Is the Slavery civic pointless?

[TieSolo]

I've come to the realization that the slavery civic is completely pointless. To complete anything uses far too many members of your population and also creates a lot of anger...I don't see any viable strategy in this civic. It seems like it should have some other bonus to outweigh the negative.

Am I wrong? Just curious to see if anyone has used this civic in a meaningful way.

[Brizey]

Slavery is THE most important civic. It allows you to trade food for production at a stage of the game that food is easy and production is hard. Bronze working is almost always the first tech I go for and I always immediately switch to slavery.

At higher levels it is pretty much the only way to have a reasonable offensive army in the early game. It also helps to crush out courthouses and markets after the first conquest.

[Kriegsspieler]

I might also point out that slavery is handy as a way of ridding yourself of population that has grown too rapidly (in a city with a lot of flood plain around it, for example), leading to unhappiness. You simply use them to finish an improvement and presto! -- the unhappy citizens have made the ultimate sacrifice for the public good.

[Fitz]

Yeah, slavery is a critical civic, knowing when to get out of it can be hard though.

My rule of thumb is to burn pop for granary and a garrison (and maybe a barracks), then until my happiness is balanced for city size 6 or when the +1 unhappiness is at 100 turns. I usually change out to hurry worker production as soon as the next civic becomes available to get out of the cycle of burning population.

Personally I think key to using slavery is to always burn 2 or more pop when you rush, since you get a flat +1 unhappiness regardless. And to have at least one 3+ food square, but I'm sure that's a given for most folks.

[Ming]

Yeah... slavery is great EARLY in the game when you have happiness problems due to population. Trading that population in for key improvements and units is critical for staying in the game at the higher levels.

[couerdelion]

You say Early. I'll whip right through to the Industrial Era

[Virulent]

Slavery is really important and useful early on but I find myself switching to Caste System more and more in the mid game due to it being made more useful in BtS.

Serfdom is still just as useless as ever IMO.

[Nugog]

Originally posted by Ming
Yeah... slavery is great EARLY in the game when you have happiness problems due to population. Trading that population in for key improvements and units is critical for staying in the game at the higher levels.

And it deals with unhappiness when you don't have luxury resources or religion early on.

Slavery

Whipping

[rah]

I find it very useful in my first drawn out war.
I don't have the jails or enough happy resourses/buildings or Mount Rushmore yet and sometimes the happiness becomes an major issue. Slave the extra army to get your pop down knowing that when you're done you'll have plenty of food to get it back. And also whip those first few buildings in your captured cities.

Later in the game it's not that big of an issue. Especially if you've captured the statue of zues by then.

I have found myself delaying going into it real early and try to time it to get two civic changes at the same time. My cap is usually cranking workers and settlers so it's not as necessary right away. Sometimes the circumstances aren't great for this and I have to whip a settler or worker.

Yes, one of the most important civics in the early and mid game.

[Quillan]

First, read the following thread by Blake.

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=157333

Now rethink your opinion. I find Slavery to be one of the most important civics in the entire game. It's arguable whether Slavery or Universal Suffrage is more important. If I had to give a nod to one of them, I'd go with Slavery, for a couple of reasons:

1) The early game is more important than the late game, as decisions made in the early going shape and define how things will play out in the later game. If you let yourself fall too far behind at the beginning, you'll never be able to climb back into the lead.

2) In the early game, cities are size limited by health and happiness. Some resources can't be harvested until Calendar is researched. Some buildings can't be built until certain technologies are researched. Slavery lets you use otherwise pointless population and turn it into quicker production.

Whipping has to be done correctly, and Blake gives wonderful advice in that thread on when to whip and when not to whip.

[Supr49er]

Once you realize it's a game, not a political/social issue, using slavery is very much to your benefit.

I used to have a philosophical issue with slavery until I realized it's just a strong tool to use in this game.

[logicman49]

Aha. That's why I lose all the time. How do you change pop for buildings. I constantly see the AI Civ's cities go from pop of say 8 to 4 and they come away with troops that they didn't have when I had a spy there. What the h--- am I missing. I know about chopping forests but not this.

Steve

[Dis]

slavery loses a little bit of zing in BTS with events causing my city to shut down , but still very, very powerful. I still don't utilize it to full effect, but it definately helps out. Only way to catch up to the ai militarily, and crank out some troops real fast when they attack you before you got around to building your military .

[jbp26]

Originally posted by couerdelion
You say Early. I'll whip right through to the Industrial Era

agreed. i only stop when the emancipation penalty becomes too heavy to ignore.

[Wittlich]

Slavery is a must have in the early stages of the game. For example, I use it to finish settlers in a city that I have with poor production, but great food resources...The city populates quickly, but takes for ever to finish building anything. So I use slavery to cull the population down in finishing settlers...or anything else for that matter. Yes, there is an unrest factor, but remember, your population is dropping at the same time as the surviving citizens are angry - so that is easy to manage.