No slavery in CIV III

[raingoon]

Great research, Charles III -- it's interesting that many southern whites apparently harbored irrational fears of enslavement by the north. SOunds like guilt...

Well, maybe in the end the best solution is to assume slavery in the beginning of the game. And after the discovery of Emancipation those who declare it receive some social bonus with a production penalty.

Also, declaring Emancipation might mean that in a democracy the senate may reject trade agreements with a "slave state" on ethical grounds, much the way senate doves currently make peace against your will in Civ 2.

[Earthling7]

A little idea:

Early : Slavery is the norm
Renasance : Abolition is on the rise (as an advance)
Modern : Slavery is an atrocity

A lot of exellent ideas have been posted, so all I have done is give a little idea of a model... I think atrocity in the modern age could be interesting. Not like in CTP where everyone is freed automatically, but a civilization will be warned by a central institution (UN?). It would not become atrocity until the UN (which could work similar to the Planetary Counsel in SMAC), but it might compromise your reputation before that.

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Greetings,
Earthling7
ICQ: 929768

[Adm.Naismith]

First of all, sorry for my previus post, I'm really in a bad mood.

Just a friendly reply to Steve, on the same line of the IMO very good post of Gord.

Steve, don't be blinded by the false concept of "edutainment" vs. "entertaining" game.
Every game and toy have some kind of "education" effect. Animals learn playing (learn to follow and catch a pray, learn to escape, learn to find food...).
They also learn "social" rules, as human children often do. Often some "simulation" is the name of the game.

Of course an adult can (or should ) understand the difference between killing someone on a Quake game or in real life, but that doesn't mean we can't learn something anyway. Any proper game or toy must contain an opportunity to learn something.

Learning is a big part of entertainment, if someone is not forcing you to learn something you don't care nor understand (and that's often the weak point of "edutainment" software).
Or at least learning something can add a lot of taste.

Right, some simulations are too hard to enjoy (think about very realistic car races or flight simulations), but probably they are trying to bite more than a common player can chew.

As in my previus post, I don't learn about WWI playing "Wings", still I understand much more about some facets of war than from some arid history books.

In CIV series you can learn about consequence of actions, the need of properly balance development, the role of a war (understanding, in a superficial way, why so often a country chose to fight a war instead of develop itself peacefully).

On CIV III we should learn more IMHO about effects of religions, diseases, enhanced diplomacy and trades and, why not, slavery and atrocities.

Good news Steve, you pay for a product but in fact you got two
(shhh, don't tell to EA/Firaxis or they will charge 100$ every box!)

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Adm.Naismith AKA mcostant

[Stuff2]

I don't like the slaver-unit idea. Slavary should be in but in a much more abstract level. This should be controlled in a special window where u have all the legislation for your society. And Slaver civ will have some advantages and some disadvantages. The advantage is more labor and less cost for labor (Building improvements are cheaper). The disadvantage is more need of police, less science, more riots and a probability of slaves escaping to your enemys.
I don't think that slavery in itself should be more difficult to maintain with increasing techs, i'd rather see the benefits of slavery getting smaller and the disadvantages getting bigger. In the biginning people enslaved their own people. Later they enslaved people from other civs and finally they enslaved people from other races. I'm sure that if we would meet another kind of intelligent lifeform and if we could we would probably enslave them and after a few hundred years we would give this aliens their freedom back.

The control for slavery could include this:

- Slavery allowed? - Y/N
- What kinds of slavery? - Serfdom/slavery
- How to become a slave? - Crime/indebted/POW/Ethnic background/Religion/Nationality/Born slave
- How well are slaves treated? - 1 to 10 (1 is bad 10 is very good)

If slaves are not in...how can u get in a war to stop slavery (and get bigger)?? War and slavery are both awful things in human history but nevertheless they have shaped our world to become what it is today.
Personally i think it would be fun in playing a game where you have to defend your people from the 'evil and barbarian' neighbours.
And why not be able to build concentration camps too? I mean. They only have one advantage and alot of disadvantages. The advantage is that you get rid of alot of people (That may have caused you problem later or to appease other people). the disadvantage is all the riots and all the international sanctions that this may cause. I want a game where u can do anything u want, be cruel or nice, but u have to take the consequenses.

[Steve Clark]

Adm: Good points. It is true that all computer games are learning tools to some extent. I think one of the main reason I play strategy games on a regular is to keep my analytical thought process sharp, and Civ2 and Civ3 will continue to do that.

My reaction was perhaps focused the modeling of civilization growth and especially warfare. I just don't think a non-scenario Civ2 game models warfare very well - when compared to the number of Talonsoft wargames that I play. There I'm comparing simulation vs. strategy games, which is probably not fair. Regarding civilization growth, the fact that you can take any named civilization, keep it supreme for 6000 years, build wonders and then build a spaceship to reach AC can only be viewed as an abstract model at best. Ideas like the Rise and Fall of civilizations can perhaps make Civ3 less abstract, but IMO, I don't view Civ2 as a historical simulator in any way, nor would I want to. This does not in any way prevent from adding historical realism to Civ3, which I will gladly offer my suggestions and opinions.

[Sirotnikov]

Stuff2, I agree with you but I think most people won't. I think most people won't wanna see death camps.

Persnally I would not mind having the option to use some thing like it in the game. I personally don't see a usage of it in jenocide like in previous wars. Jews didn't have a country in WWII and the Armenians also didn't have a country in WWI. And in civ once a nation doesn't has a country it's considered obsolete for good. so, then genocide is counquering a whole nation but we all did that in the previous civ games.

And I know I did kill conquered population by starving cities to decrease population so the would stop revolting. Building a camp in a city would make the job easier but it will be considered an atrocity.

Extermination of people and nations was always a part of history. Slavery also was. No reason not to include it.

But, if you would suggest 100 years ago to make slavery a game, it would't have been pretty. Then slavery was a very close to heart topic. how would a slave feel if you would suggested him a game with an option to have slaves? he'd kick your ass.

Now slavery can be included. death camps can not.

Early games included only option to play good guys. I'm tired of it. Also in movies, good guys win. they suck ass. I enjoy playing Dungeon Keeper II if anyone is familiar. Years ago this game would cause outrage.

Back to topic. I actually have a 'take no prisoners' attitude.I don't like having small wars and many wars. I try to have as many wars as there are opposing nations. Each war has the purpose of destroying completely an opposing nation.

I think we all claim to be very nice but when playing civ we often do horrible atricities. I believe nothing will ever stop atrocities in the real world. not to say civ = real world, but people always were and will be agressive and not nice.

Bottom line:
We might as well include slavery and death camps. But death camps and other subjects that are very painfull can't be included. not yet.

[Sirotnikov]

oh, I just remembered: spying, which is filling many threads here is not legal. that's right. and war is immoral. yeah. . But that won't keep me from conquering the world!!!! AHAHAHAHAHA!!! Seriously, for real. I have an awfully good plan.
-Brain?
-What, Pinky?
-What is awfull?
-It means huge and terrible.
-Naaaarf... Poit!

[MidKnight Lament]

Tee he he! It's been far too long since I've seen Pinky and the Brain.

- MKL

[S. Kroeze]

Just one short general remark:

I think this discussion about leaving out slavery because it is not 'nice' is the summit of hypocricy! As I pointed out in another post, slavery and trade in humans/slave-running continue to the present day, though often those practices are called differently. And especially the guilty will set great store by using other names for this same practice.

For the hypocrits I have the following suggestions: Lets banish war, famine, barbarians, nuclear weapons, plague, revolutions, treachery, espionage, disasters, religious strife, civil war, fascism, dictators, economic exploitation, conquests, revolts, martial law, secret police etc.; it will make a most exciting game!
[This message has been edited by S. Kroeze (edited April 14, 2000).]

[Slingshot]

The CTP experience was a bad one because these unconventional units ended up being like so many mosquitoes!

Here you are, sitting around hoping to build an empire and negotiate epic truces with other civs. The bzzzzzt! a slaver. Bzzzzzzt! a lawyer. It ended up being one more thing to worry about.

I like aspects of espionage. Slavers are okay if they are part of a military force, and not free agents running around slowing down the game.

CTP had too many unconventional units. Nobody seemed to care about borders, either.

[Sirotnikov]

Ooooooooooooooooh... that reminds me,
I always wanted secret police to be implemented in the game. Since I was born and raised in the USSR until the age of 6, I have a special attitude towards secret police . Not to mention my great grandparent was captured by bolshevik secret police, accused of crimes he did not commit and murdered by it. Except martial law, I see nothing even clsoe to that in civ. How can we play the cold war scenarios and not have secret police??

Is it a worthy idea? Should I start a new thread?

[MidKnight Lament]

You can if you like. Here's some thoughts to get you started anyway.

What is their purpose? What actions can they perform? Do they operate both within your empire and outside of it? How much control do you have over them? What choices do they offer a player? Are there pluses and minuses to using them? Do they require special forms of government?

- MKL

[Sirotnikov]

Well, I was kinda hoping someone else would come up with answers to those questions .
I'm lazy and I don't have much spare time to sit and write. I'll try.

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This is not a sig. This is a bunch of text under a line.

[MidKnight Lament]

I'll copy them into the new thread then

- MKL

[connorkimbro]

Without reading the whole thread, my two cents.

There's no reason NOT to include slavery, the whole bit about "my culture went through slavery less than 2 centuries ago". . umm, so what? That's irrelevant. You never had shackles on you did you? ANYONE you know? Thought not. Not to be insensitive, but. . hey, get real. Second, on this comment.

quote: I say let there be slavery in Civ III but provide plenty of means to oppose it.

Slavery shouldn't be made into a political issue in the game either. That's one of the things i didn't like about CTP, it made environmental issues, economic issues, etc, etc part of the gameplay, like CTP was pushing an agenda. "egalitarianism, good. environuts (to an extreme) good. capitalism bad" Not that other games/shows/movies/etc don't do it either, but still. . it's a game. The purpose for ANYTHING being in the game is to have fun, not to have the designers pet politics preached at me, whether they're right or not.