To slave or free?

I think this was discussed a month ago, but it may be worth revisiting now that PTW is out and about.

Benefits of slaves: no maintenance in Rep/Dem.
Benefits of own workers: work twice as fast as slaves.

Now I've heard people make comments like 'useless slaves' and so forth, while others espouse the free labor.
What is the general opinion on slave vs your own workers.

They are great, just make sue that you have 2.

Most of the time i conquiere my continent with knight ( it mean exterminate 2-3 a.i. on std map) and i raze most of their city because i want them out as fast as possible.

This will give me a bunch of slave worker ( like 50 or more) in medieval time, then i colonize the new free land while those slave built road,mine,irrigation.

When i got steam power, then i will stack them ( 3-6 per stack, it depend if iam industrial or not ) and built my railroad very quick.

So usualy i got about 24 of my own worker and about 50 slave worker to take care of my 20 city.

Later on they can clean pollution as well.

slave workers are poor,I hate them, however, with 20 of em, sell em back for lots of money

Originally posted by DaDrunkenFish
slave workers are poor,I hate them, however, with 20 of em, sell em back for lots of money

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Do you hate them because they are poor or slow ? stack them and they will do the job for free.

I hate them because they are slow, I undertsnad stacking them gets job done, but the trade benefits are better.

slaves! slaves! slaves!
they're scum man! use them as long as you can, they live to serve and to serve they live.
every time Im planning to start a war a stack my forces and attack the workers next my border, that way I get about 10-20 workers before taking any city.
slavery is cool, no matter if they're poor or slow I OWN them, the belong to me, their lives and the lives of their sons

No, no, no! The historically proper adjectives used for slaves are "lazy", "dumb" and "uppity".

This is true in civ, too: Slaves are certainly lazy with their 50% efficiency. Using SHIFT+"A" will prove unambiguously they are also dumb. The uppity part is a given: just set them full automatic and watch one bunch irrigating a tile just mined by others. As if I wouldn't notice...

If I play the Romans why can't I at least crucify a few as an example to the others?

Oh well, with slaves "the whip is more to mark the overseer than the slaves as the job will be done in its own sweet time. Cursing and yelling will only make it worse. Let it be, listen to the song and enjoy the sun."

So, of course I use every worker I can get whether it is by raiding, sacking a city, or buying from the blocks. 50 slaves do the work of 25 free workers but they don't cost the 25 gpt.

Which remainds me: In the very early game workers are a tremendously valuable resource. Selling one will seriously hamper one's ability to expand and as the initial phase is exponential in its nature this gap will only widen. Turns matter very much in the beginning. It should be that for the first 20-30 turns at least, the AI shouldn't even think about selling its workers whether captured or its own.

Originally posted by Pembroke

If I play the Romans why can't I at least crucify a few as an example to the others?

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that's a GREAT idea!

Slave workers all the way - they're free. As for their slowness, just work them in pairs or quadruples.

I have started wars just to capture slave workers.

The only time i use them is if i'm playing as an industrious civ. THat way even captured workers are close to what regular workers can do for non industrious civs.
If i am not playing as a non industrous civ then if i cant get a large number of them i simply sell them back to get some cash or build colonies in the newly conquered territories to get immidiate benifits from the new resources.

if i'm not Industrious I use them to populate my slow growing cities or cities where i've recently built hospitals.

Does anyone know if using slaves has any effect on reputation?

I dont think so, it hits more you rep the way you get those slaves.
a sneak attack to an unprotected stack of workers (like me) makes difficult to get the peacy treaty for a long while, they refuse all my envoys.
actually, I think the term "slaves" in never mentioned in the manual or the civilopedia, is it?

Originally posted by Zcylen
I dont think so, it hits more you rep the way you get those slaves.
a sneak attack to an unprotected stack of workers (like me) makes difficult to get the peacy treaty for a long while, they refuse all my envoys.
actually, I think the term "slaves" in never mentioned in the manual or the civilopedia, is it?

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I think you're right. And I remember a Firaxian making a point that they didn't use the term 'slave'. "Captured workers" is what the game refers to them as. Maybe they could be thought of as POW's. Whatever the case, they are definitely used as slave labor.

Another use for captured workers is to lure your enemy
AI into sending units from its cities into open ground.

Why attack a Mechanised Infantry in a size 20 city
(with 100% bonus; if you can lure it on to the grass
in range of your artillery and then once weakened
kill it off).

there good to have, cause, although they will go slower, they actually work, so it isn't disadvantaging you. if you sell them then you will go even slower with no workers.

To slave or free? Quite a strange question... From a gaming point of view, I don't see a reason not to use the slaves(or whatever). As long as they are free, there should be nothing to complain about. I think the biggest idea is that, they work for YOU, not for the AI.

In addition, some points of using the slaves are great too, such as to lure the enemy, to sell them for gold, or just stack them up.

They can become citizens.


http://www.zachriel.com/gotm10/ad1580-GreatForests.htm

Nice ad, Zach.

Anyway, I will never buy slaves---too expensive in PTW---but I use them when I capture them in war. Forget the rep hit---free workers!

CG