Anyone set up a slave trade before?

[DrFell]

The thought came to me today as I purchased several workers from the Chinese. If you have plenty of workers and especially if you're an industrious civ, why not sell off captured workers for profit to weaker civs?

For example, imagine you find a fairly backward civ on a crappy island quite near your home island. You don't want to build many cities there as the land is really poor, but this little civ will be a real pushover. Well, why not send some units in just to capture their workers/raze their cities, ship the workers off to your capital and sell them off? Then you could keep a few around or ship in your own workers to develop up the island or take any resources there. I'm not sure how much you could make from this, but you could probably generate a tidy profit at relatively little cost. I'd be interested to know if anyone's tried this and if it's worth it.

[Easy Rhino]

ewwwwww!!

good idea.

ER

[Marquis de Sodaq]

Yes, it's worth it, provided you don't start the war in a way that hurts your reputation. You can net piles of gold for workers, tho you may need to offer only several to every civ to get the most gold for them. I've only done this in two games, so I don't know what else was in AI consideration. Maybe they had too many already - they'd pay for a few, but not the same per-unit price for 15.

I started doing it only because I had too many workers and not enough ships to sail them off to my hinterlands. I started using them to sweeten trade offers, then just selling them outright. Then you actually get some gold for your conquest. (Instead of that message "We've captured Giza and 1 gold! )

[Thrawn05]

When I get pushed into a war, I go for a total victory. They killed my one warrior, now they are all dead (Carthage anyone?).

Usually, at the end, I get about 20+ workers. For about 10 - 15 turns I use them speed up improvements (usually I shift-A them, they deserve to be tools for what they did to me! ). After-which I look for a neady buyer. I sell them for about 100 to 200 lump sum per slave worker.

Sometimes if I feel like it, I'll just select a slave worker, and press the 'D' key. I release a lot of anger by doing this .

If you want to be really evil, kill all the slave workers as soon as you get them from a razed city

[vmxa1]

Late in the game that is what I do, disband them. It is too much trouble to run them back to city and I do not need them. I can't sell as I am at war with the AI.

[Xin Yu]

I do just the opposite at the beginning of the game. When I meet an AI early I check the diplo screen every turn. If it is early enough into the game, the AI capital will have 2 workers for me to buy (not at the same time) for 30 golds each. Then I add them to my capital to get a size 6 worker depot quickly. Think about it this way: a worker can become 40 shields. So spend 30 golds for a worker is well worth the money. Of course capturing them for free would be better.

[Calvin Vu]

Originally posted by Xin Yu
I do just the opposite at the beginning of the game. When I meet an AI early I check the diplo screen every turn. If it is early enough into the game, the AI capital will have 2 workers for me to buy (not at the same time) for 30 golds each. Then I add them to my capital to get a size 6 worker depot quickly. Think about it this way: a worker can become 40 shields. So spend 30 golds for a worker is well worth the money. Of course capturing them for free would be better.

That sounds great. But what do you mean by "a worker can become 40 shields" ? Having two extra citizens for hundreds of turns worths a lot, and establishing a size 6 worker depot could be a game breaker, but I still don't see where the 40-shields come from.

[Xin Yu]

Well, a rush converts one population point to 40 shields, that's what I meant since a worker can be added to a city to become a population point.

[Shaka II]

I have a few questions (Xin Yu or anyone):

1) Do purchased workers work at the the full rate, unlike captured workers? Are they now patriots or still foreign workers?
2) How does 30 gold compare to 40 shields (e.g. 1 gold:1 shield)?
3) Isn't there a benefit to buying workers instead of pop rushing in that your city will be happier?

[DrFell]

Originally posted by Xin Yu
I do just the opposite at the beginning of the game. When I meet an AI early I check the diplo screen every turn. If it is early enough into the game, the AI capital will have 2 workers for me to buy (not at the same time) for 30 golds each. Then I add them to my capital to get a size 6 worker depot quickly. Think about it this way: a worker can become 40 shields. So spend 30 golds for a worker is well worth the money. Of course capturing them for free would be better.

Yes I do this too (early on anyway, not just to strengthen myself but it weakens the ai considerably, something I learned from MP, weaken your opponent in any way possible) but later on I've been trying a republic strategy where gold is more useful for rushing thus I sold them off.

[Purest Warrior]

If you disband units in cities, you get some of the shield cost of the unit reurned to your new production and I guess this goes for workers, too, though I haven't tried.

[DrFell]

You only get 1/4 of the cost of the unit though, thus 3 shields for a worker (rounded up), selling it would probably be more economical.

[Purest Warrior]

Ah!

[Thrawn05]

Originally posted by Purest Warrior
If you disband units in cities, you get some of the shield cost of the unit reurned to your new production and I guess this goes for workers, too, though I haven't tried.

You can't dispand workers and settlers while they are on a city tile, you can only add them to the population of that city. This can be dangerous since if you do this on a city that is stagnant, you will lose those new pop points due to overpopulation and lake of food.

If I'm on the map and moving my settler or worker around, and an enemy unit (which I'm at war with) comes close enough, its better to dispand that settler/worker then for the enemy to capture them IMHO.

Late in the game when I have plenty of workers, and if the civ I am at war with really tict me off, I just dispand every worker I get from a razed city. Think of it as mass executions .

[Shaka II]

I see that Xin Yu is mostly talking about pop rushing, which I don't do (isn't that sort of a cheat?).

But I did try buying about 10 foreign workers last night, just to help me clear the massive jungles all over my (shared) continent. I didn't really figure out how fast they work, but I will assume as fast as my native workers. So, trying to come up with a reasonable cost estimate for a worker:

Typical Exchange Rate:

1 shield = 3 gold
10 shields = 30 gold (typical foreign worker cost)

Typical Worker Cost:

1 worker = 10 shields and loss of 1 pop
1 pop ~= 5 turns x (1 shield + 3 gold) = 5 shields + 15 gold

Total worker cost = 15 shields + 15 gold ~= 60 gold

So, if this is about right, then the 30 gold for a worker would seem like a pretty good deal. Now, if they only work half as fast as a native worker, then there is no advantage other than he is available immediately, which of course is worth something also (e.g., 5 turns of improving).