When/how to use Slavery?

Okay, call me a noob. Almost every game I play, I feel like I don't get anything out of slavery but a turn of anarchy and some revolts. When a city only has 2 or 3 population, you usually can't whip. Even if you can, it'd be a devastating fallback. A couple population more, and it seems smarter to spend a couple of turns to build, rather than a couple of population (since with more pop, you can build faster). So, when should I use whipping? Should I save pop to whip anything in particular?

This will be a long thread again.

Throwing Nate a ball: Slavery improves greatly with granaries

Its pretty essential for warfare. you tech as fast as you can to a specific military unit, then you whip that unit in most of your cites, then you're ready to go.

also good for defensive purposes -- you can switch to slavery and leave some cities undefended (from barbs or whatever), knowing that you can whip a military unit if necessary. This means you can invest less into defense, which costs hammers and maintenance.

for peaceful situations it is less important and not really essential but it has a few uses...

citizens 2 to 6 in each of your cities costs 22 to 30 food to produce. or half that if you have a granary in the city. You can whip them away to get 30 hammers. So you trade 11 to 30 food for 30 hammers which seems like a pretty good deal. But you also have to consider whether or not you would have gotten a better return on investment than that by simply working the citizen rather than whipping it. In many cases you would -- food is worth more than hammers, slavery or not, especially food in a city that hasn't finished growing to a reasonable size. So you'll often get a better long term return on investment by not whipping the city.

So there are two main factors to consider when considering whether or not to whip a city:

1) How immediately useful is the thing you're whipping?
2) How good are the tiles you'd have to stop working if you whipped?

you also have related questions:

1) How much do I want to grow this city before I focus on producing the thing i'm producing?
2) what do i even want to build in this city?
3) How much do i value commerce at the moment, compared to hammers?

and it's basically a big super complicated math problem.

You can simplify it with a few rules of thumb, though (these rules won't always give the optimal strategy, but i don't have time to math plan every city in my empire):

If a citizen is working a tile that has (food + commerce + hammers) = 6 or more, you'd be crazy to whip away the tile except in total emergencies.

if the tile has (food + commerce + hammers) = 5, whipping away the tile is not a good long term investment for this city. Although it may occasionally be a good long term investment for your empire, if the thing you're whipping is immediately useful (such as a military unit for an impending rush)

If a tile has (food + commerce + hammers) = 4, its a mediocre tile. Whipping it away is a probably a good decision if you have a granary if it isn't a heavy food tile (food is worth a bit more than the other resources). If you have an immediate use for whatever you get from whipping, go ahead and whip these tiles when you get around to it. Working these tiles is fine too, if you aren't in a hurry to build whatever you're building.

If a tile has (food + commerce + hammers) = 3, and it isn't a 3 food tile or a cottage, its a crap tile that you should whip away with or without a granary. Maybe the first thing you whip should BE a granary. There's no reason to be working tiles this bad when you can just whip.

...

you also need to plan out your cities with slavery in mind, trying to reduce worker turns. For example: if you plan to build a library in a city and run specialists, you probably shouldn't waste worker turns building mines for the cities that you're not going to use long term. Instead of building mines to use to build the library, just whip the library and save your worker turns.

That's a pretty good answer from nate although in my opinion heavily whipping out infrastructure (Library, Courthouse, Forge, even wonders) can also be good in cities with high food. Also, smaller cities cost less maintenance and re-grow population faster so it can benefit you to keep most of your cities size 4-6 while whipping out a lot of things (infra, units, Workers/Settlers) rather than grow them to 7-10 with little production.

Two major points not made so far:

1. Whipping is for cities with a good food surplus. If a city works two Corns it is a good candidate for whipping. If it works two Plains Cows it is not.
2. It is very often better to whip out Settlers/Workers (best for 2 population-whips) than to produce them slowly.

VCrakeV said:

When a city only has 2 or 3 population, you usually can't whip. Even if you can, it'd be a devastating fallback.

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This seems to hint at a problem with your playstyle. If you found new cities only where there's high-food resources (in the first ring), improve them as soon as possible and build Granaries where they are useful, your cities will grow to 4-5 population very quick, and regrow population whipped away very quick as well.

VCrakeV said:

A couple population more, and it seems smarter to spend a couple of turns to build, rather than a couple of population (since with more pop, you can build faster).

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I used to think like that as well. Why speed things up when they will be slow-built in a few more turns anyway? But those "few more turns" add up greatly - a Settler a few turns earlier can get a great site that would be settled by the AI a bit later, attacking a few turns before the AI has a counter-unit is of great value, etc. One key to getting better at this game is to think "how can I get this [unit, city, building] at the earliest date possible?".

Depending on what game you're playing you may wanna grab a lot of land to prevent the AI from getting it. Or you need to get a terrible city just to grab a resource. You're not gonna get much out of these cities working bad tiles so whats the reason to get a high population? Might as well whip it down to get infrastructure and the bonusses from that to eventually make the city decent. Or use it to produce military, settlers, workers, missionaries or even work boats for other towns.

Since I do it like that I also build a lot less cottages. Basically save cottages for cities that I really want to grow out and that have a lot of good cottage tiles and science/commerce modifiers. The other places get farms (another reason to get CS fast - irrigation) until later in the game workshops become good.

Wow, thanks guys (especially Nate)! I think this will help a lot. 😊

You want to try to avoid 1-pop whips in most circumstances. Whipping an emergency defender to save a city from barbs or something is an obvious exception. Also whipping things like monuments (if needed), workboats, and expansive granaries at size 2 in newly settled cities can be good.

Aside from that you want to be making larger whips so your city doesn't just regrow into unhappiness. S4 > S2 whip is 60 base hammers for 1 unhappiness, S6 > S3 whip is 90 hammers for 1 unhappiness, etc.

nate46 said:

If a citizen is working a tile that has (food + commerce + hammers) = 6 or more, you'd be crazy to whip away the tile except in total emergencies.

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It's not that easy, while being good general advice there are plenty situations where whipping and losing such tiles for a short time works well.

Example copper, let's say you get 1F 5H and even 1c (river plains).
Your city also has 1 good food resource, and you would like a granary.
Look here We already have a bit more than 30h in our granary, and could complete it easily without whipping. But we would start size 3 with no food stored.

What happens if we do whip instead: We fall back to size 1, and need 3 turns before we can work copper again.

But we have generated 30 hammers, and in 3 turns our city would look this way: You can see that some hammers went into another build (Axe, random example ), and that our earlier granary has stored some food between growing back to size 2.

Without whipping, it was 4 turns for size 3. And no extra hammers gained, busy with granary.

With whipping, we have 6 total turns for size 3 + some bonus hammers for an Axe.
But, at size 3 our whipped city looks like this: And with not whipping, same turn: Combo of food stored in the granary bin earlier, and 30h being better than what copper can generate in 3 turns, gave us both more food and hammers.

I feel like nate isn't taking into account the fact that if you time your whips correctly the actual amount of turns you're not working good tiles can be greatly reduced. The best time to whip is always when you have an amount of food stored such that you regrow 1 of the whipped pop on the next turn.

A simple example would be a city working 1 wet corn and 1 copper mine...if the food bin is full enough, the copper mine citizen can be whipped away for only 1 turn giving you 30 hammers at the cost of 1 turn's worth of output from the copper mine.

(edit: I came up with this scenario before realizing it's almost exactly what we see in Fippy's scenario )

You'd be a fool not to take that deal.

As others have said 1-pop whips generally are suboptimal though.

Izuul said:

You want to try to avoid 1-pop whips in most circumstances. Whipping an emergency defender to save a city from barbs or something is an obvious exception. Also whipping things like monuments (if needed), workboats, and expansive granaries at size 2 in newly settled cities can be good.

Aside from that you want to be making larger whips so your city doesn't just regrow into unhappiness. S4 > S2 whip is 60 base hammers for 1 unhappiness, S6 > S3 whip is 90 hammers for 1 unhappiness, etc.

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1-pop whipping works well when you're at a point in the game where you have cities that're nowhere near the happy cap. This is especially true when those cities have no shortage of high-yield tiles to work. In this case it's often more efficient to whip less population more frequently, particularly if timing your builds with >30H remaining with growth isn't working out nicely. In that case it's inefficient to re-arrange your worked tiles for less yield or avoid growth to time the 2-pop whip. Smaller whips in this case also help keep the cities growing for heavier whipping in the future, or for a non-whipping strategy (ie. caste/state property, or what have you).

I know you know this, just pointing it out for people who don't

Lexicus said:

I feel like nate isn't taking into account the fact that if you time your whips correctly the actual amount of turns you're not working good tiles can be greatly reduced. The best time to whip is always when you have an amount of food stored such that you regrow 1 of the whipped pop on the next turn.

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yeah, true. In this case you're not whipping the good tiles so much as you're whipping the tiles after them.

and fippy makes a good point, but i'd also argue that only losing 3 turns of the copper isn't really "whipping" that tile so much as whipping the next one. I wonder how much the math changes if the stone is improved.

Edit: its still slightly better to whip if the stone is improved. Although at this point in development (after granary is complete), food is much better than hammers... i think if you have a 3rd good tile that has like 4 or 5 food, whipping the granary is no longer the best decision, although you would want to switch to this tile before the granary is complete and delay the granary... edit2: nope, i'm wrong. . mathing it out... Even with an extra 4 food tile, it's slightly better to whip. I wonder if there are any other situations where you should whip "good" tiles...

granaries are weird since you want to build them precisely when you have a half-bank of food...

The ideal time to whip would probably be to avoid city unhappiness. Early game the turn before a city becomes unhappy do a 2-3 pop whip to build a settler, worker, granary, library, barracks, forge, or perhaps even a market. The market whip isn't for gold or commerce, but for extra happiness. Unhappiness whipping for good military units works too.

nate46 said:

granaries are weird since you want to build them precisely when you have a half-bank of food...

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Food overflow when growing to the next size does count towards the granary stores.

For example, a size 2 city with +7 food surplus can still get a full granary bin at 16/24 or even 17/24 if you use the avoid growth button for 1T to freeze the city at 24/24 size 2. You could 3>2 whip the granary in that city up to 9/26 (10/26 with the avoid growth trick) and still get ideal growth. Beyond that and you start losing out on food because you either grow in 1T after completing the granary with just 7 food stored, or you start actually losing some food with avoid growth.

Yep it's only complicated at first glance.
Your granary starts storing food after it's built (not when showing granary: 1 tun).

Since it's storing half of the food required for next pop, you only get the full amount of bonus food if you stay at or below 50% before it's completed.
Izuul's avoid growth trick gives you an extra turn of gathering bonus food, if you passed that 50% mark already.

I was a longtime non-user of the whip myself, and without using it, it's tough to play well past Prince. Others have explained the benefits here better than I could - but I will say, the results of embracing this civic properly let you expand much faster and earlier in the game. (which isn't really needed at lower difficulty levels since the AI is slower there.)

By embracing the basics of whipping and chopping early to maximize early cities, plus building your cities where special food tiles are in the first ring, you'll be able to play at Monarch.

I'm working on my first Emperor win myself, but focusing heavily on the first 150 turns, so I haven't played out a game to completion at this difficulty yet.

Wow... Seems like there's a huge meta. You say the AI is bad at expanding? I must be awful, because I often find they have more land/cities than me, and I also lose good spots to them... I need to up my game.

civfanchambers said:

The ideal time to whip would probably be to avoid city unhappiness. Early game the turn before a city becomes unhappy do a 2-3 pop whip to build a settler, worker, granary, library, barracks, forge, or perhaps even a market. The market whip isn't for gold or commerce, but for extra happiness. Unhappiness whipping for good military units works too.

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I still should say - whip 1 pop later. If happy cap is 5, grow into size 6 and whip from 6 to 4 so every turn city is working max tiles possible. Because regular build hammers (or yields when talk about settler/worker) also adds to overflow (I have used this multiple times when whipping into wonders effective way).
When whipping building/unit from 6 to 4, these 4 citizens at turn when whip can work even 4 mines (if food storage would allow that), giving bigger overflow. Not always good idea to work green hill mine instead of wet corn on turn when whip (because that can delay regrow time) but sometimes it can allow to finish wonder or another unit/building next turn not 1 turn later.
When whipping worker/settler, growing to unhappy size to work all "happy" tiles possible on whip turn can give even more because can turn food into hammers. Extra coastal clam can give +4/5 hammer (from food) next turn and 2-3-4 commerce extra same turn.
Just some math after many games with never-ending Slavery usage (late game Kremlin whips are amazing together with draft) Caste only during G-Ages or when isolated. If not SPI. Than just have to plan 5 turn Slavery window for all cities that will whip (not running specialists). Repeat 30 turns later (Mara speed).

elmurcis said:

Just some math after many games with never-ending Slavery usage (late game Kremlin whips are amazing together with draft) Caste only during G-Ages or when isolated. If not SPI. Than just have to plan 5 turn Slavery window for all cities that will whip (not running specialists). Repeat 30 turns later (Mara speed).

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The Kremlin is such a game-changer for the whip in the later game. It's enabled me to retrieve seemingly hopeless positions by producing such a flood of units the AI couldn't keep up (Emperor difficulty).

The most important time of the game is the early game, hence use of Slavery is the most important then.

Early game meaning before any combination of Hereditary Rule/Representation, religion and resources makes happiness irrelevant in most cities. Before that happens most cities are no good growing above size 4 or 5 because of happiness. My suggestion as to what to whip and when depending on how much food a given city has:

Low Food/No real food resources (one plains cow doesn't count) :
Rarely if ever whip anything outside of emergencies, but then again why did you settle a city with no food in the early game anyway?

Medium Food (one decent food resource or two meh food resources) :
2 pop whip workers or 3 pop whip settlers whenever it's about to grow into unhappiness, slow build everything else outside of emergencies.

High Food (two decent food resources or more) :
2 pop or 3 pop whatever you can get your hands on (Libraries, Markets, Barracks, military units or missionaries) whenever it's about to grow into unhappiness, slow build workers or settlers while the anger counter goes down.

In cities with lots of food it makes more sense to slowbuild workers and settlers and whip everything else because they regrow so fast that whipping actually makes happiness worse, not better.