Enhanced mg_killcityoptions

[The Big Mc]

I know this is wired to come form me and not the original writer but I still want to call it MG not mc . This is because I have basically done nothing but take advantage of the latest play test to enhance the already good bit of slic. I know martins been working HARD on the play test .

The basic changes are


• Uses add slave slic function instead of generate units to capture.
• Removed chance of slave uprising ( program does this instead if the slaves are to big for the city.)
• No longer acquire public works and gold from city capture ( don’t know what we are doing this in the source so better out then in).
• New global variable allows slave taking after emancipation act to allow moders to use emancipation act for a different wonder.
• New pop move algorithm evens up city size over empire to prevent bottle neck city problem.

Things to accomplish before beta

• Make new algorithm to even the slaves over the entire empires not just one city.
• Prevent over take of slaves by allowing player to discard unkeepable slaves.


SO I wan’t some chat on this as well as any “fun” ways to get ride of excess slaves.

[Maquiladora]

What about forcing slaves to rush a build that they die but you generate double production for one turn? Or slaughter them but generate unhappiness for a few turns. The slaughter option might be in Anarchy, Tyranny or Fascism and the forced labour might be in Monarchy, Communism or Theology.

[The Big Mc]

But sending them to die in the coliseum would generate happiness.

[Maquiladora]

Then why not have that option too.

It should be limited by something though, otherwise why would you ever slaughter slaves when you can force labour and kill them or kill them for entertainment and increase happiness.

Perhaps in certain governments slaves cause unhappiness just by existing in a city, and so theres a reason to purely slaughter them. While slaves in other governments are treated as entertainment, or useful free labour.

[Ekmek]

BigMc are you sure you want to mess with the slic? If you look at CityEvent.cpp there is an event capture and I think it would be better to make city capture options part of the code.

Also we could add other city capture options, like enslave, raze, but plunder (only sell all improvements and take cash, then leave), or grant independence (make it a barbarian city like when cities revolt). Of course I want to add partisans too.

But I think making in part of the code might make it less buggy than slic and easier to teach the AI the options too.

[Maquiladora]

Yes plunder and perhaps rape and murder a few, thats what the Barbarians should do rather than capturing a city and start being civilized.

[Immortal Wombat]

Re: Enhanced mg_killcityoptions

Originally posted by The Big Mc
• New pop move algorithm evens up city size over empire to prevent bottle neck city problem.

Why? I think there should be a bottle-neck problem. Maybe there should be some mechanism for moving slaves within the player's empire, but the initial slaving event shouldn't be able to effect an instantaneous scatter migration of slaves half-way across the world.

Other options with slaves should be applicable to all the nation's slaves as well, rather than just the newly acquired ones. The original citycapture had the very elegant three options - the only three options which you can normally do to citizenry within the game: Conquer, Kill, Enslave. C'est tout. granting independance would be an interesting alternative, but I can't think of any realistic situation where you would want to do so. Having just conquered the city, it would have zero units, and it is likely to be in the middle of a war zone. If you don't want it, the AI will, and then what's the point?

A better option might be to disband the newly captured city and move its population as citizens back to the nearest city, or into settler units. The former is probably more sensible from the AIs point of view. Unless their nearest city was about to be taken, or was in revolt.

So if there is to be functionality added to slave-keeping, then it should be universally accessable- globally and temporally. However, I think I am rather against that as well, except by way of adding SLIC functionality to the slave population. Currently the global ending of slavery by wonder is only an effective event if slaves cannot be slowly emancipated in the turns beforehand. If the AI is getting the wonder, then pre-emptively freeing (at no disadvantage) all your slaves is in effect the same as instituting your own Proclamation - which utterly negates the wonderousness of the Wonder. The risk of the Emancipation revolt is the counterweight to the early-game benefits that slavery affords (and as has been pointed out in the past, it is already insufficient as a balancer to prevent slaving from being a strictly better strategy than not-slaving).

Moving slaves around the empire is more realistic I suppose, but much harder to model in the current game engine, with the very limited crossover between sedentary and mobile population units. But it gives greater control to slaving empires again, so for balance, the same feature should extend to citizens, and then you get horrible micromanagement crap, juggling people all over the place to maximise something or other. Static citizenship has worked for every other civ game, I think it would be a horrendous overcomplication.

Killing slaves for temporary happiness or production is an interesting concept, but it makes revolts (the other counterbalancer) less likely, has the same results are pre-emptive emancipation, and generally only makes slavery an even better strategy - you have an additional resource that abolitionists do not. There are I think, two alternatives, which is to strengthen abolitionist strategy somehow, or (ironically) abolish it.

One other thing (since I'm hopelessly offtopic already) is that slaves (in C:CtP at least) seemed to starve after citizens did (since they required less food). Is this still the case? Surely slaves should starve before their masters? And that would allow some limited control over a slave population.

So anyway. No, no, no. Excess slaves should be a problem.

[Peter Triggs]

Maq
Yes plunder and perhaps rape and murder a few, thats what the Barbarians should do rather than capturing a city and start being civilized.

In both Cradle and SAP2 an attempt was made to try to civilize the Barbs: they're given normal building and diplomatic fear/desire motivation priorities, for example. Unfortunately, the method CtpAi::BeginTurn contains some code which, for each turn that the Barbs hold a city, specifies that there is a 30% chance that they will sell a random building. Similarly, in the CtpAi_StartNegotiationsEvent Barbs are excluded from diplomacy. This hard coding pretty well negates any attempt to civilize them. (Which is not to say that it couldn't be changed.)

IW
One other thing (since I'm hopelessly offtopic already) is that slaves (in C:CtP at least) seemed to starve after citizens did (since they required less food). Is this still the case? Surely slaves should starve before their masters? And that would allow some limited control over a slave population.

Good point. While I remember (CityData::GrowOrStarve() ):

 } else if(m_partialPopulation < 0) {
     //PFT 05 apr 05: slaves starve first
     if(SlaveCount() > 0 )
        ChangeSpecialists(POP_SLAVE, -1);

     g_gevManager->AddEvent(GEV_INSERT_AfterCurrent, GEV_KillPop,
	GEA_City, m_home_city.m_id,
	GEA_End);

Will add this to the source once I verify that it works.

[Maquiladora]

Originally posted by Peter Triggs
In both Cradle and SAP2 an attempt was made to try to civilize the Barbs: they're given normal building and diplomatic fear/desire motivation priorities, for example. Unfortunately, the method CtpAi::BeginTurn contains some code which, for each turn that the Barbs hold a city, specifies that there is a 30% chance that they will sell a random building. Similarly, in the CtpAi_StartNegotiationsEvent Barbs are excluded from diplomacy. This hard coding pretty well negates any attempt to civilize them. (Which is not to say that it couldn't be changed.)

I was saying the opposite, they shouldnt even control cities, just threaten to plunder a larger sum if you dont pay a small fee to make them disappear if they win a battle for your city, like civ2, but I guess some people disagree with me on this if they tried to civilize the barbs even more.

[Ekmek]

I don't think they should conquer cities, but I do like it when revolts turn into Barb cities and then later into a normal civ, that is one feature I definitely loved in Ctp2

[Maquiladora]

Then they should revolt to form a new civ not a barbarian city in between. Barbarians are a different thing from revolting citizens altogether IMO.

[The Big Mc]

Start of with


E

Yes a slic code prototype will be a lot easier to code then a non prototyped cod.

Wombat

Lets talk properly slaves were big business with slaves from Africa coming to many ports in the new world. Who were then traded to plantations all over the place so no “bottle necks “. In Rome you could get slaves from all other the empire brought to market.

And the emancipation act wonder should be just an act ready to pass in to law ready to prevent slavery. Which should just cause a big bonus in happiness. While slaves at any time would generate unhappiness.

Barbarians

Barbarian should lead to civs. Yes you read it right barbarians should be able to attack and capture cities but after the barbarians army is spent all city they conquered should become an independent civ. Which should poses as much tech as the original civ.

[HuangShang]

i agree w/ the Big Mc, barbs do become civilized, but there are always new barbaric people... when barbs have a city, it should produce nothing but units, randomly lose and gain buildings, dont care about happiness and make very little money

after a barb cities pass some 'settle' time, then it can be an independent civ, but w/ some top level units, but low science level

a good compromise?

[Immortal Wombat]

Originally posted by The Big Mc
Lets talk properly slaves were big business with slaves from Africa coming to many ports in the new world. Who were then traded to plantations all over the place so no “bottle necks “. In Rome you could get slaves from all other the empire brought to market.

Which is why it should be a globally available effect, not an instantaneous migration. Slave trades ancient and modern all had central "clearing-houses" which the slaves went through.

Regarding barbarians, I agree with Maq. But the way the game models things, there can only be two states: civilised and non-civilised. Any rebellion has to be modelled as non-civilised (ie. barbarian), but there is clearly a difference between this, and the other use which player0 is put to, which is modelling warlike nomadic peoples who steal, rape and pillage.

Unless somebody is prepared to go all out and make a nomadic civilisations module for the game, then I think it is probably best to leave the Barbarians as they are as nomadic war-tribes, and give them something like a 90% chance of choosing the "raze city" option when they take a city. If the conditions are right for settlement (no Civ armies nearby, good resources, decent sized city) then add in some conditions which let them keep the city and become a new (non-Barbarian) civilisation.

Intra-civ revolts and slave uprisings should result in new nations, not barbs. (As in various civil wars)

[The Big Mc]

Back to slaves here ( not again)

Wombat it’s a game. WE don’t need or want micromanagement which this would need. Ok you could get slaves to move to different towns over time but this would probably be a hated function. The first town revolting long before the moves were complete or losing your workforce building a wonder and be piped to the post.

SO for the time being lets even the slaves other the empire and allow for the removal of unwanted slaves however slave capture causes great un happiness and production decline in a city for a set amount of time.

Emancipated towns however will gain a Big happiness and production bonus form free a slave pop as well as the possibility of gaining new tech, map etc.