Overall, I like how your giving a different view on the rating of civs. My only criticism of the methods really is the lack of accounting synergy (maybe including a synergy score after the UA, UU, UU/UB/UI scores?).
For example, I noticed you just had a good game with songhai, the UU in itself isn't special, but with that UA they really work together and those types of relationships should be recognized. You kind of recognized it with denmark, since the ski infrantry on it's own isn't too solid but in most cases you'll really be upgrading to them so you are giving the ex-berserkers 25% bonus in those terrains and extra movement points again. Another off the top of my head would be like the Sipahi (I know you just love lancers), who actually make the lancer useful as a reconnaissance Renaissance (I just wanted to put those two words together) unit to supplement your Janissaries you are get in the same era.
But using the idea of a neutral civ gives a good basis I think.
There's a few things I wanted to touch on, I'm not arguing for a change of score, everybody is going to rate things different, but I just wanted to correct some points and maybe provide a different viewpoint.
I'll mostly just use Carthage as an example because that's the civ I have most experience with.
1. Elephants. Like many Classical Era UUs, AWEs are ineffective on Deity, since the AI will have pikes and CBs to deal with them. They don't need horses, but it's not like horses are as rare as rocking horse droppings on Standard settings. But they also cost more hammers, so I don't see much trade-off. Feared elephant is almost exactly negated by Deity AI buffs and Great Generals II is situational since you actually have to perform the kill with the Elephant, when optimal play with Mounted units uses them to damage units which are then killed from range, since otherwise the mounted unit can be at risk, especially among Deity AI carpets. UU rating = 0/5.
Before I start anything, you don't have to actually perform the kill with elephants from what I've seen, you get Great General points from attacking and defending. Specifically, for melee units, it is as follows, african elephants with the GG 2 promotion in parenthesis:
Melee attacking: 5 (10) points
Melee defending: 4 (8)
Melee defending from range: 2 (4)
Comparing African elephants to a neutral horseman:
Pros:- +2 strength
- -10% strength of enemies (making your cb's do more damage, btw)
- Faster GG production
- -50g to upgrade to a knight (who retains the GG production) (50g instead of 100g)
- No horse requirement
Cons:
- +25 hammers
- - 1 Movement
Really what you are getting, compared to a neutral civ, is a hybrid between a swordsman (same str but + 1 movement) and horseman that costs neither's strategic resources. So not only are you not restricted by resource, but you can sell any horses and iron you have for some extra gold, because you really don't need either unit anymore. Also, you want to play them more in the infantry's role because the debuff, as you say, essentially drops the enemy's units down a difficulty level. These means your archers will be doing more damage if your elephants are next to the enemy. And although the 25 hammer increase is a bad thing, I feel the 50% reduction in upgrade cost really helps mitigate that.
2. Quinqeremes. While better than Dromons, these suffer from the reverse problem, especially on Deity. You can use them to defeat other naval vessels, but they cannot take cities very easily. If there was a way to have ranged and melee naval units in the same civ in the same time, in the Ancient Era, that would be great, but you can't so Quinqeremes are just marginally better than the Neutrals' triremes. UU rating 1/5.
The use of triremes is obviously based on the individual, but with a 30% increase (to 13 str) in strength you essentially get an aquatic horseman to help take that coastal city after your land force has beaten it up. But agreed, the 30% means a lot in naval warfare, but in city warfare you'll notice it less.
3. Free harbors. Very nice, but I think it's suboptimal to not build roads in your empire, so if you build roads you don't need harbors for city connections. Longer sea trade routes is OK, but it's not high priority in the build queue for either warmongers or peace mongers looking to spread religion, earn gold or spread tourism. UA rating = 2/5.
Comparing to a neutral civ, I'd say free harbors are pretty strong. No maintenance, free city connections before you get roads to them (if you even can). Overall it's strength is in more opportunities. More trade routes are available, external trade routes will give +2 gold, and you can settle farther while still being in range for internal trade routes (so more settling options). Usually, I just take advantage of this by focusing even more on internal food trade routes so I get more money from the connections. But you still build roads as carthage, you just don't need to as soon so your workers can focus on other tasks initially.
4. Mountain jumping. Do I really need to write anything about this? Has any Deity player ever seriously even thought about trying to use this UA in their tactical deliberations? No? Good. UA rating = 0/5.
Really, it just gives you more options when you are attacking for just moving your armies, it can be pretty convenient, but ya, nothing special.
Never mind that they get it wrong sometimes in terms of accuracy (Boudicca was from Norfolk but she speaks Welsh and wears a Scottish Clan Tartan kilt)
Off topic, but to be fair, they chose one of the few Brythonic Celtic languages we know anything about and the only kilt that really differs from the others are some Irish kilts, since they can sometimes be just one solid color.
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