(First post! I apologize if some of my ideas are similar to ones in the game already, but it's hard to think of this stuff. :/ )
Israelite Empire
Leader: David
Spoken Language: Hebrew (potentially an ancient variant, or Aramaic, whichever's more accurate)
Capital: Jerusalem (yeah, that would need some tweaking... what would make a good replacement faith city-state?)
Religion: Judaism
Victory Type: Religious or Domination
Leader Bonus: Giant-Killer - All units receive a +5 combat bonus when fighting units belonging to a civilization which holds more territory than Israel. Religious units gain this bonus when fighting religious units of a religion with more follower's than Israel's religion. (Note: Wanted to include some bonus to Slingers, but seemed like too heavy-handed of a reference, and not ultimately beneficial to the later game.)
Leader Agenda: Chosen People - Dislikes civilizations who try to convert his cities, attack his religious units with combat units, or capture his non-combat units. Likes civilizations who respect his religion and people, as well as those of others.
Special Ability: Warriors of Faith - Combat units heal quicker on Holy Sites of their religion. Israel gains +1 bonus Faith and combat units gain +1 bonus experience when killing units of a different religion. Israel does not gain war weariness from Holy Wars.
Unique Unit: Guerilla Mercenary - Unique combat unit that replaces the Warrior. Is cheaper, has increased movement, and its movement is not affected by tree or hill tiles. (David was said to have (unfavorably) abandoned the use of tribal militias in favor of Cherethite and Pelethite mercenaries, and guerilla warfare was always a preferred tactics against technologically superior foes, such as the Philistines. It seemed like a fitting accompaniment to his "Giant-Killer" underdog ability.)
Unique Building: Tabernacle - Encampment improvement that produces Faith and allows combat units to heal quicker there. +1 Housing, +1 Faith
Greeting upon First Encounter (which I couldn't possibly translate into Hebrew to save my life):
"Greetings, friend! I am David, King of Israel and Judah. The Lord has blessed my people, and I hope he shall bless you as well."
(I feel like "shalom" might work for "greetings", and, obviously, "Adonai" for "Lord", but I know squat about Hebrew. Also, I noticed that when Philip II refers to his god, the H in "he" isn't capitalized, probably out of sensitivity or political correctness, so I did the same here.)
I love coming up with the dialogue and appearances of my leaders (yes, I've come up with more!), which I might show more of someday.
Heeeelllo there!
The king David should speak "Biblical" Hebrew, some expert Jewish scholars can perform a great oration of that language's era to sound as authentic as possible. It should not be less accurate than Aramaic, for sure.
Giant Killer is a personal youth story of David, I would not pick it for the
Leader Bonus (I always prefer abilities that fit to how he was as a leader). Same for the
Chosen People.
Simillarly,
Greater Israel can be a good
Agenda to describe his regin - he will hate small border countries and city state. I'm not expert in Civ6 stats, but if it is possible, he should be more likely to declare War of Territorial Expansion on smaller neighbours.
Overall I would not create David as the "religious leader", that's not what he was. And while, as told in the Bible, he was most of the times sure that he is ordered by God and serves God, he was not the most Theocratic ruler and not a model for devote kings. He was a Charismatic and Imperialistic leader (yes I play Civ4). I know many people would like to see Israel lead by a religion based leader, but David is not the one for that. Maybe
Hezekiah or
Josiah can do, but those are not listed among the greatest of Israel's historical leaders in general like David is.
If you want the Israeli Civ to stretch along all of the Israelite/Jewish history, you can use the
Special Ability of
Start-Up Nation. I can be implemented with extra Great Scientist or Great Merchant points, again, I'm no expert in Civ6 stats.
However, if you want to refer to the Hashmonean era,
Warriors of the Faith can work fine. Maybe extra strength when fighting against units of other, larger, religions. The larger is inteded to differentiate them from missionary Civs, like the Teutonic Order, and to make their religious bonuses in effect only when they fight against more widespread religions.
Few Against Many can be a good direction for an Ability which describes all of the Jewish history, and ther may be plenty of ways to implenet that.
Regarding the
UU - You had a very creative idea here, but I'm not sure we can use those as units. Possibly this kind of military phenomenon should rather be represented in the
Abilities or
Bonuses somehow.
I like to see real units as the UUs of Civs. Sadly I'm not familiar with a real unique Israeli soldier type.
The Israeli
UB must be the
High Place (Bama), to replace Monument.. According to the Biblical text, Monuments were not allowed in Ancient Israel. High Places were a common Canaanite local sacrificial site. This was the place of the early Israelite religious practices before in was centralised to the Temple of Solomon at a much later stage. It could be a Monument with extra religious effects to be calculated.
Alternative Leaders I would like to see:
Solomon - the opposite of David. Not a military expansionist. A mercantile leader, constructor of districts, and possibly have some diplomatic bonuses.
Herod - A constructor like Solomon, but with more focus on military, mainly defensive.
For your
Greeting - If I had time I would search the Hebrew Bible for some of Davids' finest quotations as a king, or just read some to refresh my memory of his style and compose a greeting accordingly. But for now I'll translate your sentence (flexible wordings, with Biblical scent):
שלום עליך ידידי! אני דוד, מלך ישראל ונשיא יהודה. אדני ברך את עמי, ובי תקוה כי יברכך גם כן.
Shalom alecha yedhidhi! Ani Davidh, melech Yisrael wenasi Yehudha. Adhonay berech eth ami, wubi tiqewa ci yevarcecha gam cen.
(My personally preferred form of transliteration of Biblical Hebrew, I won't expand here but will if you're interested.)
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