Sumer - CBP Compatable Custom Civs

Sun Pope

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Project is Currently: Balancing/Bugfixing

Hey all, this thread is for discussing the development of a CBP Extension Civ -- Sumer. Here are the specs right now (April 2016):

Leader: Gilgamesh

Overall Theme: Growth, Infrastructure

Unique Ability: Dawn of Man (Cities start with extra pop scaling with era and a free worker spawns in the capital when founding cities. +2 Production for specialists)

Unique Unit: Vulture (Swordsman replacement -- doesn't use iron -- available earlier -- bonus vs melee)

Unique Building: Ziggurat (Temple replacement, Choose a Patron Deity, more below)

Start Bias: (Avoid Jungle, forest, tundra)

Border Colours: Navy blue with Pale pink trim




PATRON DEITY SYSTEM INFO COMING SOON.




Spoiler for the old OP

Spoiler :

Hey all, in case you never saw the topic in the CPP thread, I want to get started on creating some Civilisations that are made specifically for use with the Community Balance Patch. So, I thought I'd start with a familiar Civ that was cut from CivIV -- Sumeria (Funak reminded me about them, so thanks to him/her)

So the purpose of this thread is to start gathering ideas on what specifications the Civ should have. I want to hear people's opinion on everything, from what victory type/playstyle the Civ should be geared towards mechanically to even what their colour scheme should be. I'll keep an updated list of all the possibilities until I start modding (which will be either next weekend or when we reach a pretty solid consensus, whichever comes first), in which case I'll finalise the list with our decisions. For now, I'll just have some basic ideas down to get the list started. If you wish to help create the mod (either art or programming) send me a message, I'll gladly accept any assistance.


Here is a rough format of what the list will look like-

Option: Possibility (what it replaces/does) Final decision Option removed



...and here are the options so far:


Leader: Gilgamesh FINAL

Overall Theme: Early Growth (UA), Conquest (UU), and Faith (UB) FINAL

Unique Ability: River Valley (Something that buffs River tiles or cities on rivers), Cooperation (cities behave like a puppet would, except you still control worked tiles and production),

Dawn of Man (Cities start with extra pop scaling with era and a free worker. Your first specialist in each city provides +1 of it's normal yield, bonus and number of specialists this ability affects scales with era.) FINAL

Unique Unit: Vulture (Swordsman replacement -- doesnt use iron -- available earlier -- bonus vs melee) FINAL

Unique Building: Ziggurat (Temple replacement, Choose a Patron Deity) FINAL

Unique Improvement: Ziggurat (Faith/Food/Culture with techs)

Start Bias: River, Flood Plains, (Avoid Jungle, forest, tundra) FINAL

Border Colours: Dark Green with lighter green trim,
Navy blue with Pale pink trim FINAL




If you have any questions about the project in general, ask them here! http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=562831



Cheers,
Sun Pope​
 
(Fubrak reminded me about them, so thanks to him/her)
Did I ever tell you the story of how I met a genie and got the ability to choke people over the internet? :D



Leader: Gilgamesh
Well, that's a given.

Overall Theme: Early Growth, Conquest, and Faith
I'm fine with this theme, could probably probably have Stability in there as well.

Unique Ability: River Valley (Something that buffs River tiles or cities on rivers)
The river theme is kinda already done by Askia(and monty to some degree), better to have something more general.

Unique Unit: Vulture (Not sure why they're called this in Civ IV tbh) (Warrior/Spearman replacement)
Yeah, no idea about the name, if anyone have a better one it should probably be changed :D.
Honestly Warrior, Spearman, Swordsman would probably all work.

Unique Building: Ziggurat (Shrine replacement, helps either culture or faith production)
Could be a shrine, could be a temple, could be a monument, could probably be some other building as well. The name feels pretty solid however.
Could even do something weird and have it as a temple that unlocks earlier, or a shrine that unlocks later. Not sure what the abilities should be however.

Start Bias: River
Could have a Flood plain bias instead. Could also just have a bias for avoiding forest/jungle/tundra.



The problem I see here is that pretty much all of this is completely based around the ancient era, I do understand that's how Sumeria went but it doesn't exactly hold up well in the game. You do need some kind of lastabilty.

Well, that's all, thanks for doing this, Sun Poop.
 
Did I ever tell you the story of how I met a genie and got the ability to choke people over the internet? :D

Well, that's all, thanks for doing this, Sun Poop (nice one lol).

DERRRR sorry I'm an idiot. I totally thought your name was Fubrak. Anyway, I was thinking maybe there could be a great person production bonus, similar to Babylon's, that could sustain them through the game? Or perhaps a periodic bonus that would almost work like the Mayan Long Count. (Perhaps every time a historic event happens you get something cool?)

Good stuff, I'll add to the list and fix my grave err.
 
So, this isn't particularly historical, but it does align with Sumerian myth. Ishtar entered their hell to bring back her lover. She had to find a suitable substitute for him in order to return, so she sent her husband to hell in his place.

Ziggurat: Improvement, freshwater non-hill tiles, not adjacent to other Ziggurats
+x Food, +y Faith with Theology, +z Culture with Archeaology
When a land unit dies there is a chance it will be remade at the nearest Ziggurat then next time you kill an enemy unit (the substitute).
 
So, this isn't particularly historical, but it does align with Sumerian myth. Ishtar entered their hell to bring back her lover. She had to find a suitable substitute for him in order to return, so she sent her husband to hell in his place.

Ziggurat: Improvement, freshwater non-hill tiles, not adjacent to other Ziggurats
+x Food, +y Faith with Theology, +z Culture with Archeaology
When a land unit dies there is a chance it will be remade at the nearest Ziggurat then next time you kill an enemy unit (the substitute).

First of all, thanks for contributing.
However, I'm pretty sure this would not work, first of all from what I've gathered unique improvements are a hell, because they require actual models. Second, that respawn ability sounds really complicated, both to try and explain and to program.

If someone finds a model however, a unique improvement could probably work, it's a nice way to have lasting power for early game stuff.
 
Unique Ability: River Valley (Something that buffs River tiles or cities on rivers),

Maybe flat food bonus to cities founded on river? Something like +5 food for cities founded on rivers. That would maintain the early growth idea since it wouldn't scale as well as the Aztecs floating gardens +1 food to all river tiles.

Unique Unit: Vulture (Warrior/Spearman/Swordsman replacement)

A swordsman that require no iron and has the promotion that gives bonus damage against wounded units. Lower CS than swordsman but available at bronze working.

Unique Building: Ziggurat (Shrine replacement, helps either culture or faith production)

Possibly +1 faith to all river tiles. We already have Songhai with +1 culture from tabya and the Aztecs with +1 food from floating gardens so it wouldn't be out of character for CBP

Unique Improvement: Ziggurat (Faith/Food/Culture with techs)

Can only be built on flat tiles without a river. Gives +2 Faith and +3 Production. Can't be built next to each other. Gains +1 faith at theology, +2 culture at archaeology and +1 tourism at whatever the tech that gives airports that I can't remember the name of for some reason.
 
Maybe flat food bonus to cities founded on river? Something like +5 food for cities founded on rivers. That would maintain the early growth idea since it wouldn't scale as well as the Aztecs floating gardens +1 food to all river tiles.
Seems pretty boring for being a CBP civilization. Most of them have pretty unique UAs that do more than add a few points of yields.

I mean as a comparison, before her UA got changed Maria got +3 food in all cities in addition to her extra trading gold thingie from vanilla.
+5 from river cities seems kinda limited in comparison.



A swordsman that require no iron and has the promotion that gives bonus damage against wounded units. Lower CS than swordsman but available at bronze working.
Just want to point out that the Iroquois Mohawk is a unique swordsman that costs no iron have +3 CS and a unique promotion giving CS bonus in forest/jungle.

Compared to that your suggestion feels a bit on the low side.


Possibly +1 faith to all river tiles. We already have Songhai with +1 culture from tabya and the Aztecs with +1 food from floating gardens so it wouldn't be out of character for CBP
Could work, but do we really want this civ to be that religion-focused? Or even that river-focused?



Can only be built on flat tiles without a river. Gives +2 Faith and +3 Production. Can't be built next to each other. Gains +1 faith at theology, +2 culture at archaeology and +1 tourism at whatever the tech that gives airports that I can't remember the name of for some reason.
Weaker than the Shoshone encampment with harsher terrain-requirement.



Not really bad ideas at all, just kinda underwhelming.
 
As for a UA, I basically just threw down a river based skeleton in the list just to get the ball rolling. I think something unique for them is more suitable, given that rivers aren't REALLY historically a Sumerian thing, they're kind of an every early-civ thing (the Nile, Yellow River, Indus Valley, etc.) Maybe we could pay a little homage to the fact that Sumerian cities were more like a collection of independent city states, and do something that makes their founded cities only produce the same amount of unhappiness a puppet would, while still being a regular city and not a puppet.

I'm not really sure I like the idea of a Ziggurat being an improvement, historically. From what I recall from pre-modern history, Ziggurat's were basically huge temple-palaces that were build in the center of major cities, not really something you would have to leave the city walls to go find. I had an idea where a Ziggurat could be similar to the pathfinder in that it practically replaces two base things, instead of a warrior and scout mix, it could be a Shrine and monument mix.

Another idea for the zig would be to incorperate some sort of multi-pantheon effect, this could even be part of their UA. In ancient Sumeria, most historians agree that each city's Ziggurat had a specific god associated with it. Maybe the Ziggurat building in the game could let you pick a toned down version of a pantheon, such as "Each silver grants +1 culture" or "+5% growth in this city."

Thoughts?
 
The Mayan Unique Improvement is also something that was more commonly located in the center of a city rather than random patches of forest and jungle. But that's how we have it. Unique Improvements are generally more satisfying than buildings because they set the civ apart.

Funak mentioned that we don't have a visual model of a Ziggurat for use as a Unique Improvement. Is the Mayan UI just the Chichen Itza Wonder? The Ziggurat could use the Hanging Gardens model.

Personally, I imagine Sumer as either a religion civ or as a city-state civ.

Having each city get a Pantheon of its own does sound intriguing. It wouldn't be too powerful since other civs would also be picking Pantheons, your later cities may not get the most optimal choices. The potency would taper off. But how would you treat if when it comes time to found a religion? Replace all the Pantheons with just one or could each city keep its own?
 
As for a UA, I basically just threw down a river based skeleton in the list just to get the ball rolling. I think something unique for them is more suitable, given that rivers aren't REALLY historically a Sumerian thing, they're kind of an every early-civ thing (the Nile, Yellow River, Indus Valley, etc.) Maybe we could pay a little homage to the fact that Sumerian cities were more like a collection of independent city states, and do something that makes their founded cities only produce the same amount of unhappiness a puppet would, while still being a regular city and not a puppet.
From my understanding a lot of civilizations worked that way, I don't necessarily think that would be a good theme.

I wrote an UA suggestion for replacing the American enemy-tile-buy thing that was based around their history of moving west, I guess it could work here. It would definitely not be enough by itself, but it is something.

Founded cities start with extra population based on era and a free worker.
I'm not really sure it would have very much to do with the Sumerians other than the fact that they get started earlier.

I'm not really sure I like the idea of a Ziggurat being an improvement, historically. From what I recall from pre-modern history, Ziggurat's were basically huge temple-palaces that were build in the center of major cities, not really something you would have to leave the city walls to go find. I had an idea where a Ziggurat could be similar to the pathfinder in that it practically replaces two base things, instead of a warrior and scout mix, it could be a Shrine and monument mix.
First of all, I completely agree with you, a Ziggurat was a building inside a city, a big temple/administrative building It was a courthouse replacement in civ4 for a good reason.

Second, a Pathfinder is not a warrior/scout mix, it is a stronger, more expensive scout :D Shoshone can still build warriors.

Another idea for the zig would be to incorperate some sort of multi-pantheon effect, this could even be part of their UA. In ancient Sumeria, most historians agree that each city's Ziggurat had a specific god associated with it. Maybe the Ziggurat building in the game could let you pick a toned down version of a pantheon, such as "Each silver grants +1 culture" or "+5% growth in this city."
Would just like to point out that polytheism wasn't exactly unique to Sumerians :D
Greeks had temples dedicated to specific gods and goddesses as well for example.


The Mayan Unique Improvement is also something that was more commonly located in the center of a city rather than random patches of forest and jungle. But that's how we have it. Unique Improvements are generally more satisfying than buildings because they set the civ apart.
So does a well designed building as well.

Funak mentioned that we don't have a visual model of a Ziggurat for use as a Unique Improvement. Is the Mayan UI just the Chichen Itza Wonder? The Ziggurat could use the Hanging Gardens model.
I guess, but just like Sun-Goku said a building is a better fit.

Personally, I imagine Sumer as either a religion civ or as a city-state civ.
I'm probably biasad because I don't like the diplomacy-system, but I'd rather not see them based around city-states. Religion could work, but you kinda need to find a specific niche that's not used by another civ, which is hard.

Having each city get a Pantheon of its own does sound intriguing. It wouldn't be too powerful since other civs would also be picking Pantheons, your later cities may not get the most optimal choices. The potency would taper off. But how would you treat if when it comes time to found a religion? Replace all the Pantheons with just one or could each city keep its own?
This just sounds really complicated to me.
 
@Eagle Pursuit: Good point, but I still would like to have the Ziggurat as a building. If more people agree with you though, I'll give the people what they want.

As for the Pantheon thing, every city would follow the empire wide pantheon, I was just saying that when you build a Ziggurat, you pick an additional bonus for that city. (It would be the Ziggurat providing that bonus rather than a pantheon that works through the religion system.) These beliefs would basically just be smaller pantheons, something that isnt as strong as the empire wide ones. Since pantheons are pretty strong now, it wouldn't be hard to come up with 20 ish bonuses that each Ziggurat could have. Programming wise it shouldn't be too complicated, but the question is if we can balance it or not.

I realise that polytheism isn't exactly unique to Sumeria, but if I'm remembering correctly the fact that each city worshipped a different god was somewhat unique. I'm sure in ancient Sparta and the other Greek City States they held certain gods higher than the others, but they still recognised all of them for the most part. City States in Sumer would actually get into conflicts over their neighbors' deities so I don't think there was a set pantheon throughout the whole civilisation. (Correct me if I'm wrong on any of this, I'm not exactly an expert on ancient history)
 
@Funak
Spoiler :
Originally Posted by Stangle Khan View Post
Maybe flat food bonus to cities founded on river? Something like +5 food for cities founded on rivers. That would maintain the early growth idea since it wouldn't scale as well as the Aztecs floating gardens +1 food to all river tiles.
Seems pretty boring for being a CBP civilization. Most of them have pretty unique UAs that do more than add a few points of yields.

I mean as a comparison, before her UA got changed Maria got +3 food in all cities in addition to her extra trading gold thingie from vanilla.
+5 from river cities seems kinda limited in comparison.



Quote:
A swordsman that require no iron and has the promotion that gives bonus damage against wounded units. Lower CS than swordsman but available at bronze working.
Just want to point out that the Iroquois Mohawk is a unique swordsman that costs no iron have +3 CS and a unique promotion giving CS bonus in forest/jungle.

Compared to that your suggestion feels a bit on the low side.


Quote:
Possibly +1 faith to all river tiles. We already have Songhai with +1 culture from tabya and the Aztecs with +1 food from floating gardens so it wouldn't be out of character for CBP
Could work, but do we really want this civ to be that religion-focused? Or even that river-focused?



Quote:
Can only be built on flat tiles without a river. Gives +2 Faith and +3 Production. Can't be built next to each other. Gains +1 faith at theology, +2 culture at archaeology and +1 tourism at whatever the tech that gives airports that I can't remember the name of for some reason.
Weaker than the Shoshone encampment with harsher terrain-requirement.



Not really bad ideas at all, just kinda underwhelming.

I can understand all that. I was trying to be conservative since it's usually easier to build upon a basic foundation than try to scale down some amazing ability. From what little I know about Sumeria, they seemed to be one of the earliest civilizations in the region. They were some of the first to use complicated agriculture techniques.

So possibly a UA partially based on increasing yields from farms? Maybe something along the lines of double the adjacency bonus from farm tiles? +2 food per 2 adjacent farms rather than the standard +1. It would encourage more farm building compared to other civs.
 
I can understand all that. I was trying to be conservative since it's usually easier to build upon a basic foundation than try to scale down some amazing ability. From what little I know about Sumeria, they seemed to be one of the earliest civilizations in the region. They were some of the first to use complicated agriculture techniques.

So possibly a UA partially based on increasing yields from farms? Maybe something along the lines of double the adjacency bonus from farm tiles? +2 food per 2 adjacent farms rather than the standard +1. It would encourage more farm building compared to other civs.

Not necessarily a bad idea, but it feels pretty boring.
EDIT: 'Pretty boring' was kinda harsh. What I'm trying to say is that while it is certainly unique, it doesn't feel very unique.
 
I get what you mean. It doesn't promote a different play style other than 'build a metric ton of farms'.

For me the issue is balancing 'interesting' with useful. There are a couple of Civs in CBP with extremely interesting UAs but not terribly good ones.

And you also want to make sure the UA makes sense for that civ.
 
I personally like the +1 faith to river tiles idea, because besides religion and rivers, we as historians don't know much about Sumer anyways.

But mechanics-wise, what do you guys think abiut the "choose a mini pantheon" bonus for each ziggurat? I like the idea as it makes them much more unique with early game religions, similar to the CBP Celts
 
But mechanics-wise, what do you guys think abiut the "choose a mini pantheon" bonus for each ziggurat? I like the idea as it makes them much more unique with early game religions, similar to the CBP Celts

I wouldn't make it a true pantheon. More like a bonus that each ziggurat gives similar to the random promotions that are gained after first combat. Whenever you build a ziggurat you gain a random bonus from a list of abilities similar to the pantheons
 
I wouldn't make it a true pantheon. More like a bonus that each ziggurat gives similar to the random promotions that are gained after first combat. Whenever you build a ziggurat you gain a random bonus from a list of abilities similar to the pantheons

Yeah, what I meant is that each bonus is something small and can only be picked once, like the first ziggurat you build lets you pick from a list and you have 2 salt in the capitol so you pick a "mini pantheon" that gives 1 faith for every salt this specific city works and the one in the second city brings up the same list (minus the one you've already chosen) and you choose to give wheat worked by this city +1 culture. Making it random is probably a bad idea, as most random based mechanics are very unpopular
 
I personally like the +1 faith to river tiles idea, because besides religion and rivers, we as historians don't know much about Sumer anyways.
I'm not exactly opposed to it, but I see a few problems with it.
First of all, the river-theme have already been done, by both the Aztecs and the Songhai.
Second, and this might just be me, I really don't like effects that are so powerful that they pretty much guarantee religion. Religion is a limited resource, and the more civs that guarantees themselves a religion screw over all other civs in the game a little bit more. If this effect was given to a shrine, it would pretty much guarantee a religion in every game (as up until midgame it would be as powerful as the byzantine UB), making it a temple instead would pretty much force Sumer to rush for philosophy and probably not get the building up in time to get a religion.

But mechanics-wise, what do you guys think abiut the "choose a mini pantheon" bonus for each ziggurat? I like the idea as it makes them much more unique with early game religions, similar to the CBP Celts
I think it sounds really complicated, I'm not necessarily opposed to complicated but I do prefer things to be simple.
 
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