +X additional Gold, and raises the city's HP by Y and combat Strength by Z.
- Foregate (population), replaces Gold National Wonder, every point of population above X generates +Y Food. Every point of population above Z (higher) generates +W Gold and -V Production (low). A population greater than U (highest) provides +T% to science, but -S Happiness.
- Illuminator's HQ, replaces <Illuminator Nat. Wonder>, +X Science. +Y Gold for each worked Sulfur tile.
- Royal Library, replaces Science 3, X% of the Science produced in this city is provided as Gold.
- Royal Academy, replaces National Wonder (Science) 2 can only be built in the capital, additional +X% Science per turn. Cairhien can Exhibit at the city this building is constructed in. Foreign Exhibitions performed at this city also count as a Cairhienin Exhibition of the same type.
- Foregate (Pop explosion), unlocks on Academics (see below), replaces National Wonder (Food). When this building is constructed, the city's Population doubles.
UIs:
- Feast of Lights Celebration (culture), unlocks late in the game, can only be built on open Hills (no Forest or Jungle) within workable range of a Cairhienin city. Must be worked by the city. Produces +X Prestige and +Y Culture per turn (both high). Disappears after Z turns. Only W different hexes can ever have a Feast of Lights Celebration on them in a single game.
- Feast of Lights Celebration (science), unlocks very late in the game, can only be built on open Hills within the workable radius of the Cairhienin capital. Produces +X Culture (high) per turn. After Y turns, the Improvement disappears and Cairhien receives a free technology.
UGs:
- Academic (Governor), spawned from the Scholar, Yield is Science, Upgrade 2 ability is "Whenever a technology is acquired, this city gains one population point." Relevant LP for Upgrade 3 is the Scholar.
UTs:
- Academics, in Era 8 column 1, depends on Wells. When Cairhien researches this technology, a Scholar appears near the Cairhienin capital. Unlocks the Lightning Jars Innovation and grants +X permanent Happiness. If another civilization steals this technology, they receive a permanent +Y (lower) Happiness (and none of the other effects).
So, all of the various Daes Dae'mars here:
(culture) tries to turn enemy Prestige influence against them toward a Cairhienin Science victory. However, this will encourage Cairhien players to keep their Culture low, which is weird, and it's also dependent on enemy actions.
(trade) is a straight up Science bonus through trade, but also denies enemies Science (note: only when Cairhien is establishing the trade route are enemies denied, they get their normal Science from their own trade routes, but Cairhien also gets extra.) This may make other players trade with Cairhien less though.
(diplomacy) is similar to your (Gold), the two could be merged if we wanted. I like the idea of letting Cairhien negotiate Compact votes all the time, since that will make them quite a different presence in the Compact. Aside from that, it's a simple later-game Science bonus.
A "trade deal" in this case is anything like accepting embassies, trading gold for resources, anything that pops up the leader screen basically. I really like the mechanic, but the difficulty here is avoiding abuse - players constantly gifting the AI 1 Gold to get the bonus and the like. Even if we only allow for trades that involve exchanges (both sides must give something), there is a decent chunk of stuff the AI will have that the player wouldn't normally trade for that could trigger this. Still, maybe that part wouldn't be a problem. The AI can know that Cairhien benefits from this, and value their own stuff more accordingly.
Royal Academy completely changes how Cairhien approaches the Science victory, and allows them to grab benefits from other players on occasion as well. (The crux of the bonus is the first part, the ability to Exhibition at home.) It still gives the usual free tech that this building does.
Foregate (Pop explosion) is an evolution of my original idea for the Foregate doing double-Population-increased each time. But it ties into the last section, which I'll go into first:
Academics is a unique technology, that only Cairhien can research. National Wonder (Food) is not a building that exists in BNW (or at least I don't intend it to be - if it does then this is National Wonder (Food) 2). The tech does three things:
Unlocks the Lightning Jars Innovation early, which reduces the number of techs Cairhien needs to win the game via Science (by about 5). We could pick a different Innovation if we wanted to reduce that number less or more, or pick one of the non-leaf-node Innovations if we just wanted to give them a head start, but still need the same number of total techs.
It unlocks the Food National Wonder, which normally creates a normal Food bonus, as you would expect from buildings like the other national wonders.
It also gives Cairhien a Scholar, to partially offset the Science they've lost researching a tech that no one else can research (other civs catch up in that time, so we don't want it to just be a sunk cost, but we could adjust this - make it a Science dump, or even take it away, if it was too strong).
Academics can be stolen by other civs - hence the existence of the non-unique national wonder (other civs can build it that way). It also makes spying on Cairhien much more enticing in the late game, if any of Cairhien's other uniques particularly want that.
Another balance point for this tech would obviously be moving it to elsewhere on the tree, if we found its current position problematic.
So that's how the tech could work. The Foregate (Pop explosion) unique is a big, very late game UB that needs to have a massive and splashy effect to be worth it. Doubling might be too high, but that's the general idea - a ton of new Population at once. The difficulty is in how much the Unhappiness spike would be manageable for that.
And then there are the two Feast of Lights Celebration UIs. I figure this is like some kind of festival grounds Improvement. The idea with both is that it has a very significant yield output, but fades away after some time. What I was trying to avoid was making that busywork for the player ("Oh, I've got to go make the Feasts again"), and also restrict it so that it doesn't scale based on land (otherwise it would favor Wide).
I'm not sure if (culture) hits the mark. It's for a more cultural approach to Cairhien, which I think could work with their flavor, as mentioned above. But I think (science) is a much stronger candidate since the mechanic is much more helpful, and unlocking in the endgame it doesn't have much time to become busywork before the LB stomps on everybody, or somebody wins.
And now I'm out of time! I'll come back on the planning stuff tomorrow!