Is the Slavery civic pointless?

[draethor]

I find I use slavery pretty rarely, and even after reading a ton of threads on it, I'm still not convinced. I generally use slavery:

1) liberally in a town with great food resources but low production

2) when I'm 1 past the happiness cap (and kill 2+ people) or 2 past the health cap

3) obviously when I need it (thanks random event for popping 4 axemen next to a city with 1 archer in it)

I should probably consider it more often when building granaries. A lot of the time if a city is at its happiness cap I'll simply switch my people from working food tiles to working production tiles. Even if it's a 1:1 switch though, that neglects the bonus from the granary.

Still I find I only whip maybe 5 or 6 times in a game. I can't help but think that the people who use slavery tons might be using it inefficiently, I mean if you have a size 5 city at its happiness cap, running 4 grassland hamlets (especially if you're financial) and a hill mine is probably FAR more beneficial in the long run than farms and a mine and whipping ASAP. Especially since the commerce generated can be used to support costs in settling new towns (even if it takes longer to create workers/settlers/military units).

[Unimatrix11]

Originally posted by draethor
I can't help but think that the people who use slavery tons might be using it inefficiently, I mean if you have a size 5 city at its happiness cap, running 4 grassland hamlets (especially if you're financial) and a hill mine is probably FAR more beneficial in the long run than farms and a mine and whipping ASAP. Especially since the commerce generated can be used to support costs in settling new towns (even if it takes longer to create workers/settlers/military units).

I use this opportunity to attach my reworked civ-simulation (which doesnt simulate whiping ) for PowerSimConstructor - maybe you wanna conduct some experiments with it.

[Yosho]

Originally posted by nbarclay
Consider, especially, the situation with one-tile islands, which have no way of building any meaningful infrastructure without the whip.

Well, clearly, if you're using a stratagy that dosn't involve slavery, you probably don't want to settle a lot of one-tile islands, because they'll take forever to pay off. Settling a one-tile island, unless it's got really good fishery resources, is often a rather borderline investment anyway.

[Lancer]

I've settled on a one tile island and the girls are sexy, the water warm, the people friendly, the best, sweetest mangos in the world are here. I am a happy man.

Bohol, Philippines!

Plenty bananas

[Yosho]

[nbarclay]

The problem is that what happens in Civ IV is analogous to Spain bringing in slaves to work plantations in the Americas, and then having slave revolts occur in Madrid or Barcelona as a result - even though there aren't enough slaves in Madrid or Barcelona for a revolt to be possible. That causes serious damage to the perfectly reasonable strategy of using slave labor where it is needed but not where other options are practical.

[Lancer]

Originally posted by Yosho

Go ahead, laugh it up Yosho! A helper (unwhiped) was sent earlier to the markado for 3 kilos of mangos and tonight it's mango margaritas sweet from the blender!

I wonder if we should toss in an for both firmness and enthusiasm? Hmm.

[Unimatrix11]

Originally posted by nbarclay
The problem is that what happens in Civ IV is analogous to Spain bringing in slaves to work plantations in the Americas, and then having slave revolts occur in Madrid or Barcelona as a result - even though there aren't enough slaves in Madrid or Barcelona for a revolt to be possible. That causes serious damage to the perfectly reasonable strategy of using slave labor where it is needed but not where other options are practical.

I agree. I also think the revolts should only occur during whip-unhappiness times in that particular city, the probability being a function of unhappy pop due to whipping / total pop. A random event could still exist during all times of slavery, generating -1 happyness (counting just like whip-unhappiness) in a particular city, creating a risk of slave-revolt, but not the revolt itself.

[wodan11]

Originally posted by 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.

Easy != best, quite often.

It's an entirely different approach. When you whip in a small city, you want to whip when the city is low pop, 2-3 in size. That's because the city regrows faster the smaller it is, as you point out. The liability here is that you can't effectively work cottages or run specialists. So, usually what happens is that the smart slavemaster will whip like mad when the city is small, and then he has made all the units and buildings he needs in the early game. Once the buildings start costing 3-4 pop to whip, it becomes less of a desirable tactic and you end up whipping only occasionally, if that.

When you choose to not use Slavery, you usually want to let your cities grow until they reach the health/happy limits. Only THEN do you start to work mines. What this allows you to do is work a couple of mines at the same time as you work a handful of cottages or run specialists.

Working mines when you're at low population is the worst of both worlds, IMO. Certainly, that's not what I'm advocating.

Wodan

[nbarclay]

There are several factors involved in the question of how large a city should grow before it's whipped.

1) If you whip a city down to a size where it can't work all of its tiles with three or more food within a short time after the whipping, the lost food production costs more than the lower cost for growth gains.

2) While keeping cities that use the whip small makes the whipping itself more efficient, it takes away opportunities to work tiles that can provide other benefits. That's especially important if grassland forests or grassland cottages are available because working those tiles provides benefits without slowing down growth other than the little bit of extra food required for growth when cities are larger.

3) Some cities have so much food that they can't be kept small through whipping without either working fewer food bonus tiles (which would defeat the purpose of keeping them small to take advantage of slightly lower amounts of food required for regrowth) or whipping while there is already whip unhappiness.

[nbarclay]

What, exactly, are the consequences of whipping when a city already has unhappiness from earlier whipping?

[joncnunn]

Myself, I rarely settle territory that's not on my starting landmass at all.

I usually want something like 2+ resources not found at all on my starting landmass.

Originally posted by Yosho

Well, clearly, if you're using a stratagy that dosn't involve slavery, you probably don't want to settle a lot of one-tile islands, because they'll take forever to pay off. Settling a one-tile island, unless it's got really good fishery resources, is often a rather borderline investment anyway.

[wodan11]

Originally posted by nbarclay
What, exactly, are the consequences of whipping when a city already has unhappiness from earlier whipping?

I believe it boosts the expiration of the unhappy penalty as well as adds an extra -1. Generally you don't want to do it.

Wodan

[BeachCmr]

Originally posted by wodan11

I believe it boosts the expiration of the unhappy penalty as well as adds an extra -1. Generally you don't want to do it.

Wodan

This is sort of correct; however when the first unhappiness penalty would have expired, the penalty decreases by 1.

An example (normal game speed):

one turn you whip for a build: you get 10 turns of -1 unhappy. 6 turns later you have an emergency and whip again; now you will have 4 turns of -2 unhappy followed by 10 turns of -1 unhappy. Note that the total duration of unhappiness is exactly the same as if you had waited for the first one to expire, and then whipped again. The only difference is that for some of those turns you were at -2 unhappiness.

Wodan is right, generally to be avoided, but sometimes necessary (like when you need that Axeman Right Now).

[Fleme]

I have mostly steered clear of the Civic after they introduced Slave Revolts but I still use it from time to time.

As many have stated, the Civic does really excel when you have towns that are rich in food and are low on production.

Works really well with Spiritual leaders when you can dodge the Slave revolts by switching to Slavery, having a bicentennial whipping festival and then switching back to Serfdom or Caste System.