Slavery: How it could be done properly.

[_BuRjaCi_]

I’ll try to break down the idea I just got this morning and try to put forward a few arguments for it.

Hope, people like it.

1. Slavery is the treatment of other people as property. How can that be modelled in civ?

Now I’m thinking along the lines of making it a way to turn food>people>money, similar to the way you can build wealth to turn production>money. And a way to have lots of repressed productive specialists in many cities.

2.How does it add strategic depth?

Strategically it would widen the possibilities of a pop rush, since that only gives you people>production. It would also add a flavour to diplomacy and international trade. It would encourage bigger cities and make specialists worth even outside the specialised GP farm city. Slaver ala CTP would make a comeback.

3a. How it could/would work? (part one)

You are running slaver. You can pop rush your citizens, since you have complete control over their lives. I’m not taking that away from you. (How could I? ).

Next to the “Buy” and the “Pop rush” button, you will have a little “enslave” button, it well enslaves one citizen. Poor bugger. Your other citizens will be a bit unhappy (about half the amount and for half as long, if one citizen was killed in a pop rush).

He’s not happy either. He’s a slave dammit. He has a +1 unhappiness “You have taken my freedom!” modifier for 20/40 turns.

3b. How it could/would work? (part two)

But here the good news starts, he produces no unhealthines, he doesn’t count towards the “This city is overcrowded” modifier. You just got a free worker, he just eats food, but other than that he is in no way a burden.

He can work the fields or in the mines or you can even educate him and make him a specialist (think a Greek teacher in Roman times). You have a counter that tells you how many slaves you have, it could be next to the settled GP indicators.

Slaves are mobile. You know the citizen specialist bar? You would have a slave bar; if you press + an icon is added and a slave unit is generated. Any slave unit in a city will show at this bar so you can quickly “settle” them (by pressing, logically, -).

A slave can be sold, the mechanic is similar to a great merchant, you take a slave unit to any of your own or your friends cities, press sell. And you would get around 80-200 gold (determined by the same algorithm that controls GM, only toned down gold-wise).

The other useful thing is that when you pop-rush you first use up slaves. You’re other citizens are ok with that. The slaves are unhappy, but they have a unhappiness cap : It’s logical how much of a fuss can a slave make without openly rebelling?

Slave units also, need support, can be captured and can work like… well… workers, just 50% slower.

[_BuRjaCi_]

4. Do you have any other effects in mind?

The first Artist (note: this does not apply for free specialists provided by wonders or civics) produced in a city with slaves is considered an “entertainer” and provides a “servants” happiness resource in that city only. The coliseum adds an additional happiness point for that resource (we’d have to raise the hammer cost back to pre-patch levels in order to balance that).

They don’t have war weariness, they don’t year to join their motherland,… The only unhappiness that slaves produce are summed up the following modifiers:

1+ “You have taken my freedom!” (this one is counted per slave)
1+ MAX 3+ “You have abused us!” (note: the coliseum actually creates a +1 happiness modifier for other citizens per pop-rush, if only slaves are killed)
1+ “We year for emancipation.” (Your other citizens don’t, they are already free!)

You don’t know which specialist is a slave and which is not. NO micromanagement would be involved.

[Will9]

This would probably work good to get small running. You take some unneeded slaves from a big city and move tham to a small city. There probably should be some sort of cap that stops you from having too many slaves per citizen. You should also have an option to enslave half of an cities population when you conquer it.

[_BuRjaCi_]

Originally posted by Will9
This would probably work good to get small running. You take some unneeded slaves from a big city and move tham to a small city. There probably should be some sort of cap that stops you from having too many slaves per citizen. You should also have an option to enslave half of an cities population when you conquer it.

Yeah, I was about to get to that, there is no cap; you just make sure your slaves don’t get too unhappy.

Any slave that has more than 2 unhappiness points would generate great rebel points similar to a great general, the difference would just be in that you really don’t want one of these. They are similar to Civ2 barbarian warlords, meaning they spawn barb units and whenever they attack one of your cities there is a chance they free some of your slaves making them barb controlled rebel units. IF he dies the rebellion ends and you automatically capture half of their units.

Slavers can recapture rebel slave making a “captured rebel slave unit”- you can sacrifice (crucify if you want) this unit in cities to permanently reduce their GR production.

IF you capture the leader (yes the first name on the list would be Spartacus ) with a slaver, you can sacrifice him at your capital doubling the points needed for the next GR (GR indicator would be next to the warlord counter at the military advisor, the points needed to generate them would not increase on their own).

Slavers are undetectable (except by spies, abolitionists and other slavers), hidden nationality units, they can move into foreign cities without attacking and enslave a few of their citizens for you. If you have a slaver in your stack and one of the units has preformed a successful attack, he has a small chance of producing a slave, if you are fighting rebel slaves the chance is doubled.

I'm kinda running out of time so I'll explain the the balancing of the other civics some other time.



Abolitionist is a hidden nationality unit, can detect slavers, it can free slaves (making them useful citizens in your city's) and causing unhappiness among the other slaves in the process or it can be sacrificed at the opposing players capitals to give him +50GR points. If you have an abolitionist in the same square as a GR you can give him troops from your capital.

Abolitionists can only be built or used if you are running emancipation (under any other system they still exist but just don’t have powers).

[Virdrago]

Originally posted by _BuRjaCi_

Slavers can recapture rebel slave making a “captured rebel slave unit”- you can sacrifice (crucify if you want) this unit in cities to permanently reduce their GR production.

IF you capture the leader (yes the first name on the list would be Spartacus ) with a slaver, you can sacrifice him at your capital doubling the points needed for the next GR (GR indicator would be next to the warlord counter at the military advisor, the points needed to generate them would not increase on their own).

Slavers are undetectable (except by spies, abolitionists and other slavers), hidden nationality units, they can move into foreign cities without attacking and enslave a few of their citizens for you. If you have a slaver in your stack and one of the units has preformed a successful attack, he has a small chance of producing a slave, if you are fighting rebel slaves the chance is doubled.

Uh, slavers? Undetectable except by hidden nationality units? Have you been playing CTP lately?

[Kuciwalker]

Even worse, has he been enjoying CtP?

[Solver]

Maybe I should mod them in just to tick Kuci off

[Pandemoniak]

It sounds interesting, because slavery in Civ is uncorrectly represented, its not just killing people at work at cost of unhappiness of the rest of the civilization. And no, the Globe Theater doesnt make slavery ok.

Slavery also had, for example, impact on economy. By providing a cheap source of work, it reduced the wages of the free men around.

I dont think it was proven that a slave economy was more productive than a freemen economy, but I might be wrong.

Slavery also became a very strong matter on religious terms, but I wouldnt dare say that these theological matters were related to the economic/productive impact stated above, and the strategic advantages that oen can gain from them.

Education was also concerned, as one owner wants his cheap (I say cheap because they're not free, they were "things" you have to maintain, breed, and everything) workforce to be as capable and skilled as possible, but they are aware that too much education, or education at all, may lead them to want to end being turned into brutes.

Nonetheless, it brought Great People. Frederick Douglass, Spartacus...

Why not make a whole mod on this, actually ?

[onodera]

I think lynching should also be in the game. Kill 1 pop with a non-state religion and ake the town happier.

[Pandemoniak]

Originally posted by onodera
I think lynching should also be in the game. Kill 1 pop with a non-state religion and ake the town happier.

Even, redesign the whole religion syste. A city shouldnt be from two religions, but with the two religion, each affecting a certain amount of population. And then, real religious wars, etc.

[_BuRjaCi_]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
Even worse, has he been enjoying CtP?

Yes. Don't hurt me!! :runs away:

[Virdrago]

Originally posted by _BuRjaCi_


Yes. Don't hurt me!! :runs away:

Me, too. Well, I did, when it was new. I just couldn't get over the foolish AI. That killed it.