Is slavery whipping "gamey", or "part of the game"?

So I've finally figured out what the heck everyone's been talking about with this slavery whipping thing. What I'm wondering though. Is this a loophole in gameplay or is it a legitimate strategy as Firaxis intended? I made my first super food commerce city, and it's almost ridiculous how fast I can pump stuff out under slavery.

Its how game works and AI use it too. It can be powerful in only some selective situations, the negatives of whipping is huge. overall, I probably only whipping about 3 to 5 times total in a whole game, all in ancient period.

I think whipping is much more balanced now that slavery has an upkeep of medium. Sometimes I don't even adopt slavery anymore if I can keep my empire growing. I mainly use slavery in the early portions of the game when my cities are growing into unhappiness. If I can prevent that from happening by either building settlers or workers or increasing the happy cap, I'll do that before whipping. If I need to produce a lot of units in a short amount of time, I'll consider switching to slavery.

I find it to be a very well designed and balanced game feature. It can be powerful in the right situations, but it can also serverly limit you if used incorrectly / excessively.

I voted: "it's a legitimate part of game design", but on the other hand, slavery was the civic to use until emancipation came along and it's unhappiness forced you into using this civic. It was maybe a bit too strong before Beyond the Sword. However, the caste system civic has been improved with an extra hammer for workshops, which makes this civic an interesting mid-game competitor for slavery.

I wouldn't mind a redesign of the civic for Civ5. It is very powerful in its present design and if you want to get everything out of it, it requires some good understanding of game mechanics and some micromanagement. I would like a design with less micromanagement in civ5. A redesign could be something like:

-10% science, 1 extra trade route, -1 food per city, free slave specialist per city: + 2 hammers. Allows unlimited slave specialists.
Slave specialists function just like the citizen specialist (no GPP's, no representation bonus science)

The -10% science is applied after all other bonuses from buildings and civics and multiplicative with those bonuses, not additive.

That would seriously weaken it, but it might still be interesting in the early game. The civic would become weaker as cities become larger and 2 hammers don't matter anymore. Then more modern civics would automatically take over. It wouldn't require a lot of micromanagement to use. Just assign some specialists where you have a high food output.

Note that this change is not really well thought through. Better options can surely be designed.

Indeed. I'll use Slavery if I'm trying an early game rush (rarely) or I need to get a wonder out (and I'm not Industrious and/or don't have the req. resource to halve construction time).

Often, I don't bother changing to it because the anarchy.

I use slavary to whip monuments and "trait" buildings. Try this if you are expansive ... first build a granary, but emphasize food. Once you reach size 2, whip (an expansive player can whip a granary on all but the first turn of construction) ... let it regrow, whip a monument for early culture and you're done.

I generally whip 1-3 people per city if I have any food resource that makes growth quick, and I whip crucial stuff when the city is small. That way the unhapiness penalty goes away before you reach happy cap and you have a useful city in half the time. Slavery now has medium upkeep, which fits the civic - slavery is best used for small cities (because each size takes longer to grow back, reducing the food to hammer conversion of slavery) and once you reach a medium sized empire with medium sized cities, slavery is a dead weight.

A quick tip though ... if you have TONS of food and a lot of health, it is sometimes beneficial to go ahead and grow past your happy cap. Treat the angry citizens as "whipping specialists" and then when you get something big like a forge or courthouse, you can whip away these fussy people without killing off as many/any working citizens.

Ok, I wouldn't consider myself a n00b, but maybe I am, because clearly I don't know what you're talking about. Can somebody explain this a bit to me?

Bad Brett said:

Ok, I wouldn't consider myself a n00b, but maybe I am, because clearly I don't know what you're talking about. Can somebody explain this a bit to me?

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You referring to me?

Intro to slavery 101

Okay, you are in the slavery civic (no duh) and want to whip something.

On a normal speed game one whipped citizen equals 30 hammers. However, if you whip something the turn you start it (i.e. you are starting with nothing but overflow production) I believe you get 20 hammers (I could be wrong, but the simple truth is its a lot less).

Now these hammers can be modified by anything that modifies hammers. Whipping a granary as an expansive leader? Those 30 hammers just became 60 (1 person converts to the same # of hammers as 2 ppl). Whipping in a forge city? You get the +25% bonus. Whipping a settler as imperialistic? You get the +50% bonus.

So the easy way to calculate whipping (and if its useful or not) is just to look at the production.

Easy example

A monument on normal speed is 30 hammers. If you start a monument and whip immediately it will cost 2 population (because of the penalty, 20 hammers times two people = 40 hammers). However, if you add ONE hammer (so the monument is now 1/30 towards completion) the penalty goes away and you can whip one person for the full 30 hammers and finish the construction.

So if you play on normal, you can look at the hammers you have left and divide by 30, or divide by 20 if its teh first turn, and know how many people you will need.

Using angry ppl as specialists

Lets say you are organized and want your courthouse quickly. A courthouse is 120 hammers but since you are organized, its effectively 60 hammers cause everything you make is doubled. 60 hammers divided by 30 hammers is two people. Lets say you have a size 7 city with a happy cap of 5 (so you have two angry citizens) with no starvation. You can whip these two angry citizens for your 60 hammers without affecting the 5 citizens working ... except for the 1 that is now unhappy for 10 turns. Thus if you make enough food, you can use an angry citizen as a "fuel" for slavery.

Clearly, this works with sick ppl as well but generally in the early game you run into happiness problems, not health problems.

*EDIT* Another common use for slavery is to whip away people that are starving (often from being the victim of espionage or conquering a big city that hates your guts). Rather then just let a size 9 city starve to 4, you can whip an expensive building and just kill off the 5 ppl so that you get some use out of them since you are going to lose them anyways.

Sorry for the long post, hope it helps.

Important part of the game. I can never seem to get a good axe rush going without using slavery.

My current game I started basically at the edge of a large stretch of jungles, and if it wasn't for slavery, I'd probably be still building my courthouses by 1500AD. Once I got my food resources going (the BtS map generator sure likes its food), I was able to actually keep up reasonable production in those cities.

I probably whipped away more than a hundred population there. After all, there's no point working the one food jungles.

Slavery is fine as it is, I think it's on the powerful side still, though. And it takes quite some planning to use effectively. I'd like to see the mechanisms simplified further, though.

Now that I understand it more, it's quite straightforward, but when I first started Civ4, the whip has always been the mysterious thing I can never grasp. Took me until BtS to really get into using it.

jpinard said:

Is this a loophole in gameplay or is it a legitimate strategy as Firaxis intended? I made my first super food commerce city, and it's almost ridiculous how fast I can pump stuff out under slavery.

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Is this a loophole in world politics, or is it a legitimate strategy as UN intended? I conquered my first super oil country of Iraq, and it's almost ridiculous how much profit I can pump out under democracy. - G.W.

Of course it's valid. It's been going on since the dawn of time

Its a necessary evil.

weimingshi said:

Its how game works and AI use it too. It can be powerful in only some selective situations, the negatives of whipping is huge. overall, I probably only whipping about 3 to 5 times total in a whole game, all in ancient period.

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Negatives are not that huge. Sounds like you are whipping about 50 times less often than you should. Assuming the goal is maximum efficiency (without regard to morality).

In mutliplayer it is beyond crucial, of course.

Andy06r said:

Easy example

A monument on normal speed is 30 hammers. If you start a monument and whip immediately it will cost 2 population (because of the penalty, 20 hammers times two people = 40 hammers). However, if you add ONE hammer (so the monument is now 1/30 towards completion) the penalty goes away and you can whip one person for the full 30 hammers and finish the construction.

So if you play on normal, you can look at the hammers you have left and divide by 30, or divide by 20 if its teh first turn, and know how many people you will need.

Using angry ppl as specialists

Lets say you are organized and want your courthouse quickly. A courthouse is 120 hammers but since you are organized, its effectively 60 hammers cause everything you make is doubled. 60 hammers divided by 30 hammers is two people. Lets say you have a size 7 city with a happy cap of 5 (so you have two angry citizens) with no starvation. You can whip these two angry citizens for your 60 hammers without affecting the 5 citizens working ... except for the 1 that is now unhappy for 10 turns. Thus if you make enough food, you can use an angry citizen as a "fuel" for slavery.

Clearly, this works with sick ppl as well but generally in the early game you run into happiness problems, not health problems.

*EDIT* Another common use for slavery is to whip away people that are starving (often from being the victim of espionage or conquering a big city that hates your guts). Rather then just let a size 9 city starve to 4, you can whip an expensive building and just kill off the 5 ppl so that you get some use out of them since you are going to lose them anyways.

Click to expand...

Just to say that this is a simply marvellous post and that all of a sudden Slavery and whipping makes sense!

Slavery is just part of the game. It along with Drafting converts food into hammers. We need a mechanism that does that for the early game to be workable in certain cities. That mechanism happens to be called slavery and doesn't really have anything to do with the ancient practice as far as I'm concerned.

my favorite circumstance under which to whip is when i first discover gunpowder, and i dont have the cash to upgrade units, or just simply dont have the time to let the muskets come naturally.

i generally play a fairly peaceful ancient/classical age, and really kick myself into gear with knights and muskets (as far as war is concerned). i always seem to get myself in a population bind right about this time, and so whipping helps alleviate some of the crowding tension.

im playing a weird game right now where my whole continent (huge map, 15 civs, 8 civs on my continent) have converted to judaism, and i havent had to go to war a single time...everyone is friendly to everyone else!!! i have a definite tech lead over all but one of the nations i live near, so i have decided to smash all of my neighbors but one (isabella is the nation that is near me in tech, and i dont dare incur her wrath this early in the game, until i have the loyalty of several nations).
so.......i have whipped trebuchets in half my cities, and muskets in the other half, in preparation for capitulating the whole dang continent around 1600 a.d. or so.

ill post an update to let you guys know how it went

Andy06r: Thank you! I always thought that the happy cap got lower for every whipping. What you're basicly saying is that I can farm flood plains, let the city grow as much as it can and then kill off all those angry and sick people without consequenses? Does this mean that if I build the Pyramids, adopt nationhood, build a forge and the heroic epic, I can whip at 250% = 75 hammers?

I have to start a new game and try this!

I needed it so bad on my last game! I had almost no happiness resources, no copper, played on prince, and was virtually treeless. Luckily I had 2 farms, fish and clams in my capitol....and slavery! Man I would never have survived without it. It did seem a little rediculous, however, when I pop rushed bunch of buddhist monks, lol.

Bad Br: The consequence is that you get one additional unhappy face 10 turns after each slavery rush. If you have a fast growing city and you whip a lot this can add up. You will need a happiness buffer to do it continuously. Plus as your city gets bigger it takes more turns to add a person. The maintenence costs are high and there are other good civics in that category, so I usually move off slavery around the time I got my forges built.

Devil Inside said:

my favorite circumstance under which to whip is when i first discover gunpowder, and i dont have the cash to upgrade units, or just simply dont have the time to let the muskets come naturally.

i generally play a fairly peaceful ancient/classical age, and really kick myself into gear with knights and muskets (as far as war is concerned). i always seem to get myself in a population bind right about this time, and so whipping helps alleviate some of the crowding tension.

im playing a weird game right now where my whole continent (huge map, 15 civs, 8 civs on my continent) have converted to judaism, and i havent had to go to war a single time...everyone is friendly to everyone else!!! i have a definite tech lead over all but one of the nations i live near, so i have decided to smash all of my neighbors but one (isabella is the nation that is near me in tech, and i dont dare incur her wrath this early in the game, until i have the loyalty of several nations).
so.......i have whipped trebuchets in half my cities, and muskets in the other half, in preparation for capitulating the whole dang continent around 1600 a.d. or so.

ill post an update to let you guys know how it went

Click to expand...

Cool. Post some pics too if you're up for it

I thinks its validity in the game is comensurate with its importance in the real world in helping to shape the majority of nation/state/cultures that have had success at flourishing.

Moral judgements aside, it has been one of the singly most influential economic factors in constructing large empires on planet earth.