Is the Slavery civic pointless?

[jbp26]

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

this is kind of misleading. early on, even a city without a lot of extra food can grow from size 2 to 4 relatively quickly. and whipping from 4 to 2 is enough hammers to very quickly most of the important early buildings, or to knock out an axe/spear/swordsman in one turn.

what im getting at is that its not fair to say slavery is only applicable to situations where you have high food and low production; in that case you just have the luxury of larger whips (maybe sack 3 or 4 population at a time). even for just average cities, its indispensable.

[wodan11]

Originally posted by jbp26
even for just average cities, its indispensable.

I agree the previous comment might be misleading. Regarless, I still disagree with "its indispensable".

Having bigger cities means I'm stronger on the power graph, my AP votes count for more, I get more commerce, ... and so on.

If Slavery were "indispensable" then there would be no question of pros/cons. It would be all pros and everyone should always run it. But that's not the case. There are quite a few cons and there are quite a few pros of the alternatives.

Ultimately, it depends on the game environment. What your terrain is like. Whether you need to engage in a real early war. Whether a significant percentage of your cities have little to no production possibilities except for whipping (e.g., island cities). Slavery is useful quite often. But it's not the best option as often as most people seem to think, IMO. It's an overrated civic, especially with BtS.

For myself, I enjoy all kinds of different play styles. Its fun (to me) to play a heavy Slavery strategy one game, and something else the next. It's also fun (and teaches me how to adapt and deal with different conditions) to choose my game strategy depending on what I see once I'm actually in the game. e.g., if I'm next to both Monty and Ragnar, I'm hardly going to be happy-go-lucky planting cottages and "la-de-da" taking my time about building up my empire.

Wodan

[jbp26]

im not saying its the only choice and appropriate 100% of the time, but by far the most often slavery is what you will be running. serfdom is pointless, its almost always more efficient to just build a few more workers. caste system is nice but rather situational, and emancipation is such a late game choice its not especially relevant to compare. i like the idea of slave revolts being used an additional cost to using slavery, but losing a few turns here and there is a trivial cost compared to the benefit. i think it would be great if the other civics were beefed up enough to actually be realistic options.

[wodan11]

I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree.

Serfdom is far from pointless, and it's definitely more efficient to NOT build more workers; heck, it's debatable that serfdom plus building workers is better than to build no workers and simply capture them all. So, the efficient workers is pure bonus and puts it over the top. Plus, either way, it's less unit maintenance.

Caste System is situational yes but there are many disparate and strong strategies using CS. To always use Slavery is to cut yourself off from enjoying those strategies.

The comment about Emancipation being a late game civic says that it's not worth it to run Slavery in the late game, which I definitely disagree with. Slavery late game (domination or conquest) is hugely powerful.

Losing a few turns here and there is a bigger penalty than "trivial". It's not a huge penalty, true, but it's hardly insignificant.

A good way to force yourself to see the value of other civics or other strategies is to pick one, start a game and tell yourself that you're going to break it. Think of ways to abuse the system as much as possible to get the most of it. Then try it. You might find there are incidental benefits as well, that aren't necessarily readily apparent. (Like being stronger on the power graph.)

Wodan

[joncnunn]

Yet another reason why the why the Slave Revolt random event should have been linked to acutal whipping instead of the civic.

Originally posted by Fleme

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.

[Fleme]

I've had the event once and ever since I've dodged it by this method. When I'm not spiritual I hardly ever use Slavery and aim for Pyramids-Representation + Caste System which of course is a classic combo. Back on topic; I do agree that the event should be tied to the whipping instead of the Civic. And that is also why I'm going to keep doing it every time I random a Spi leader, to get the maximum benefits.

In response to jbp26: I didn't mean to suggest that it would only be useful when you're in a high food situation. If's very much applicable even when your city is no more than 4-6 people in size and has no food resources and/or flood plains. On Monarch-Emperor-Immortal the cities get unhappy beyond this size either way unless you manage to score a few Happy sources and/or religions to build temples so it's logical to keep the unhealthiness/unhappiness at bay by the use of the whip. This said, I really do use Slavery only in the early game and even then mostly when I'm spiritual or feel like doing weeding on a few large cities to get them up to speed and after that I switch to Caste System (preferably accompanied with Representation, I'm a sucker for Pyramids; And incidentally this also helps dealing with the aforementioned happiness issue.)

Small cities recover from whipping quite fast and eventhough the unhappiness lasts for ages (I play Marathon, it really lasts ages) it is still beneficial when you have the means to do it. Keeps size down, you get your cities up to speed in no time and it keeps costs low and is really a valid method of drafting in desperate times.