No Slavery in Civ3

[The Mad Viking]

The lack of slavery in Civ always bothered me. It is a huge part of the history of civlization, the only part anywhere near so significant to be excluded from the game.

Slaves was one of the main reasons for waging war. Slaves were critical to labour in the construction of many things, and did most of the mining.

Slaves were also a critical aspect of trade.

The abolition of slavery was a huge step forward for each civilization.

I know this has been talked about before, but this is something I really would have liked to see in Civ3.

[kittenOFchaos]

A step forward (removing slavery)? Only in a PC world...getting someone else to do the dirty work, be it slave, robot etc IS GOOD if you want to run a decadent civ (and who wouldn´t!).

End of slavery ended the pyramid construction...rollers my :banned: they had HUGE whips!

[jsw363]

Viking-

I agree. I think that slavery would be even more interesting considering the new cultural/ nationality aspect to the game. Slaves wouldn't automatically become part of the host civ, but would stay whatever nationality they were "born". This could also add interesting features in a civ's discontent.

It's also historically extremely important for many civs. I think that Fireaxis is avoiding the issue though since it could easily cause conflict. It's not an easy issue to discuss and an even harder one to replicate while satisfying all parties.

[Wiglaf]

Having slaves in a game, and using them to progress and become the leader of the world, goes against politcal correctness in every way imaginable. It would open up the door for becoming Stalin in a videogame. There's a chance the media might blow that out of proportion so much that Firaxis might not be able to recover. Although alpha centauri bypassed the spotlight (obliterate base, nerve stapling), civ3, a more hyped game (based on reality), might not.

Anyone check out Imran's PC jokes? Funny stuff

[loinburger]

Political correctness? Easily solved. Call them "serfs" instead of "slaves" and bam, you're set.

[Sabre2th]

Originally posted by Wiglaf
Having slaves in a game, and using them to progress and become the leader of the world, goes against politcal correctness in every way imaginable. It would open up the door for becoming Stalin in a videogame. There's a chance the media might blow that out of proportion so much that Firaxis might not be able to recover. Although alpha centauri bypassed the spotlight (obliterate base, nerve stapling), civ3, a more hyped game (based on reality), might not.

Anyone check out Imran's PC jokes? Funny stuff

I don't think this would be a problem. There was slavery in CtP and CtP2 and, AFAIK, Craptivision never got hit too hard about it. If the concept is kept generalized like that, I don't see a problem. I would prefer to keep slavery in CtP either way. I like civ the way it is/was.

[Inverse Icarus]

yea, more micro managment.

if this was a game like Tropico however, it could work.

if u have slavery enforced in your empire +50% production -50% trade or something.

[jsw363]

technophile-

Do you really consider people who have been enslaved by another country serfs? I think that serfs are different enough that they should be distinct, like laborers in CTP.

I liked the slaver unit in CTP. Never really got too many slaves, but it did force the AI to create emancipation units to free them.

UberKruX-

Everyone is talking about this Tropico game. I definitely have to play it.

And the more that I think about it, the more that I htink that CIVIII should deal with all the aspects of civilization including the bad parts like slavery. Besides it'd be fun to wage a war against another civ that was holding your citizens captive. I was also thinking that perhaps there could be slave revolts (like the Isrealites in Egypt) where the slaves up and leave and form and new civ or rejoin their old civ.

[SerapisIV]

Originally posted by Wiglaf
Having slaves in a game, and using them to progress and become the leader of the world, goes against politcal correctness in every way imaginable.

YES!! Anything that involves pissing off the thought police who enforce the political correct tules is a good thing IMO. I'd love forCiv3 to be so robust as to allow a player to be a benevolent leader or vicious tyrant. Although I do think you overstate the media problem, even with slavery, the typical FPS game has more gore, which plays better in the 5-second blurb/sound-byte world of mass media.

[loinburger]

Originally posted by jsw363
Do you really consider people who have been enslaved by another country serfs? I think that serfs are different enough that they should be distinct, like laborers in CTP.

Are serfs and slaves the same thing? No. Are they practically the same thing? I'd say so, at least to the point that a game could have a "serf" unit that would function in all ways like a "slave" unit. The fact that "serfdom" isn't as stygmatized as "slavery" makes up for any subtleties that are lost in the generalization.

[Ecthy]

well, slavery was important in ancient times and also in times of colonisation and imperialism.... and in the middle ages, there was large fiefdom and similar feudal systems in europe, os they should definitely put in at least some abstract kind of alternative production line.... now that they didn't, I can live with it... who cares where the produciton shields on the map come from? it's called ab-strac-tion.... slavery in CTP sucked, anyway.... the fella with the whip caught 10,000 of your people at once...

[Wiglaf]

YES!! Anything that involves pissing off the thought police who enforce the political correct tules is a good thing IMO. I'd love forCiv3 to be so robust as to allow a player to be a benevolent leader or vicious tyrant. Although I do think you overstate the media problem, even with slavery, the typical FPS game has more gore, which plays better in the 5-second blurb/sound-byte world of mass media.

I'm sure the media wouldn't force Firaxis out of business or anything, I was exaggerating a bit there. I'm stongly against the whole PC hysteria, for the record, but civ can cross the line, even for me. I wouldn't want the option to line up all my captured people and shoot them, or create concentration camps, for gameplay purposes or not. It just doesn't do justice to the millions of people slaughtered in wartime. Some people seem to get satisfaction from things like this, and that's not a very good thing. Ever lost a relative in WW2?

Then again: people die in war, civ is a war game. I just don't see the need for the more graphic options, though.

[SerapisIV]

Yup, my great uncle was a chaplain shot while giving communion out on Okinawa. My grandfather was on a destroyer at Tarawa and saw the first wave of Marines come back in the water, dead and floating. My father was a Marine at Khe Sanh and then signed up for a second tour. After I finish grad school in May, I'm heading to Parris Island for my 4 years as a Marine. I'm dating a girl who lost two greatgrandparents to the Holocaust. I've heard every horrible story about war you can think of, that's why I want to join the Corps. Someone's got to be there to fight the next one and to make sure that the US fights a moral war, no repeats of Vietnam.

But I digress, sorry for the OT. I think slavery should be in, as should religion as much stronger concepts then they are in the current Civ iterations. Why? Because the world isn't just economics and warfare. "Culture" is a good start, but very abstract, if a game engine or AI could handle it, the more detail the better.

[Wiglaf]

What bothers me is people who would gain satisfaction from pressing the "execute millions of innocent civilians" button they want in civ3. Given the amount of people in your life who died in the second World War, I hope you'll agree with me. Becoming a mass murderer in a videogame isn't damaging to a mature person's mental health. It's not setting an outrageous precedent. It is, however, belittling the enourmous sacrifice of allied, and in some cases, unknowing Axis troops who gave every single thing they had for freedom.

And that's that. Damn the option, I don't want it.

[yin26]

Damn the option, I don't want it.

Don't use it. That's why it would be an 'option.'

By the way, do you know that Age of Kings had to remove dolphins as a food source because it was thought to be too insensitive to the public while slaughtering hundreds of enemy troops was O.K.?

Brainless nitwit, politically retarded wankers...