Update:
So I have only had a little more time to work on this (it's been a really busy month). The CBP actually has population as a potential yield in it's .xml, but it doesn't actually do anything (lol?). I wonder if that is what is interfering with the .lua? At any rate, the work around that I am using right now is simply to add food on settling as an instantaneous yield. This means that the city gets +1 pop per turn for 1-2 turns instead of getting them automatically. not ideal, but it's fine.
I've mashed Tomatekh and Sun Pope's versions of Sumer together. My concept for Sumer is they were the first, and oldest civilization. Civilization is often defined by food surplus giving rise to permanent settlements and the specialization of labour into mutually dependent craftsmen. Taking that idea and translating it into gameplay, I wanted Sumer to have the biggest cities out of the gate, and be the first to specialists. Their bonuses need to be good early, but scale poorly. Following that, this is what I have:
UA: Cradle of Civilization - [ICON_FOOD] Food on when settling cities, scaling with era and increased if settling on a river. +1 [ICON_PRODUCTION] production on specialists and the first 5 specialists in a city consume 1/2 the normal amount of [ICON_FOOD] food. Player starts with a free worker.
The bonus food scales minimally, to keep pace with pioneers and colonists, so that they still get 1-3 free pop.
5 specialists at half food was chosen because there are 5 pre-medieval specialists, including the extra from the UB and excluding the scrivener's office
I'm not a big fan of the free worker for every city founded thing, though I like it for the capital, so I have changed this to simply a free worker at start.
+2 production on specialists is beastly, when I tried it in my own games, so reducing food consumption and bonus prod was a nerf to that.
UB: Ziggurat - replaces temple
Unlocked at Calendar (2 tech levels earlier)
+2 [ICON_SCIENCE] science
+3 [ICON_FAITH] faith
+1 scientist specialist slot
+1 [ICON_FAITH] faith from scientist specialists in city
10% cheaper than temple
+25% religious pressure from this city
reduces unhappiness from religious unrest
Ignoring policies, the Ziggurat is the earliest available scientist slot in the game, unless you rush market.
The 10% cheaper was something I felt I had to add because it makes it the same cost as the pyramids. I couldn't justify having a wonder be cheaper than a regular building unlocked on the same tech.
While I really liked what SunPope was going for with the individual pantheons on each city, it causes a huge problem with the amount of flexibility it gave the civ. Besides trying to balance all those different UBs amongst themselves so there aren't certain gods which are just straight-up better than others, it had incredible potential as a way of min-maxing cities. While I liked the historicity of each Sumerian city having its own patron deity, it was a nightmare to code and balance.
UU: Vulture - replaces warrior
7 CS (+1 from warrior)
2 movement
+25% CS vs non-mounted melee units
+60% vs barbarians (effectively brute force II, but is retained on upgrade)
Science on kills
Ignores terrain cost when moving along rivers (note: this is NOT double movement)
+10XP when built
I preferred Tomatekh's idea of replacing warrior, since it gives the UU at the very beginning. The swordsman replacement made spearmen useless, and there are already too many swordsmen UUs.
I didn't want to encourage aggressive play against major civs with the UU, but wanted them to be able to clear away the "hill people" with impunity. The +60% is on par with a warrior with brute force and the authority opener, and the ability to retain it on upgrade into spearmen is a pretty unique thing (it also fixes a pet peeve of mine, I hate losing promotions on upgrade)
In comparison to the other warrior UU (jaguar), the vulture is less useful in PvP, and doesn't scale as well into late game, but if you can keep it alive its science on kills will remain useful. The difficulty of balancing ancient era UUs is you can only build a handful, and you never feel like you really got to use them, so you have to load them full of promotions so they can stay fun.
That's what it stands at right now. Please let me know if you think something should be changed.
Specific questions/thoughts I want people's opinions on:
1. I'm considering upping the cost reduction on Ziggurat to 20% if the city is on a hill. Ziggurat translates to "to build on a raised area". This would make all components of the civ have a small portion of their effect based on geography (more food on settle with river, build cheaper on hills, faster move on river), which is kind of interesting.
2. Because the UU's bonus attack is against the melee domain only, it essentially becomes useless after tercios. Should I add guns to the +CS, so it doesn't become a dead-weight promotion at Rifling?
Don't expect this to come out any time soon. Things are still crazy on my end, and I am still trying to work out the kinks on how to make the 1/2 food work if the majesty policy is selected. I may have to make it +1 food for every specialist (max of 5), but I don't want the UA interacting with the Agribusiness building.
