Sumerian (Civ6)

The Sumerian people represent a civilization in Civilization VI. They are led by Gilgamesh, under whom their default colors are dark blue and orange.
The Sumerians' civilization ability is Epic Quest, which provides them with a Tribal Village reward each time they capture a barbarian outpost, and halves the cost of levying city-state units. Their unique unit is the War-Cart, and their unique tile improvement is the Ziggurat.
== Strategy ==
Starting bias: Tier 3 towards Rivers
As one of the earliest civilizations in history, it is only fitting that Sumer has one of the strongest early games. With both unique components unlocked from the moment you begin the game, Sumer is poised to rush to a lightning-fast Domination Victory.
=== Epic Quest ===
==== Tribal Village reward from Barbarian Outposts ====
Spam War-Carts. They are available from Turn 1, and have 30 Combat Strength. In the meantime, build Ziggurats en masse and beeline Military Tradition, so that you can quickly enable the Maneuver policy card, which allows you to gain War-Carts even faster. This massive army of War-Carts should then be used to scour the map for Barbarian Outposts, which is simple thanks to their high and resistance to the anti-cavalry units that inhabit the Outposts. Tribal Village rewards include free Population to train Settlers and go wide, free to buy what you need, and free s.
Note that in Barbarian Clans mode, this ability provides a Tribal Village reward only if you Disperse the camp. Raiding it will only provide , like any other civ. Since War-Carts have no maintenance cost, should not be prioritized here, and so Dispersing the camps will always be the better choice. Doing so will also provide these units with experience and, thus, Promotions, which will enable Sumeria to smash through other civilizations and steamroll towards a Domination Victory.
==== Levying units is cheaper ====
While nowhere near as powerful as Matthias Corvinus' ability, this does allow Sumeria to quickly gain a stronger military with more units. However, their legion of War-Carts will be so powerful that additional units become rather redundant. If you manage to become the Suzerain of city-state, it may come in handy, but city-state politics should not be your biggest concern in the prime of your rushing time.
Once War-carts become obsolete, levying a city-state could quickly reinforce your army. The savings could be spent to upgrade the city-state's outdated units. It could prove useful to harass an opponent that is on a different continent.
=== Adventures of Enkidu ===
==== No penalties for declaring war on civilizations at war with an Ally ====
Gilgamesh's ability may seem counterintuitive. After all, what need is there for Joint Wars and Allies when it is so easy to wash away civilizations in a tide of War-Carts? But it is useful in the many cases that circumstances do not permit an early rush and you don't simply choose to restart instead. By making an alliance with a weaker neighbor, Gilgamesh can then destroy anyone who dares attack said ally without fear of retribution from the rest of the world.
==== Shared rewards with Allies ====
However, Gilgamesh also gains an additional bonus related to combat. This ability allows Sumeria to take a backseat in war while still receiving rewards. Unfortunately, Sumeria rarely wants to take a backseat in wars, as they are so good at conquest that there are few civs that would make this worth it.
==== Additional Alliance points ====
This third part of his ability also rarely comes into play, as Alliances are probably not important to a domination powerhouse. Nevertheless, this ability does come into play if the player decides to go a more peaceful route.
==== Legacy of Enkidu ====
In the Heroes & Legends game mode, Gilgamesh gains a significantly stronger and more versatile ability. As a great hero of myth himself, it is only fitting that other heroes are attracted to Sumer - and attracted they certainly are. Gilgamesh can snap up whichever Heroes suit him with his bonus for a further bonus to early conquest, and use them for even longer than usual. Strong Heroes for early domination include Hippolyta, Arthur, and Mulan, whose increased Lifespan will allow her Combat Strength to grow even greater.
=== War-Cart ===
The War-Cart is the premier unique unit of the Ancient Era. Compared to the Heavy Chariot, it is superior in every way - it's stronger, faster, has a lower and no maintenance cost, is available from the start of the game, and has no vulnerability to anti-cavalry units. This makes the Sumerians a terrifying early rusher. A determined player should start building War-Carts from the beginning of the game, and since many copies of this unit alone can form a powerful army, make sure not to waste your precious on Scouts, Warriors or Slingers. Having your most powerful asset available right from the get-go also means if you don't fully take advantage of it, your civilization will enter later stages of the game without anything going for itself.
Sumeria direly needs a successful rush with War-Carts in order to stay competitive, all other bonuses of theirs are purely complimentary and cannot win games on their own. They need to be able to secure a good foundation, starting with a vast empire next to severely weakened neighbors. For this reason, any civilization with a powerful unique unit in the Ancient Era is a baneful neighbor for Sumeria, most notably the Aztec, Gauls, and Nubia. Vietnam, thanks to their incredibly overpowered defense mechanic and starting bias, is also a nightmare for Sumeria. There is very little Sumeria can plan when spawning next to these civilizations; you have to rely on your luck (how good your starting location and are, and how ill-prepared your neighbors are).
Due to the nature of Sumeria and how dependent it is on a good War-Cart rush, it is one of, if not flat out the worst civilization to play on high difficulty. The higher the difficulty and the wider the map is, the worse Sumeria becomes. For example, on Deity, the AIs start with 5 Warriors, 4 global Combat Strength bonus, 50% extra experience from combat for quick healing and s and 100% extra to build even more units. The key strategy for Deity is about catching up and trying not to confront the AIs at their strongest, a luxury that Sumeria cannot afford. They have to start their conquest directly into the AIs' walls of units, and have to rely on the AIs' inability to properly defend themselves, and if this doesn't work out, Sumeria becomes a vanilla civilization with very little going for themselves. And of course, the wider the map is, the longer the game will last, the more time other civilizations will have to use their much more lasting bonuses. Sumeria should only be played if you want a difficult challenge, as it is not well equipped for those particular environments.
=== Ziggurat ===
As a rule of thumb, early and are immensely valuable, and the Ziggurat provides both yields right from the beginning of the game without any technological requirement. Since Sumeria almost certainly will devote all of its in War-Carts in the Ancient Era, the main purpose of the Ziggurat is to keep Sumeria from falling behind in research. As expected, it is very impactful in the Ancient Era, much less so in the Classical Era, and becomes more and more trivial as the game progresses. The Ziggurat has almost no potential of scaling, beside one extra point of with Natural History, which is too late to matter. It runs into the same problem as the Kurgan, another improvement with almost no placement restriction but provides no , , and : placing down too few and its effect will be negligible, but too many Ziggurats will stunt the growth and productivity of their parent cities. Finding the sweet spot of balance for this improvement is another conundrum, as it is available at the same time as your strong but expensive unique unit, both of which need to be immediately put into work, otherwise, your civilization will progress as if they were a vanilla civilization without any meaningful bonus. To make a problem harder, the point of availability is right from the beginning of the game, when you have no infrastructure to support the training of War-Carts, Builders, Settlers and building s at the same time.
The easiest way to use the Ziggurat is to build one next to a river whenever you train or capture a Builder in the Ancient Era. Using 1 out 3 build charge is recommended because it is not too overboard, and and at this point are crucial to keep you competitive during your early conquest. After the Ancient Era, you should capitalize on the vast empire the War-Cart is able to secure and try to generate and efficiently from s and not waste too much space on Ziggurats. Also, since riverside tiles are ideal sites for a lot of s, feel free to replace Ziggurats with high adjacency s later.
You can add a bit more mileage to this improvement by trying to obtain as many percentage based modifiers as you can. The most significant and obvious source is from Pingala, who provides 15% extra and to his host city, a bonus that goes very well with the early availability of the Ziggurat. Later in the game, other more powerful modifiers such as Kilwa Kisiwani, Oxford University, Broadway, etc. also become available, but of course, at this point, the yields from the Ziggurat are almost negligible, so these wonders are only meaningful if you have a vast empire with good placement. In summary, just like the rest of the Sumerian toolkit, the sole purpose of the Ziggurat is to lay a sound foundation upon which you can build your empire, it is not the kind of improvements that have long lasting effects that you can rely on after Classical Era.
=== Victory Types ===
Push for a Domination Victory as hard as you can in the Ancient and Classical Eras. There's no consistently reliable counter to the War-Cart at the beginning of the game, so your neighbors won't have much hope of surviving a War-Cart rush. If you haven't won by then, take stock of your situation, and decide whether to continue on the domination path or change to a different victory type. If you decide to change, settle as many cities as possible near Rivers and build Ziggurats on every available bit of flatland along their banks. This will boost your and output (especially after you discover Natural History), allowing you to discover new technologies quickly and putting you on track for either a Science or Culture Victory later in the game.
=== Counter Strategy ===
The Gilgamesh AI has one fatal weakness: his agenda. As long as you can Declare Friendship with Gilgamesh, he will accept. Since Sumeria's bonuses are mostly geared towards a Domination Victory, just constantly Declare Friendship with him and you can keep him in check.
== Civilopedia entry ==
== Cities ==
== Citizens ==
Males 	Females 	Modern males	Modern females
Alad 	Amarezen 	Aban 	Aasera
Dari 	Anusan 	Ali 	Aditi
Izila 	Aradegi 	Gabir 	Bedisa
Kuliaana 	Bauninsheg	Hakim 	Dashenka
Ludari 	Garanda 	Hussein 	Farrah
Lusili 	Gemekala 	Malik 	Leyla
Meania 	Nigbau 	Raheem 	Nadira
Sheshkala	Ninna 	Uday 	Razeena
Sisig 	Nintuda 	Yusuf 	Shabeen
Zimu 	Sherzi 	Zaid 	Shada
== Trivia ==
* The Sumerian civilization's symbol is the cuneiform logogram "AN" or "DINGiR" (𒀭), which was either the word for the sky, or a written determinative before the names of any of the Sumerian divinities, respectively.
* The Sumerian civilization ability references the plot of the Epic of Gilgamesh.
* The Sumerian civilization is the only civilization in Civilization VI to lack ambient music. This may be because the Hurrian hymn to Nikkal (the song upon which its main theme is based) is the only extant song from Sumerian culture. 
* The first paragraph of the Civilopedia entry for Sumer erroneously refers to it as Sumeria. This mistake is not present in later paragraphs.
==Soundtrack==
== Gallery ==
File:Ziggurat civ6.jpg|The Ziggurat, Sumer's unique improvement
File:Sumerian capital.JPG|Sumerian capital in Medieval Era
== Videos ==
thumb|center|300px|First Look: Sumeria
== Related achievements ==
== See also ==
* Sumerian in other games
ru:Шумер (Civ6)
Category:Sumerian