Is the Slavery civic pointless?

[Lancer]

I don't do slavery...

...and my people love me for it, and I them.

Also I don't go in for false religions, better to burn those heathen cities.

[wodan11]

I disagree with all the "Slavery is a must have" comments. Slavery is over-rated, especially with BtS.

Slavery is very strong, true. But so is letting your cities grow. This is one of the many interesting decisions that are needed to be made each game. Decision points = variety and enjoyment, plus it puts control in the hands of the player.

To go so far as to say Slavery is a MUST each and every game? No way.

Just me.

Wodan

[Wittlich]

Good point Wodan.

There will be times when using slavery would be counter-productive to what you what to do with your civ.

Using pop-rush under slavery is definately NOT a win-win scenario. It should be used on a case-by-case basis. Sometimes whipping your population might achieve your short-term goals to the detriment of your long-term goals.

I guess it all depends on the attitude of the individual player.

[MJW]

In MP slavery is much more powerful because your army size is capped by production. This is not the case at high level SP (anything above monarch). Your army size after the opening is capped by your commerce because the game gives you a major penalty to commerce, not production. Also, in MP lots of your units die a lot so your constantly making new ones to.

[Unimatrix11]

This is the kind of thread that makes me really glad the buddies i play with occasionally wont read it. I dont use slavery - partly early on i came to the same (faulty) conclusion as the thread opener, and partly because i dont wanna go through the micromanagement of checking my pop sizes in order to know when to whip - and i know if they did, they´d kick my ass and force to do so as well. So it´s kind of a house-rule not to use slavery (at least not extensively). But i guess this only is good when all players tend to be more builders than warmongers, cause i think "no-whipping" reduces (players starting) wars, esp. early in the game. It then results in smaller player empires and i faster overall game (when you play with AIs in the game as well). I start to doubt, it´s a good house-rule and maybe i should be the one to whip my buddies asses next time around...

[Tattila the Hun]

I like to have my cities on auto build, less of a micromanagement thing. So, they also auto-whip... Not sure how efficient Blakes governor-AI is in this?

They also happily squander my troop upgrade funds on things like education and healthcare, damn hippies...

[Lancer]

Slavery is misrepresented in the game since it has a cost that isn't represented. The Romans expanded their early empire on dicipline and the broad shoulders of the Roman peasant farmers. When the empire conquered it captured slaves which took up the jobs once done by the peasants who moved to the cities and became the famous Roman mob. Also, the rich of Rome became very wealthy on the conquests and bought up the small farms, employing slaves on their large estates. Niether the slaves nor the mob were of much use as soldiers so the empire brought untrustworthy barbarians into the legions. Over the centuries slavery wrought its rot upon the fabric of Roman might, and left the empire ripe for the plucking barbarians.

Slavery should cause decay of some sort while providing production. This decay should accumulate like Einstein's compound interest, becoming powerful enough to leave an empire weak.

[Lancer]

oooopppsss

[Julian Delphiki]

Originally posted by Lancer
Over the centuries slavery wrought its rot upon the fabric of Roman might, and left the empire ripe for the plucking barbarians.

This is called as "Spartacus's revenge" on (some) history books.

[Lancer]

Good name

[Fitz]

Originally posted by wodan11
I disagree with all the "Slavery is a must have" comments. Slavery is over-rated, especially with BtS.

Slavery is very strong, true. But so is letting your cities grow. This is one of the many interesting decisions that are needed to be made each game. Decision points = variety and enjoyment, plus it puts control in the hands of the player.

To go so far as to say Slavery is a MUST each and every game? No way.

Just me.

Wodan

I used to think this way too. Then I realized there is rarely if ever a point at which I am not underutilizing one of three resources (food). And in the early game, the hammers from the pop is usually worth more than the hammers/commerce from the pop over the time it takes to regrow (and you dont have specialists).

There is of course a break point at which a point of pop is worth more in base commerce & hammers (or as a specialist) over the time it would take to regrow it. And it's easy to stay in slavery way too long (industrial, are you insane?). But to NOT use slavery in the early game is to lose turn advantage and underutilize available resources at hand.

[couerdelion]

While Wodan makes a reasonable point, this is really the exception rather than the rule. Food is far easier to acquire in the early game because there are lots of tiles that can be improved for 5 or 6 food but only a few that will give more than 4 production. Since you only need 20-30 food for each population point when a city is small (even less with a granary), the easiest way to gain production is to grow and whip rather than work mines.

But I will agree that you want to be sparing with the whip in cities with low food/high production.

To answer the micro-management issue, I would tend to see this as relatively minor with only a few cities. What is more, in this early stage of the game, micro-management is important if you want to focus on particular short-term goals (eg early rush or a tech bee-line). Later in the game, all it needs is to go through the city screens occasionally to bring a few key builds out earlier.

[Ming]

Yeah... early in the game, with only a few cities, micro management can make a BIG difference and is worth the effort.

And while I'm sure it always pays to micro management, I stop doing so as the game moves along and I have far more cities. I start checking into my cities on a semi regular basis just to make sure they aren't doing anything really stupid

[snoopy369]

Slavery isn't perfectly represented because this is a game. In BtS however they do a pretty decent job making it 'hurt' a bit (with the slave revolts), balancing it so there is more incentive to not be in slavery later on. Still vital in the early game, though.

[jbp26]

Originally posted by Unimatrix11
But i guess this only is good when all players tend to be more builders than warmongers, cause i think "no-whipping" reduces (players starting) wars, esp. early in the game. It then results in smaller player empires and i faster overall game (when you play with AIs in the game as well). I start to doubt, it´s a good house-rule and maybe i should be the one to whip my buddies asses next time around...

whipping is just as useful for infrastructure as it is for armies.