I think the concept of slavery is somewhat lacking in the game.

We can capture enemy non-combatants and raze enemy cities to get half-efficiency workers that have no maintenance cost. Also we can trade workers.

It's a workable model, but I would like to flesh it out a bit:

1) When you capture a barbarian village 50% of the time you would get the 25gp and the other 50% you would get a slave worker. A major source of slaves in the ancient world was from people considered "barbarians" by the civilized folk. If this 50% chance was also editable in the editor the mod makers would definitely make a bow towards Firaxis.

2) Slavery ought to have a drawback: there's a small chance that your civ experiences a major slave revolt. In a slave revolt all your slave workers turn into barbarians and start burning and raping your beloved civilization. Crucifying them is up to you. :)

3) Number #2 is a bit too drastic a drawback because you would lose your workers in a revolt no matter what you do. So a bit of a relief: if you kill a barbarian there is a 50% chance you have captured him instead and he is converted into a slave worker. This way you can regain about half of your rebellious slaves. The addition of barbarian warriors as a source of workers would not be unbalancing, because the slave revolts would keep your total in check by periodically wiping out half of them. Sort of a dynamic balance.

4) To make slavery disappear towards modern times the probability of a slave revolt should depend on your government: under Despotism a very low chance while under Democracy a higher chance. This would make real world sense, too: if your slaves see your free people being indeed very free they are bound to get some ideas...

5) I already mentioned this under the Navy thread, but I mention it here, too. Add a new special attack to naval units: "Raid City". If succesful it would destroy an improvement, destory production, steal gold, or cause a population loss (i.e. all those things that can happen when a barbarian enters a defenseless city). However, the last possibility (pop. loss) would mean that you captured a slave worker. In fact there could even be a special option ("Raid City for Slaves") with a lower chance of success but that would guarantee a slave worker if succesful.

Yes, I agree. Slavery is not very deep yet. Also, the more slaves you have the more rep hit you get like you mentioned.

I think there should be a WoW called the Emancipation Proclamation or something if you are going to expand the role of slaves. Like after someone builds it, all the civs in the world have to give up their slaves. Something would have to happen to slavery in the modern era I think. We couldnt really have slaves running around in the year 2000 could we?

Actually, what was mentioned above is probably better. If you are under Despotism/Monarchy/Communism, a slave revolt would be pretty unlikely to happen, say 1% per turn or something.... But under Republic/Democracy it would go WAAAAAAAAY up, so high up that it would be pretty much impossible to keep slaves under those 2 governments.

Even with quite low per turn percentage chances, like:

Despotism: 1%
Monarchy/Communism: 2%
Republic: 4%
Democracy: 8%

(And, please, adjustable in the editor!)

slavery would be quite hard to maintain in a democracy (revolt in every 12 turns or so...) and it'd be a discouraging nuisance in a republic, too (revolt every 25 turns). OTOH republic and democracry are currently pretty advantageous choices in civ so this could be the needed drawback for them...

Regarding to my low percentage choice for communism: Well, what else were the gulags and other labor camps than experiments in slavery?

The new wonder RX2000 proposed is actually a nice touch. Completely banning slavery would be perhaps too much (I mean it was afterall just you banning slavery in _your_ civ) but how about the following effect:

Emancipation Proclamation: (Minor Wonder) After having built the EP the building civ can't acquire slaves any more and all slave workers are turned into ordinary workers (with maintanance cost and all). Moreover, immediately following the completion of the EP the slaves of _other_ civs take heart on your proclamation and try to get free, too (i.e. automatic slave revolt in all other civs). Also, civs having already built their own EP will look at you more favorably (positive attitude modifier) whereas they dislike the remaining slave nations (negative modifier).

The EP invoking a slave revolt in other civs would make this a nice weapon if timed with your invasion. Ought to make some _very_ interesting multiplayer strategies... :)

the resource could disappear with democracy but not the slaves, if you do not upgrade them to worker ( kind of giving them their freedom) they start to dissapear.

i dont like the idea of the wow that you have to give up your slaves,, that would stink, i like everything else and also think it should be adjustable in the editor.

I also dont like the idea of having to forcibly give up your workers (or those of the AI's for that matter). But yes, the EP wonder is a good idea. It should convert all of your slave workers (current and any future ones) into real workers and it also improves your reputation significantly. Another option is to increase your reputation with respect to other civs which have a representative form og govt only. Obviously, A despotic regime is not going to be mighty pleased at your freeing all of your workers, is it? Do you like the idea? I certainly do :lol:

you should be able to ban slavery. it should be autlmatically banned after a certain tech in the Modern Times.
________
Ferrari 248 f1 history (http://www.ferrari-wiki.com/wiki/Ferrari_248_F1)

Why not have the player deciding when to emancipate slaves whenever they like during the game, ie a icon or button in the domestic advisor's screen saying "emancipate slavery." From that point on, no barbarians turn into workers, they are killed when combat occurs; any "slave" workers turn into "ordinary" workers.

Another little idea - if "slave" workers join a city, then there is a chance of them inciting a revolt by burning down a "happiness" improvement, possibly the percentage chance of them doing this increasing as the form of government improves to force you to free all slaves at some point. Perhaps they could be slightly more productive as slaves or not require as much food to balance out the decision when to emancipation slaves.

A third idea - if "slave" workers join a city and are then "drafted" into your army, there could be a percentage chance of them turning round and attacking your cities.:cooool:

I like most ideas posted here. Slave workers are too powerfull at the moment and this can also be used to give the not representative governments an advantage in the way Pembroke posted.
I hope that Firaxis finds time to expand on the slavery part of the game.

Another idea: After a nation has build the emancipation proclamation, it gains the spy mission to incite a slave revolt in another nation. I don't know how expensive such a mission should be.

All these slavery ideas could be used to make a great scenario for the battle between North and South (America).

I disagree on the "democracy has a larger chance of slave revolt, after all, Athens, the most notble of the greek democracy was a slave based economy, as well as all of greece, not to mention carthage(a republic) and Rome(but it had 2 major slave revolts, my ancestors crushed them mind you...:mwaha: )

Ancient Athens didnt have the sort of Democracy that is supposed to be represented in Civ3. In Civ3 Democracy means that you represent ALL of your civs people. In ancient Athens, it was only male land owners. It was more of an oligarchy if you really think about it. Of course it would be easier to keep slaves in a government like that.

Most ideas here are great. But Im afraid, this woldn't be in Conquests.

This is my thread on Slavery.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=57154

Hey, we got something!

Gamespot Review:
"One of the additions to the game is the ability to capture enemy units, which are enslaved as workers"

Great! I do hope that this is somehow balanced because now "farming barbarians" isn't just about gold...

(sotto: slave revolts *hint* *hint* :))

And being able to "ritual sacrifice" those automated slaves that do stupid things is almost as gratifying as crucifying them would have been. Besides you get 20 CP out of it. :D

I think that you should (if you wanted or needed them badly enough) be able to build slave workers in addition to the normal ones. This, of course, would mean you are enslaving your own free population which should then cause unhappiness in the building city and/or your general populace. Building slaves could be an option reserved only to the "dictatorial" governments: despotism, monarchy, and communism.

This is already sort of possible in multiplayer games where two players can trade their workers with each other to get no-maintenance slaves. IMO this ought to be fixed: selling your own (=free) workers to someone should cause unhappiness.

I think the problem isn't with the slave unit itself, but in the way it is described... perhaps in the industrial age gets an automatic upgrade to 'workhouse pauper' and in the modern age 'sweatshop labourer'.

While not necessarily slavery, cheap and unethical labour has always been used, and probably will be for the forseable future.

I think two slave workers should have an upkeep of one (together). Then you'll see people replace them with normal workers.
The way it's in the game now the human player has a free slave worker force of hundreds of slave workers while the AI controlled civs have almost none and 20 regular workers. It's a big advantage for the human player.

I'd like to see:
1. Slaves causing unhappiness in Republic, at least after a certain social tech is discovered, "equal rights" or "enlightenment" or something.
2. Slaves instantly transforming into ordinary workers in democracy? Or auto-joining the nearest city? Or causing unhappiness?
3. Non-democratic governments should probably have no problems with slavery. Slavery is by no means abolished in the world today... :(
4. Building your own slaves from your own population? That's a cool option! That would be a choice do you have lots of people and litte money (build slaves), or few people and a lot of $ (build workers)? As a balancing factor there should be a small risk of an unguarded (no soldier in same square) slaveworker rebelling and making a run for it or becoming barbarian.
5. Selling back slaves/POW should dramaticaly increase relations.

I already made a thread about - Naturilize workers. I think that thought is even more valid after this discussion.