Slavery

[Shadowstrike]

First off, I must categorically condemn slavery as it is a most barbaric practice. Now that's over with, let us examine how Civ3 can represent slavery as an institution in a historically accurate way that does not cause Firaxis to be condemned forever as immoral.

Slavery had its advantages and disadvantages. One of its advantages was its efficiency, as slave could provide a lot of work for a low cost. This could be represented by having them produce more resources. Another advantage was that there did not cost very much in terms of resources to acquire. The low price proved that slave-taking was easily achieved.

Slavery also had a very large share of disadvantages. Slave uprisings often caused nations a great deal of resources to put down, and they would never completely subside. This could be represented by "escapes" every few turns and attacks on units and citie by escaped slave units. The moral problem with slavery was another side-effect. People have a natural tendancy to see immoral actions not done anymore. Therefore, one could expect to have a larger number of unhappy citizens in a slave taking nation. Diplomacy with other nations, especially those which did not believe in slavery would suffer while a nation held them. This can cause problems if one is trying to strive for peace. Finally, the last side-effect is technological stagnation. Slave using nations tended to have their technology stagnate, because using slaves is in most cases more efficient. This could be represented by a bell curve, which increase the time it requires to research new technologies per slave. At first, the effect is small, but it snowballs up quickly. Secondly, we could make the impact of new technologies next to useless as compared to slavery. There would be a smaller incentive to dump so much into research and instead put more money in the slave trade. Comments? Thoughts?

[Bender]

You've got some good ideas there, Shadowstrike. I would certainly like to see slavery implemented in Civ III, but I would also like to see it done on a smaller scale than it was in CTP or CTPII. I don't have any suggestions as to how this might be done right now, but I'm sure someone here will think of something.

Your ideas of uprisings, and unhappiness are key to slavery. These were represented in CTP somewhat, but they could be compounded. Technological stagnation is an excellent idea here. I'd love to see that in action.

[Mister Pleasant]

I beg to differ. Slave labor was severly inefficient. As George Washington himself noted near the end of his life, a human will perform better when motivated by profit as opposed to motivated by a whip. Slave laborers should be less efficient. The primary advantage would be that its cheap - no wages, minimum food. And as in CTP, its a good way to add to your population by taking for another.

[tmarcl]

quote: Originally posted by Mister Pleasant on 03-06-2001 10:47 PM I beg to differ. Slave labor was severly inefficient.

Yeah, but slavery in the US was a *lot* different than slavery throughout history. Slaves were often better treated and allowed greater freedoms than Africans (this is not to say that they weren't still slaves, mind you. Also, in ancient times, it was easier for a slave to earn his/her freedom. In the US, while it was done, it was rare. Also, free slaves in the US had a much harder time (being of an obviously different race meant that they were more easily noticed). In some cultures (Israel, for example), at the end of a specific time, the master was obligated to offer his slave freedom.

It's really only in modern times (well, from the 15th century AD on) that slavery became the way it's seen today. In ancient times, people were sold into slavery because of debt, or because they were taken prisoner in war. In some instances, yes, there were likely slave raids (the story of Joseph in the Bible jumps out), but they were nothing like what went on during the slave trade in colonial times.

My suggestion, if slavery is to be used: You need to build a slave block inside your city, which produces slaves in the population section of the city screen. With them, you get a free .5 production each turn in addition to what your city squares are already producing. When a certain discovery is made, it becomes considered immoral to hold slaves. Nations holding slaves after that get a -1 trade from nations that they have routes with, and their reputation drops one point (even with an Eiffel Tower-like wonder). Democracies/Republic get one extra unhappy citizen per city with a slave inside.

When you decide to abolish slavery (after this discovery is made), you can go into the kingdom menu and there'll be a selection called, 'Abolish Slavery?' Clicking yes sells all of your slave blocks, and erases them from the build list.

Marc

[JosefGiven]

I think slaves should be units that are used similarly to settlers/engineers, in that they can build roads, irrigate, etc. but cannot found cities.

I'm trying to think how slavery was done in CtP. Oh yes, you moved your slaver unit to a city didn't you...no hang on, you stacked him with military units, and then you got slaves when you won a fight...

Hmm, I thought the CtP slaver unit was a bit crappy. Why can't normal ground units take slaves anyway? All you need is a weapon, and the knowledge of how to say "surrender!" and "follow us, or else" in your enemies language!

In the recent Firaxis site update, there are hints about different combat resolution models. Under certain circumstances, it ought to be possible for a victorious military unit to take slaves.

As for the emancipation issue, I think that civs that use slavery should experience diplomatic penalties as already mentioned. Also, civs that are still using slaves cannot become a democracy until all slave units are disbanded. Slave units that are disbanded in cities should add a population point on, but not the production bonus yielded by other units.

[MrFun]

I don't know if something like this could be implemented in Civilization III, but one interesting thing about the Southern states before the Civil War, was that they were looking towards weaker nations to conquer and expand their slave economy.

Southern states plotted to conquer Cuba, Nicragua, and Mexico to expand slavery, but of course, none of them successfully materialized. The closest we got was in the 1850s, when one Southern aristocrat organized his own private expedition against Nicragua, but it fails and the U.S. government refused to support for pragmatic reasons.

Could Civilization III implement a program code that awards agression for slavery nations other than the obvious factor of gaining slaves through captured units?

[Cyclotron]

I also think CTP's idea of a "slaver" is silly.

Slaves should not be "stolen" from a city. In more ancient times, slaves were captured as prisoners of war for the most part. As such, land units that win a battle should take a certain amount of slaves... perhaps 1 unit for each 3 units defeated.

Slaves could also be taken from a captured city. When a city is captured, there should be a option of how many units of the population should be converted into slave units. This could even destroy the town, by selling the entire population into involuntary servitude.

Allocation of slaves:

CTP's idea of "slaves to closest city" is not too great. When slaves are captured from a unit or city, you should be given the option to place slave units at the cities of your choice.

Slave units would be like slaves in CTP, i.e. a section of the population which also works a tile around the city. Only certain tiles can be worked, however: The reason slavery worked for the Southern US is because they had a large plantation system that allowed slaves to be (more) efficient and to keep them from running away. The effect of this would be that slaves could only work mines or arable land tiles.

Effect of slaves:

A slave unit would be similar to a regular population unit, with one difference: Slaves would require only half the food of a worker, and no wages (if this CTP system is used).

I disagree with having slaves more inefficient. They may not be efficient, but with such a long workday and no rest they ended up doing the same work as a paid worker.

The Slave Trade:

Slaves should not be a commodity, but instead individual units could be bought from other empires for money. The slave unit would be paid for at an agreed upon price, and the unit would be transferred to the paying city. This closely simulates the real slave trade.

Consequesces of Slaves:

UPRISINGS: Uprisings were actually quite rare (at least major armed ones), and should be only instigated with outside help (or if slaves vastly outnumber the military units in the city). A slave uprising should basically create a number of military units (composed of these slaves) that would immediatly attack the city. This eliminates the slave worker units in the city, although some slave military units could be recaptured via the above method of slaves from battles. If it was captured, the city would be independent... although if the revolt was instigated by another nation, that nation could move any troops in and take the city, greeted by their "liberators."

SABOTAGE: More likely than an uprising is slave sabotage. In the later parts of the US Civil War, slaves crippled the south by slowing work, breaking plows and carts, salting cropland, etc. This sabotage helped to beat the south. If a slaving nation is at war with a non-slaving nation, there will be a chance that some slaves will use sabotage. This eliminates their productivity for that turn, and consequently that square worked by slaves does not contribute any resources that turn. The chance for sabotage is lessened by more military units.

RUNAWAYS: There should always be a chance of a unit running away, lessened by city walls and lots of military units.

DIPLOMACY: Shadowstrike is right, that diplomnatic relations should be altered negativly between slaveholding and non-slaving nations.


BIG QUESTION: Most of us think the Slaver unit is a bad idea... but what about the Abolitionist? Should we keep a special unit to instigate uprisings, help free slaves, and encourage sabotage? Should conventional units do this? Or should diplomats be able to do this?

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"Any shred of compassion left in me was snuffed out forever when they cast me into the flames..."
- Marsil, called the Pretender

[Lonestar]

I think the slaver unit should be kept...but the diplomat/spy could probaly handle the slave uprisings just as well as the abol;itionist unit. How about we have the abolitionist be a "citizen" in a empire with slaves that acts as an unhappy citizen ? (In addition to already dissatisfied citizens)

I think that as a civilization goverment changes, it is more likely to want to free the slaves it has (Such as right after the French Revolution), but if the goverment is more totalitarian inclined, then it probaly would welcome slavery, not try to get rid of it.

Just a thought.

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"People should know when they're conquered."

"Would you Quintis? Would I?"

"Soylant Green is people. PPPeeeoooppllleee!"

[Cyclotron]

quote: Originally posted by Lonestar on 03-07-2001 07:19 PM but if the goverment is more totalitarian inclined, then it probaly would welcome slavery, not try to get rid of it.

Remember that even a Democratic government (possibly the least totalitarian kind available) has kept slaves, ie. the US.

I don't think a slaver is a good idea, because a military unit should have an even easier time of capturing slaves. The slaver may have fancy nets and such, but woudn't a legion of armed troops more easily capture slaves?

In addition, the idea of a "stealth slaver" is kind of ridiculous. Slaves are taken, not stolen. You can't just sneak into a city, abduct a couple hundred people, and leave unharmed. That just doesn't work. I can, however, visualize a regiment of troops marching in and capturing citizens as slaves by force.


Also: Why do people think slavery creates unhappiness among free people? Let's take the USA as an example. It is true that the Northern states had quite a few abolitionists that really hated slavery, and certainly they were unhappy with slavery. But in the South, there were very few people who were unhappy with slave labor. Even Southerners who did not own slaves (most Southerners) understood that the Slave and Plantation system kept their economy alive, so they stuck by it even if they thought it was morally wrong. The famous Confederate General Robert E. Lee himself found both slavery and secession abhorrent, but nonetheless supported it for his state and the livelihood of people in his state.

KEY POINT: Therefore, although slavery certainly creates unhappiness, this is almost always unhappiness in other non-slaveholding cities.

An empire with a few slaveholding cities would have unhappiness in those cities without slaves. Incidents of runaways, sabotage, and even uprising would be large. An empire with all slaveholding cities, however, would not have much unhappiness, because everybody realized the economic boon of slavery and used that to justify it. Such an empire would have low rates of illegal slave activity (although with the sheer number of slaves in the empire, would likely still experience some difficulties).

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"Any shred of compassion left in me was snuffed out forever when they cast me into the flames..."
- Marsil, called the Pretender

[Trachmir]

First off there are three ways (historically) to become a slave:
1) Capture
2) Penalty for Crime
3) To Pay off Debts

Although we would like to believe that slavery is over in democratic countries, must I remind you that many are in debt to creditors (the majority of Americans owe more than they own), and thus pay 10-30% of their income to just pay interest... if they fail, they lose all possessions and most opportunities (or go on goverment programs which can dictate where you work, where you can live and what you can buy), often the only choice for these individuals is crime (Fraud, Theft, Tax Evasion, etc.).

Which brings me to my second point, prisoners are typically in work programs... they get "paid" a "slave wage" and until recently were employed in the most demanding of physical labor. Now that we have corporate run prisions, it becomes quite obvious that this neo-slavery does run at a profit (most tele-marketers are inmates). While this at first might seem to be a poor analogy, consider the people in prision... the poor and minorities comprise nearly the entire population, no diffrent than slavery of ancient (or Colonial) times. To top it all off, you find that America has both the stongest enonomy and the greatest number of imprisoned people in the world! I concede that America's acess to natural resources plays a large part... but, none the less, the facts of imprisonment/slavery remain.

To end this thought/rant, I put forth that slavery is not over... it has a diffrent name; but it functions the way it always has. Slavery does not lower morale, or industry... instead it boosts economy (while it might take two slaves to do the work of one "freeman" due to work morale, it costs A LOT less to feed/cloth/"pay" two slaves than one "freeman"). It can lead to a lowering of education (look at the U.S.'s poor educational level compared to europe, and the fact that America has to import skilled workers), and perhaps to uprisings (but this is a two edge sword, if an uprising is small then they all will be captured/arrested and there will be more slaves/prisoners... only a large organized uprising will succede)... but increasing military/police presence can quell that, not to mention propaganda. (look at the U.S. once again... you can see it's decent into a police state as the numbers of prisoners/discontent rise)


Slavey is integral to civilization, and it is not simply a thing of our past.


[This message has been edited by Trachmir (edited March 08, 2001).]

[joseph1944]

Slavey has not been part of Civ 1 or 2. Firaxis has not hinted one way or the other that they intend on including slavey in Civ 3. I may be wrong but I will bet we will not see slavey in Civ 3. If they (Firaxis) add to much of CTP 1 & 2 stuff it will become CTP 3 and not Civ 3. Activision had to make a lot of changes to the civ gene to be difference game or it would have been Civ 3 and CTP 2 would have been Civ 4 and now we would be waiting for Civ 5 instead of Civ 3.

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[Cyclotron]

quote: Originally posted by Trachmir on 03-08-2001 05:57 PM Which brings me to my second point, prisoners are typically in work programs... they get "paid" a "slave wage" and until recently were employed in the most demanding of physical labor. Now that we have corporate run prisions, it becomes quite obvious that this neo-slavery does run at a profit (most tele-marketers are inmates). While this at first might seem to be a poor analogy, consider the people in prision... the poor and minorities comprise nearly the entire population, no diffrent than slavery of ancient (or Colonial) times.

This is true, but what you are talking about sounds more like a proletarian (which, some may argue, is the same as/ worse than a slave... I won't get in to that). Slavery of the past, however, is not the same as imprisonment of today. For one thing, prisoners now (regardless of the crime) are there because they have broken the laws of their country. Southern antebellum US slavery and Roman slavery took slaves because they wanted them. The "slave" had not broken any laws, he was simply taken because of who he was. Prisoners (assuming they are guilty and not mentally disabled) have made a conscious choice to commit a crime, while antebellum slaves did nothing "wrong" besides having the wrong color of skin. The poor and minorities crowd our prisons because poorer people have more motivation to steal, and unfortunately many minorities in the US and abroad are on average more poor than the majority race. Education here is not poorer because of "wage slavery," it is poor because of politics and the fact that there are too many conservatives (IMHO, I really don't want to pick a fight here!).

Sorry about the edit, but a guy's gotta eat!

Point taken about the game not being CTP3, but slavery is an issue I wanted to see in Civ2 even before it came out, and certainly before CTP came out. Slavery is not only an integral (though tragic) part of our history, but it is also a valuable addition to Civ2's specialist system that many people thought was good, but somewhat inadequate. Furthermore, I don't see what's wrong about using concepts from CTP... I didn't like the game overall, but it had some very good ideas and premises that Firaxis should refine and explore further.

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"Any shred of compassion left in me was snuffed out forever when they cast me into the flames..."
- Marsil, called the Pretender
[This message has been edited by cyclotron7 (edited March 08, 2001).]

[airdrik]

I agree with your ideas on slavery, but it shouldn't need a tech in order to be able to free the slaves. It is just that earlier on you should suffer (possibly in lack of production) if you abolish slavery. But later in the game risks increase and factors make it so that a civ could not survive long if they still support slavery.

[airdrik]

If you put it like that than that means that slavery as seen in anchent and modern times can and will never end. But slavery in colonial times is different and wrong. How it should be is that game slavery only exists in the colonial form, where you take people less civilized than you and make them your slaves. This causes unhappiness and makes other non-slaving civs not like you so much, but it increases production by a half in every city.

[carioca]

quote: Originally posted by cyclotron7 on 03-07-2001 08:52 PM Remember that even a Democratic government (possibly the least totalitarian kind available) has kept slaves, ie. the US.

.... Well .... republic anyway The shift isnt quite all the way over...Still in the represenative democracy (see the last election). in the In the 1700s it was pure republic, almost to the city/state level of governement