In game there feels like very little incentive to transcend your culture, I love the culture system but it would be really interesting if transcending was a viable mechanic because a 10% fame boost just doesn't outweigh the costs. If you transcend your essentially trading improved yields, an ability more suited to the next era and a unit that can keep up with competitors for a benefit you're less likely to see benefit from because you've kneecapped yourself to the point where you may not even get one star in your category of choice. 


I say make it so when you transcend that your unique unit when upgraded, keeps its unique abilities and maybe even to keep things fair, it keeps its ratio of production cost, maintenance and strength relative to its non unique counterpart. For example if your unique unit is a swordsman replacement and has 10% more strength than the normal swordsman then when you upgrade it to a longswordsman it will have 10% more strength than the normal longswordsman.


That's a bit complicated but districts are a but simpler, just make it so each territory gains the ability to build an additional version of that district, and maybe give each version of that district from the previous era something like 2 influence. Or you can just increase the yields but I feel like that could multiply quickly and given that not all UD's are yield focused it would make some cultures less transcendable.


Eventually their may come a culture with a power too good to pass up, a unit too strong or a district with too many potential yields to warrant transcending your old culture but it would allow for some cultures to exist for an era or two longer than usual, which would add some flavor to the game seeing cultures last through multiple eras, maybe give them slightly different names like The Second Ming Dynasty to show how far a culture has come.