Tweet
Any of the guru's care to comment on the doability of the following:
- Set up as a transport with 8 slots.
- No units other than 'slaves' can be loaded into a slaver.
- Successful 'enslave population' attacks on a city or a settler unit loads a random number (30% chance of 7, 20% chance of 8, 20% chance of 6, 10% chance of 5, 8% chance of 4, 6% chance of 3, 4% chance of 2, 2% chance of 1) of slots with a 'slave' unit. The randomness is intended to factor in the appaling mortality rate of slaves during capture and transportation.
- Including a slaver in an army that wins a battle gives a chance of loading a slot with a slave unit for each enemy unit defeated. Setting the chance to 67% would, on average, result in a full slaver for every 12 units defeated. No slaves should be captured if the player retreated.
- An 'enslave population' attack by one of your slavers on one of your own cities that contains at least 1 slave population unit would remove 1 slave population unit from the city fill up the slavers slots with slave units and create slave improvements (see below) in the city with the left over slaves. Attempting and 'enslave population' attack on your own city when it has no slaves simply fails. This would allow you to move slaves between cities with a slaver.
- Unload a 'slave' unit in a city and disband it to add a chunk of production to the current item on the build queue, just like any other unit disbanded in a city. 100 production units sounds about right to me, but the number may need a tweak to make it worthwhile, but not overpowering.
- Unload a 'slave' unit in a city and give it a Sentinal or fortify order, or simply leave it in the city at the end of the turn to destroy the slave unit and create a slave place holder building in the city. To save building slots, you could have a 'small slave pen', representing 1 slave unit, a 'slave pen' representing 2 slave units, and a 'large slave pen' representing 4 slave units. Sentinel a slave unit in a city with no slave place holders to create a small slave pen. Sentinel 1 slave unit in a city with a small slave pen to destroy the small slave pen and create a slave pen. Sentinel a slave unit in a city with a slave pen to add a small slave pen, and so on until a slave unit is Sentinel in a city with a small, regular and large slave pen, at which point, all slave place holder buildings would be destroyed and a slave pop point added to the city. This way, 8 slaves make a slave pop point, and the data will be persisted to saved games.
- A slaver unit can 'Reform' one of the player's own cities with slave place holder buildings to convert the slave place holder buildings into the appropriate number of slave units, which can then be loaded onto the slaver or disbanded for the production bonus. Any left over slave units (ie. no more room in transport, enough production already) would turn back into slave placeholder buildings at the end of the turn, or if the player gave the slave unit a Sentinel order.
- A slave place holder building could be sold, allowing you to convert slaves into quick cash.
- The slave place holder buildings might have a small upkeep cost and a small benefit to offset this for added realism, but the parameters would need to be tweaked to make sure that the costs weren't so high that players avoided them, or that the benefits were so good that players kept slave pens in their city on a permanent basis.
- Slave placeholder buildings and Slave units cannot be built via the build queue.
- Unload a slave unit on a forest or jungle tile you own and give it a Sentinel order to terraform the tile into a plain, add a small amount of gold (100?) and/or PW (50?) and destroy the slave unit. Again, the numbers would need to be tweaked for balance. Slaves cannot pillage any other type of tile.
- Unload a slave unit on a swamp, grassland or plains tile you own without a Plantation impovement and give it a Sentinel order to create a Plantation tile improvement (+15 food and +5 commerce) and destroy the slave unit. If the Emancipation Act is built by the player, plantaions revert to a farm (Note: Assumes farms can exist on swamps. If this is not the case, plantations on swamps could simply be destroyed). If the Emancipation Act is built by another player, the plantation is destroyed and there is a chance (50%?) of a barbarian being generated on or around the tile! Plantations cannot be built with PW.
- Unload a slave unit on a desert or tundra/hill/mountain tile you own without a Slave Mine improvement and give it a Sentinel order to create a Slave Mine tile improvement (+10/15/20 production and +5 commerce) and destroy the slave unit. If the Emancipation Act is built by the player, slave mines revert to a mine. If the Emancipation Act is built by another player, the slave mine is destroyed and there is a chance (50%?) of a barbarian being generated on or around the tile! Slave mines cannot be built with PW.
- Once you have the technology to build roads, Unload a slave unit on a tile you own or a neutral tile without a road and give it a move order to create a road on the starting tile and destroy the slave unit.
- Once you have the technology to build a Fortress, unload a slave unit on a tile you own or a neutral tile without an Earthworks improvement and give it a Fortify order to create an Earthworks improvement on the tile and destroy the slave unit. The Earthworks does not give any immediate benefit, as it is simply intended to make a Fortification take 2 slave units to build.
- Once you have he technology to build a Fortress, and have already created an Earthworks improvement on a tile, unload a slave unit on the tile and give it a Fortify order to destroy the Earthworks, create a Fortification improvement and destroy the slave unit.
- Any order to a slave unit that cannot be be implemented (eg. tile cannot be improved with the current tech level, the tile belongs to another player, etc) results in the order being cleared.
- Any Slave unit without any pending orders that is not in a city tile at the end of a player's turn is simply destroyed.
- A slave that has been unloaded in a tile can be given an order to load into a slaver unit on the same tile, or on an adjacent tile, which it will do on the next turn. This is to give the player a chance to recover if they goof and unload a slave unit in the wrong place, but the player is still penalised, as they can't do what they intended to do with the slave until the next turn.
- If the AI cannot be coaxed into utilzing this functionality effectively, slaver units built by the AI should behave like current slavers do.
Pipe dream or possible with a little sweat and ingenuity?
-edit- Substantially revised after looking through some of the SLIC documentation and thinking about it more on the train...
- Set up as a transport with 8 slots.
- No units other than 'slaves' can be loaded into a slaver.
- Successful 'enslave population' attacks on a city or a settler unit loads a random number (30% chance of 7, 20% chance of 8, 20% chance of 6, 10% chance of 5, 8% chance of 4, 6% chance of 3, 4% chance of 2, 2% chance of 1) of slots with a 'slave' unit. The randomness is intended to factor in the appaling mortality rate of slaves during capture and transportation.
- Including a slaver in an army that wins a battle gives a chance of loading a slot with a slave unit for each enemy unit defeated. Setting the chance to 67% would, on average, result in a full slaver for every 12 units defeated. No slaves should be captured if the player retreated.
- An 'enslave population' attack by one of your slavers on one of your own cities that contains at least 1 slave population unit would remove 1 slave population unit from the city fill up the slavers slots with slave units and create slave improvements (see below) in the city with the left over slaves. Attempting and 'enslave population' attack on your own city when it has no slaves simply fails. This would allow you to move slaves between cities with a slaver.
- Unload a 'slave' unit in a city and disband it to add a chunk of production to the current item on the build queue, just like any other unit disbanded in a city. 100 production units sounds about right to me, but the number may need a tweak to make it worthwhile, but not overpowering.
- Unload a 'slave' unit in a city and give it a Sentinal or fortify order, or simply leave it in the city at the end of the turn to destroy the slave unit and create a slave place holder building in the city. To save building slots, you could have a 'small slave pen', representing 1 slave unit, a 'slave pen' representing 2 slave units, and a 'large slave pen' representing 4 slave units. Sentinel a slave unit in a city with no slave place holders to create a small slave pen. Sentinel 1 slave unit in a city with a small slave pen to destroy the small slave pen and create a slave pen. Sentinel a slave unit in a city with a slave pen to add a small slave pen, and so on until a slave unit is Sentinel in a city with a small, regular and large slave pen, at which point, all slave place holder buildings would be destroyed and a slave pop point added to the city. This way, 8 slaves make a slave pop point, and the data will be persisted to saved games.
- A slaver unit can 'Reform' one of the player's own cities with slave place holder buildings to convert the slave place holder buildings into the appropriate number of slave units, which can then be loaded onto the slaver or disbanded for the production bonus. Any left over slave units (ie. no more room in transport, enough production already) would turn back into slave placeholder buildings at the end of the turn, or if the player gave the slave unit a Sentinel order.
- A slave place holder building could be sold, allowing you to convert slaves into quick cash.
- The slave place holder buildings might have a small upkeep cost and a small benefit to offset this for added realism, but the parameters would need to be tweaked to make sure that the costs weren't so high that players avoided them, or that the benefits were so good that players kept slave pens in their city on a permanent basis.
- Slave placeholder buildings and Slave units cannot be built via the build queue.
- Unload a slave unit on a forest or jungle tile you own and give it a Sentinel order to terraform the tile into a plain, add a small amount of gold (100?) and/or PW (50?) and destroy the slave unit. Again, the numbers would need to be tweaked for balance. Slaves cannot pillage any other type of tile.
- Unload a slave unit on a swamp, grassland or plains tile you own without a Plantation impovement and give it a Sentinel order to create a Plantation tile improvement (+15 food and +5 commerce) and destroy the slave unit. If the Emancipation Act is built by the player, plantaions revert to a farm (Note: Assumes farms can exist on swamps. If this is not the case, plantations on swamps could simply be destroyed). If the Emancipation Act is built by another player, the plantation is destroyed and there is a chance (50%?) of a barbarian being generated on or around the tile! Plantations cannot be built with PW.
- Unload a slave unit on a desert or tundra/hill/mountain tile you own without a Slave Mine improvement and give it a Sentinel order to create a Slave Mine tile improvement (+10/15/20 production and +5 commerce) and destroy the slave unit. If the Emancipation Act is built by the player, slave mines revert to a mine. If the Emancipation Act is built by another player, the slave mine is destroyed and there is a chance (50%?) of a barbarian being generated on or around the tile! Slave mines cannot be built with PW.
- Once you have the technology to build roads, Unload a slave unit on a tile you own or a neutral tile without a road and give it a move order to create a road on the starting tile and destroy the slave unit.
- Once you have the technology to build a Fortress, unload a slave unit on a tile you own or a neutral tile without an Earthworks improvement and give it a Fortify order to create an Earthworks improvement on the tile and destroy the slave unit. The Earthworks does not give any immediate benefit, as it is simply intended to make a Fortification take 2 slave units to build.
- Once you have he technology to build a Fortress, and have already created an Earthworks improvement on a tile, unload a slave unit on the tile and give it a Fortify order to destroy the Earthworks, create a Fortification improvement and destroy the slave unit.
- Any order to a slave unit that cannot be be implemented (eg. tile cannot be improved with the current tech level, the tile belongs to another player, etc) results in the order being cleared.
- Any Slave unit without any pending orders that is not in a city tile at the end of a player's turn is simply destroyed.
- A slave that has been unloaded in a tile can be given an order to load into a slaver unit on the same tile, or on an adjacent tile, which it will do on the next turn. This is to give the player a chance to recover if they goof and unload a slave unit in the wrong place, but the player is still penalised, as they can't do what they intended to do with the slave until the next turn.
- If the AI cannot be coaxed into utilzing this functionality effectively, slaver units built by the AI should behave like current slavers do.
Pipe dream or possible with a little sweat and ingenuity?
-edit- Substantially revised after looking through some of the SLIC documentation and thinking about it more on the train...
Comment