In need of fresh eyes, mod content

[LostLandFound]

Hey folks! I've been working on a present of a series of mods/modpack for my cousin who got me into Civ V some years ago. Since beginning the project Civ VI has been released and I switched gears to that, but the game wasn't moddable, or at least with my scarce knowledge of Lua and XML, for as long as I was still passionate about the project. Now I'd like to pick it back up and try my hand once more at making this for him, but I'm struggling to rebalance the content for Civ VI because I'm so invested in the original mechanics and not as familiar with VI as I was with V.
I need fresh eyes, and I thought where better a place to find some than here, where people are passionate about the game?
The goal is to place in-game a series of fictional civilizations lead by my cousin, some of our friends, and myself. I have a causal familiarity with programming and modbuddy, and have created working mods of this kind before (granted, with extensive help from wikis and tutorials, but we all start somewhere). What I need is inspiration and feedback on the balance and mechanical changes that need to be made to transfer what I've already written for Civ V to Civ VI.

I'll copypasta the overviews of the civilizations I intend on adding below. It has already been tweaked somewhat to account for the massive changes in areas like the district mechanic, but I would like to modify it further.


KY's Civilization: Wittony, land of the Wittons and Wittish Maesters.

Science and Defense focused

• Start bias: Forest, Grassland
  
  
• Unique Ability: “Woodland Wisdom”. Grants research, faith, and culture points from campuses adjacent to forests equal to that of mountain bonus. Allows for even greater scientific development in cities with few or no mountains, but mountain-dependent buildings like observatories require adjacent mountains as normal. Gain bonus research points and culture points from specialists depending on technological and cultural era. 25% Reduction of Campus build time. Padding! This civilization is likely to have an advantage on larger maps, where biomes and therefore forests will be large.
  
  
• Unique Building: Grants unique defensive building, the “Fortified Longhouse”, in Campuses that can fire a secondary barrage similar to that of the encampment but at only 66% strength. Also provides extra housing. Requires Archery. The defense and higher growth capacity provided by the Fortified Longhouse will help encourage building tall and making full use of the forest’s science bonus by making the Campus less required to be sequestered in mountains. Without this building the Campuses would be subject to pillaging much more often than normal.
  
  
• Secondary Unique Building: Grants “Community Service Center”, greatly increases production and somewhat less so amenities in the capital for the first four Constabularies and Police Stations in the nation. Can only be built in the capital. Encourages building tall and gaining science through amenities and growth while relying on science/defensive buildings. Helps support an otherwise slow late-game with heightened production and amenity growth in the capital.
  
  
• Unique Unit: Grants cheap unique unit, the “Longhouse Archer”, only buildable in Campuses with Fortified Longhouses. The Longhouse Archer has increased strength (125%) versus barbarian units and increased strength against all land military units (125%). This effect stacks to a total of 150% on barbarian land units. However, this unit deals significantly less damage to cities at only 33% ranged combat strength. Replaces the Archer. Subsequent unit upgrades retain these effects. This aids in barbarian and early aggressor defense while discouraging offensive play throughout the early eras even with a great scientific advantage.

City Names: Azuriel (Capital), Peldvale, Orrenhome, Hallowick, Kaldasti, Dew Lake, Silverpond, Kazzuk-Mol, Vesturest, The Fray,



KA’s Civilization: NAME UNDECIDED

Early Domination and Culture focused

• Start Bias: Plains, Hills
  
  
• Unique Ability: “Storm of Arrows”. Ranged units garrisoned in cities provide amenity, production, and culture relative to their ranged combat strength (10% of strength to production, 10% to culture, 5% to amenity). This allows faster expansion and border growth throughout the game while encouraging both defensive and offensive militaristic play. The rapid expansion acts as settlement denial early game and counters almost every victory type if properly defended.
  
  
• Unique Building: Grants the “Archery Range” unique Encampment building that decreases the production cost of all ranged land units inferior to gunpowder units created in that city. Can be upgraded at relatively high production cost to “Gun Range”, which does the same for all ranged units beyond gunpowder. Must be built in an Encampment. Cannot be built on hills. This greatly increases the efficiency of ranged units throughout the game and synergizes well with this civilization’s Unique Ability.
  
  
• Unique Unit: Grants the “Highland Ranger” unique unit that replaces the Composite Bowman. Gains no extra combat strength compared to the Composite Bowman, but costs less production to create, moves like a scout, and has +1 range and sight while on hills without forest or jungle. Units upgraded from the Highland Ranger retain their benefits. This provides a fantastic early/mid-game scouting ranged unit and settler escort unit. Great for killing barbarians and defending borders, as well as cheaply amassed into large groups of supporting fire for infantry units in an aggressive play move. While not a cheap strategy, these units can eventually be upgraded into Gatling Guns or Machine Guns with enhanced range and mobility, a massive upgrade.
  
  
• City Names:
  

R’s Civilization: NAME UNDECIDED

Commerce and Diplomacy focused

• Start Bias: Coast, and avoid tundra
  
  
• Unique Ability: “The Glory of Gold”. +20% Extra gold to this civilization from trade routes. +15% Extra gold to the owner of trade routes involving this civ. This effect stacks to a total of 135% the gold normally obtained from trade routes established by this civilization. Note that other nations will be more inclined to trade with this civilization because of their 15% bonus, providing this civilization with its 120% cut from all trade routes it doesn’t establish itself. This makes this civilization a massive economic powerhouse similar to Morocco in Civilization V.
  
  
• Unique Building: Grants “Trade Parlor” unique building that can only be built in the capital. Grants an extra envoy on establishing trade routes with city-states from all cities in this empire. Requires Economics. This makes diplomatic victories easier by making city-states easier to befriend and ally in the mid-game.
  
  
• Unique Unit: Grants “Grand Caravan” unique unit that replaces the land trader. Grand Caravans return to their city of origin when pillaged rather than be destroyed. Grand Caravans consume more production to create than the land trader, but cost less to purchase. Grand Caravans gain 150% the science of a normal land trader when a trade route is established with a more technologically advanced empire. Requires at least one trade route. Land trade routes become invaluable and resilient when made with a Grand Caravan. They require a small investment, but a large fleet of them can be purchased in little time thanks to this civilization’s UA. Notably, there is no particular disadvantage to sea trade routes because of their direct superiority to land routes in the vanilla game. Grand Caravans may want to be mixed in with Cargo Ships for the best results.
  
  
• City Names:
  

JM’s Civilization: NAME UNDECIDED

Late Domination and Culture focused

• Start Bias: Coast
  
  
• Unique Ability: “Sea Breeze”. Gains significant culture for all improved coastal tiles and sea resources. Extra culture from Encampments on the coast and Harbors. Builders can rush military wonders and Encampments built on the coast take half as long to construct. This plays nicely with this civilization’s start bias, providing early-game culture growth and nice tourism defense in the late-game. Also encourages militaristic and maybe commercial play.
  
  
• Unique Building: Grants unique Encampment building, the “Familial Barracks”, that reduces the maintenance and purchase cost of all land units created in the local Encampment by 20%. Does not retroactively decrease the maintenance cost of units made before the construction of the Familial Barracks. Replaces the Barracks. This greatly increases military building efficiency throughout the entire game, encouraging a massive standing army. 20% isn’t tiny, but it adds up even more swiftly with a large army.
  
  
• Unique Unit: Grants unique replacement to the (non-Great War) Bomber, the “Pulse Bomber”. This unit is cheaper to construct than a normal Bomber, has a slightly greater threat range, and receives the “Interception Resistance I” upgrade for free. Subsequent upgrades retain these advantages. This unit is useful for stomping on civilizations with weaker technologies and city-states in the late-game. The coastal start bias can help with locating oil.
  
  
• City Names: Enterprise (Capital), Kirktown, Jean-Lucinai, La Forge, Spockade, Rikerville, Uhuran, Chekovsland, West Crush,
  

M's Civilization: NAME UNDECIDED

Culture and Science focused

• Start Bias: Tundra, and avoid jungle
  
  
• Unique Ability: “The Beauty of the Aurora”. Increased food, culture, and science produced on tundra tiles without hills. Extra food on tundra tiles adjacent to rivers. Extra faith and science on tundra tiles adjacent to mountains. Ice and snow tiles provide the same research bonus as rainforests in cities with Universities. This makes use of the most difficult terrain to settle and changes it to an incredibly valuable region. Other civilizations will have trouble holding onto captured cities in the tundra and will have little use for the city, making this civilization a discouraged target. This also encourages the civilization to build tall, as the many little bonuses are of more use with few, high population cities. This civilization is likely to be the first to establish a pantheon if it spawns near mountains. This civilization has a slight advantage on larger maps, where the biomes are larger.
  
  
• Unique Building: Grants the “Aurora Gazer” unique building in the Campus. The Aurora Gazer provides even more science and culture for every tundra tile (regardless of hills) within the city border. Values increase after an Observatory is built in the same Campus. This provides a fairly early science and culture boost, allowing this civilization to pull ahead of most other civilizations as it adds up in the early/mid-game. After adding an Observatory, the value of each tile increases even further, making the building continue its usefulness into the mid/late-game.
  
  
• Unique Unit: Grants the “Polar Bear Mount” unique unit which replaces the Horseman and does not require horses to build. The Polar Bear Mount has no penalty for attacking over a river, +50% combat strength on tundra tiles within your own empire, and +20% combat strength on all tundra tiles regardless of owner. This effect stacks to a total of 170% combat strength in friendly tundra territory. The Polar Bear Mount has a reduced movement speed on non-tundra or snow tiles. This provides a very strong defensive unit to fend off any would-be attackers and barbarians in the mid-game, while also discouraging expansion into more temperate regions. Also it’s just goshdarn awesome.
  
  
• Secondary Unique Unit: Grants the “Frigid Worker”, a cheaper Builder unit with one extra use that can only be made in cities on or adjacent to a tundra tile. This unit will help improve all of the resources this civilization’s rapidly expanding tundra cities absorb into their borders.
  
  
• City Names: Llandudno, Pembrokeshire, Neigwl, Llandrindod, Cemaes
  

Feel free to reply with any form of critique and advice! I'm hoping to create civilizations which are playable and balanced with each other and with the rest of the game.