Liufeng
A man of his time
As everyone said, we have plenty of documents about sumerians, may it be narrative or diplomatic sources. In this Sumerian civ, the problem doesn't come the UI, the Ziggurat, although the bonus should be related to religion or culture rather than science; or the UU, since you can see war carts pushed by onagers (a species of donkeys) in the valuable source, the standard of Ur. Besides, the wae cart is not the only UU available to sumerian, since they coud also have phalaxes, which we know were used thanks to the stele of vultures.
We know nothing on Gilgamesh, the real one, except that he ruled Uruk at some point. That's it. By the way, do you know the Epic of Gilgamesh is not the first known written narrative text ? We plenty of them, and this time, that are actually in sumerian and not akkadian : The instructions of Shuruppak, Inanna's descent to hell, the Atra-Hasis, Emmertar and the Lord of Aratta, Lugalbanda in the cave, ...
If I'd pick any ruler, it would be either Ur-Nammu, who built the first known code of laws known to mankind (no, it isn't the code of Hammurabi), or Shulgi, who extended the sumerian's empire further than any other, the former with an emphasis on CS and diplomacy, and the latter on expansion and conquest.
But, if I had to pick pre-akkadian rule leaders, there are plenty to pick from : Lugal-Ane-Mundu, the first to have conquered the lands between the Mediterranean to the Zagros ; Eannatum, who also built a powerful empire around Lagash, whose Victory over Umma is depicted in the Stele of vultures ; Kug-Bau, the only reigning queen we knkow something about who could have boni centered around growth and population ; Urukagina, who despite having lost his city of Lagash against the powerful Lugalzagesi, established the first known social and justice reforms (despite we lost the original text, making the Ur-Nammu's law code the first known to date), which could make him a leader with boni towards amenities ; there's also Gudea, which we know a lot about him, with boni towards faith, culture and growth.
Zaarin advised you the work of Samuel Noah Krammer, which is an excellent start. Another very good read about it would be the works of Jean Bottéro or Georges Roux.
All that to say that yeak, it's not about having low information on sumerian (which are infinitely more numerous than scythians, whose sources come primarly over archeological evidence or foreign sources from greeks among others), but rather Firaxis that the (terrible) artistic choice of revolving the entire civ around a literary work compiled during babylonian rule. And that's the main problem people have with the sumerian civ in the game : we know how sumerian was spoken, and they made Gilgamesh speak akkadian ; we have tons of leaders to choose from, and they chose a king which we know nothing on his real achievements and base him on an epic text ; we know a lot from sumerian culture, and they focused the abilities on the said text ; they dressed and depicted Gilgamesh on assyrian canons, which are very different from sumerian's (a bit like the fact that they put an XVth century armor on Frederick II despite being an XIIth century emperor). They absolutely screwed the civ and its history in the name of babylonian poem ...
We know nothing on Gilgamesh, the real one, except that he ruled Uruk at some point. That's it. By the way, do you know the Epic of Gilgamesh is not the first known written narrative text ? We plenty of them, and this time, that are actually in sumerian and not akkadian : The instructions of Shuruppak, Inanna's descent to hell, the Atra-Hasis, Emmertar and the Lord of Aratta, Lugalbanda in the cave, ...
If I'd pick any ruler, it would be either Ur-Nammu, who built the first known code of laws known to mankind (no, it isn't the code of Hammurabi), or Shulgi, who extended the sumerian's empire further than any other, the former with an emphasis on CS and diplomacy, and the latter on expansion and conquest.
But, if I had to pick pre-akkadian rule leaders, there are plenty to pick from : Lugal-Ane-Mundu, the first to have conquered the lands between the Mediterranean to the Zagros ; Eannatum, who also built a powerful empire around Lagash, whose Victory over Umma is depicted in the Stele of vultures ; Kug-Bau, the only reigning queen we knkow something about who could have boni centered around growth and population ; Urukagina, who despite having lost his city of Lagash against the powerful Lugalzagesi, established the first known social and justice reforms (despite we lost the original text, making the Ur-Nammu's law code the first known to date), which could make him a leader with boni towards amenities ; there's also Gudea, which we know a lot about him, with boni towards faith, culture and growth.
Zaarin advised you the work of Samuel Noah Krammer, which is an excellent start. Another very good read about it would be the works of Jean Bottéro or Georges Roux.
All that to say that yeak, it's not about having low information on sumerian (which are infinitely more numerous than scythians, whose sources come primarly over archeological evidence or foreign sources from greeks among others), but rather Firaxis that the (terrible) artistic choice of revolving the entire civ around a literary work compiled during babylonian rule. And that's the main problem people have with the sumerian civ in the game : we know how sumerian was spoken, and they made Gilgamesh speak akkadian ; we have tons of leaders to choose from, and they chose a king which we know nothing on his real achievements and base him on an epic text ; we know a lot from sumerian culture, and they focused the abilities on the said text ; they dressed and depicted Gilgamesh on assyrian canons, which are very different from sumerian's (a bit like the fact that they put an XVth century armor on Frederick II despite being an XIIth century emperor). They absolutely screwed the civ and its history in the name of babylonian poem ...
. I have said that the current Sumerian UU as donkey cart is a joke which I do not like
