First Look: Sumeria

[MaximusPlatypus]

On a non-historical level I kind of enjoy the donkey carts as a unit.

Does anyone know if Mespotamia is/was traditionally a donkey-rich area?!

 

[Siptah]

On a non-historical level I kind of enjoy the donkey carts as a unit.

Does anyone know if Mespotamia is/was traditionally a donkey-rich area?!

They were lots of domesticated donkeys there (equids). They were used for all kinds of transportation and movement. Interestingly, they viewed the donkey as a very stubborn and stupid animal.
Why non-historical? On the standard of Ur (war side) you can see such a cart.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

On a non-historical level I kind of enjoy the donkey carts as a unit.

Does anyone know if Mespotamia is/was traditionally a donkey-rich area?!

Okay, I'll say it if no one else will: Don't know about 4000 BC, but the Donkeys have been in charge most of the last century!

Seriously, the wild donkey was native to the hill country area of Anatolia and the Zagros Mountains, and was possibly domesticated as a pack animal before the horse: would have been plentiful for use as soon as they invented wheels...

 

[Japper007]

To add my two cents to the "Sumer" vs "Sumeria" debate:

I study history, and even at a university/scholarly level Sumeria is still used. It's an indication of the area were ancient Sumer and many other early civilizations/city states formed.

I think they chose "Sumeria" in the same line we have "Greeks" and "Skythians". They are an in-game amalgam of many peoples with (roughly) similar cultures.

 

[Plus Ultra]

I dont like the female voice in presentations..it is so anoying and disliking for me...sorry for that..my recomendation is to activate Spock or similar voice for this kind of stuff..

I think she does an amazing job. To each his own I guess.

 

[Guandao]

I think she does an amazing job. To each his own I guess.

Her pronunciation of Qin Shi Huang and Hojo Tokimune could use some work though. That's my only criticism.

 

[Zaarin]

I understand what you're saying, and perhaps a farm UI or super granary might fit.

HOWEVER, you said it yourself, that they were in the Fertile Crescent with land and fish and lush excess of food. Couldn't you just as easily argue in game terms that that had nothing to do with their uniques at all, but rather that they rolled up a primo start location?

Actually, real life Sumer's "starting location" sucked: it was in the middle of a swamp, with neither stone nor wood for building and precious few other worthwhile resources. The civilization they managed to dredge up out of that swamp is a testament to human ingenuity. The only important resource they really had in abundance was water. Metal, wood, and stone they had to acquire through trade or conquest.

I dont like the female voice in presentations..it is so anoying and disliking for me...sorry for that..my recomendation is to activate Spock or similar voice for this kind of stuff..

Yes, I've stated before that she makes me want to rip my ears off. Her voice is one of the most annoying I've ever heard.

 

[MaximusPlatypus]

They were lots of domesticated donkeys there (equids). They were used for all kinds of transportation and movement. Interestingly, they viewed the donkey as a very stubborn and stupid animal.
Why non-historical? On the standard of Ur (war side) you can see such a cart.

I worded that poorly. I should have typed something like "outside of the possible historical angle, aesthetically I just like the idea of a donkey unit."

 

[Manifold]

Are they not unicorns? I like unicorns aesthetically more than donkeys



Fantivilization 6

 

[MaximusPlatypus]

Spoiler :

If someone could Photoshop Gilgamesh on there....

 

[Morningcalm]

Frankly, Age of Empires I, however crudely, portrayed Sumeria's bonuses far better than Civ VI. Farms got double production with Sumeria, and their villagers had more hitpoints (representing, perhaps, that they were early adopters of so many technologies that advanced human civilization).

Sumeria in Civ IV had Gilgamesh with Creative and Protective bonuses, which made sense given Gilgamesh's role in a literary epic and his construction of a wall. But in Civ VI? He's just a bro that kills people with you....as if you were part of the Epic of Gilgamesh. But as we all know, real life is different.

Why not Ur-Nammu with his legal code and social reforms with military might, or the long-distance running king Shulgi with his cultural advances? These powerful Sumerian leaders with far more accomplishments were pushed aside in favor of the Sumerian Heracles basically. How disappointing that they didn't even *try* to give Gilgamesh some of his historical traits.

 

[Ebrim]

Yeah, I just don't feel a lot of these criticisms. Sumeria's advantages are all about creating a civ with a huge head-start on everyone else, like you know, Sumer. Gilgamesh himself is not about warring everyone but about being a loyal friend and offers rewards for protecting and helping friends. His appearance is in part based on the mythological Gilgamesh sure but that's kind of a fun and interesting way to deal with it in a game which wants colorful leaders.

I guess sure there could have been some sort of agricultural bonus but you could argue the same for Egypt. Egypt's agricultural wealth however is respected in a different form other than simple tile yields and Sumer's advantages are more than just simply "here's some other food" but instead "oh look this was like the first Civ and they have a jump on everyone else".

 

[malekithau]

Sumer's reputation as an agricultural power had as much to do with their location as anything else. In game terms they reached the old agriculture tech before anyone else. Given that the game turns early on represent large periods of time even a few turns represents a large real world lead. IMHO it's not worth representing.

Sumer and it's later versions (such as the Akkadian Empie) were more a collection of city states. Their bonuses for city state levy helps represent this.

The chariot was pulled by asses and is entirely historical, Real chariots came later from the Hurrians. The Maryannu system (think feudal levies with the charioteers fulfilling the function of knights)

Sumer is actually more famous for science, mathematics and law so the bonus from the ziggurat covers this nicely.

It's strength is early game and rightly so.

 

[labrynianrebel]

From Pete Murray:
Some people are fast out of the gate in Civ. The Aztec, for example, and the Scythians, are two Civs that bring a lot of hurt early. But Sumeria is something else entirely. When humanity wakes at the Dawn of Time in Civ, Gilgamesh has been up for half an hour already, has made you breakfast, built a Ziggurat, hitched up the War Cart, and is ready to go.
Gilgamesh is your new best friend. He loves, and I mean loves his allies. He feels your pain. He rejoices when you rejoice. He goes to war with you. He is fired up. He has the car loaded. Montezuma declares war on you. Before Tomyris is finished denouncing him, Gilgamesh is punching Monty in the face with his enormous, beefy fists. He calls his left fist "The Vengence of Ur" and his right fist "The Vengence of Enlil." You've pointed out that maybe he could pick another nickname than "Vengence" for one of those fists, but he always laughs and slaps you so hard on the back you can hear your teeth rattle.
Then he holds Monty upside down and shakes him, and points to the pocket change that falls out: "Go halfsies?" he asks, grinning.
Everyone knows that Gilgamesh is about the business. Everyone knows you don't touch his friends, because he will come for you. And when you play as Gilgamesh, you can take care of your friends when they get hurt. You don't get the Warmonger penalty when you declare war on anyone at war with your allies. You are Gilgamesh. You look after your own, man. Because you know, deep down inside, in the marrow of your bones, that it wasn't technology or religion or agriculture that caused civilization to come into being.
It was friendship. Gilgamesh extends the Vengence of Enlil to you, and you bump it with your own.

source

That was a joy to read

 

[DCParry]

Edit: They really need a team of historical researchers. They don't have to pay anyone. I'm sure they could organize a few of us into a team and we'd do it for free, or at least a free copy.

Please no. As a Classicist myself*, please save us from amateur historians.









*Yes, it is the internet, we all can be anything, so take it on faith or not.

 

[Zaarin]

Sumer's reputation as an agricultural power had as much to do with their location as anything else. In game terms they reached the old agriculture tech before anyone else. Given that the game turns early on represent large periods of time even a few turns represents a large real world lead. IMHO it's not worth representing.

Sumer and it's later versions (such as the Akkadian Empie) were more a collection of city states. Their bonuses for city state levy helps represent this.

The chariot was pulled by asses and is entirely historical, Real chariots came later from the Hurrians. The Maryannu system (think feudal levies with the charioteers fulfilling the function of knights)

Sumer is actually more famous for science, mathematics and law so the bonus from the ziggurat covers this nicely.

It's strength is early game and rightly so.

The Akkadian Empire was more proto-Babylon than late Sumer. Yes, Sumer and Babylon were in close cultural and linguistic contact, but the Assyro-Babylonians developed in a very different direction compared to the Sumerians. The Akkadians were Eastern Semites; their language would develop into the languages of Babylon and Assyria. Sumerian, by contrast, is a language isolate, which means so far it has not been demonstrated to be related to any other language (and given its antiquity, it probably never will be). The Assyro-Babylonian states were built on the foundation of Sumer--Sumerian writing, technology, and culture certainly influenced them--but they do not represent a cultural continuity in the same way that Assyria was a continuation of Babylon or Neo-Babylon a continuation of Assyria. As Sumer faded, Babylon grew, was usurped by Assyria, grew again as the Neo-Babylonian Empire, and finally was conquered by the Persians and Medes.

 

[Firebug]

The early start for Sumeria represents the early start Sumeria had, then they spiced it up with some fun based on stories stuff. Yeah, maybe that stuff didn't happen. But there's actually no way of knowing for sure either way really is there? History that old is just theory based on evidence anyway.

edit: oops, did a swear

 

[Zaarin]

The early start for Sumeria represents the early start Sumeria had, then they spiced it up with some fun based on stories stuff. Yeah, maybe that stuff didn't happen. But there's actually no way of knowing for sure either way really is there? History that old is just theory based on evidence anyway.

edit: oops, did a swear

Speaking for myself personally, my objections to this rendition of Sumer is that it seems to be based on the premise that we know next to nothing about the Sumerians, which is patently false: we have reams of details about the Sumerians because the Sumerians were meticulous record keepers. Both aesthetically and in terms of design, this Sumer feels much more Assyrian, and recall that the Epic of Gilgamesh is a Babylonian epic written in Akkadian. Even the name "Gilgamesh" is the Akkadian form of the Sumerian name "Bilgamesh." I don't really object to using "Gilgamesh" in place of "Bilgamesh" simply for name-recognition (though as others have mentioned, Ur-Namu, Shulgi, or Gudea would have been more interesting choices), but my point stands that Sumer seems to be more of a generic Mesopotamian civ than a specifically Sumerian civ. I'm bracing myself for Gilgamesh speaking Akkadian at this point.

 

[MaximusPlatypus]

Speaking for myself personally, my objections to this rendition of Sumer is that it seems to be based on the premise that we know next to nothing about the Sumerians, which is patently false: we have reams of details about the Sumerians because the Sumerians were meticulous record keepers. Both aesthetically and in terms of design, this Sumer feels much more Assyrian, and recall that the Epic of Gilgamesh is a Babylonian epic written in Akkadian. Even the name "Gilgamesh" is the Akkadian form of the Sumerian name "Bilgamesh." I don't really object to using "Gilgamesh" in place of "Bilgamesh" simply for name-recognition (though as others have mentioned, Ur-Namu, Shulgi, or Gudea would have been more interesting choices), but my point stands that Sumer seems to be more of a generic Mesopotamian civ than a specifically Sumerian civ. I'm bracing myself for Gilgamesh speaking Akkadian at this point.

They look fun. As does Scythia.

as an aside, I do love the historical color you guys post, so don't let my snark deter you.

 

[Amrunril]

This civ doesn't make sense to me. The UU and UAs do work to create a consistent theme, but it seems to be based almost entirely on Gilgamesh the character rather than Sumer the civ. The civ UA seems like the most compelling part of this, and seems reminiscent of the Shoshone Pathfinder and German UA in Civ V. The leader UA seems really interesting when used as intended, but also like it will be really easy to game if either party wants free experience and loot without actually contributing to the war. I also don't like the idea of advantaging one leader by programming the AI to arbitrarily care less about his actions.

As for the ziggurat, my first observation is that it makes Sumer, like Babylon in Civ V, an ancient civ whose greatest strength is getting out of the ancient era as quickly as possible. It also doesn't fit at all with the rest of civ. Normally, I have no objection to civs with relatively unconnected or tangential features (like Norway's Stave Church), but in this case it seems to actively go against the rest of what the civ is trying to do. A civ with the capability for the game's fastest early tech/culture advancement is the worst one conceivable to also be focused on early warfare.

What's more, the ziggurat seems like an incredibly bland improvement. The only thing stopping it from being a generic science and culture boost is the river bonus, which means that it will actually discourage Sumer from building riverside farms. Along with the Egyptian UA encouraging riverside districts and wonders, this makes for a truly bizarre pattern (it could be intended to make these civs fall off in the mid game, but this seems like huge stretch). I’ve liked most of the Civ VI civs I’ve seen so far, but this one, despite some interesting individual mechanics, just doesn’t seem to have any sort of mechanical or flavorful cohesion.