Adding a Slave unit

[Optimizer]

Has anyone tried to add Slave units to the game? Here is my way to do it. Since it is so simple, I have not uploaded any files - you can do it manually.

New unit: Slave
* Costs 200 to purchase in Europe.
* Occasionally appears at Docks.
* +1 sugar/tobacco/cotton production. -2 refined goods production. Zero bell/cross production.
* Cannot become Soldier, Dragoon, Scout or Missionary
* Cannot enter Mountain/Snow tiles
* Can be educated at great cost

The Slave uses the Ore Miner graphic. The Expert Ore Miner and Expert Silver Miner are merged into an Expert Miner specialist.

Constitution: All Men Are Free
+200% education

Constitution: Slavery
+2 Slaves at each colony

How does the game play with this modification?
If you find yourself with good farmland, and you want to expand cashcropping, you would buy a lot of slaves. Much cheaper than skilled workers. Slaves would be worthless for combat and exploration, though.

At the DoI, you could choose to emancipate the slaves and send them to school; that would slow you down a bit, but give you free men prepared to fight. If you keep slavery you will get an even greater slave workforce to provide for the free men taking up arms.

What do you think?

 

[Olleus]

200 is far to cheap. It would be so easy to just spam them.

 

[Ekmek]

you see dom pedro's triangle trade mod?

 

[Optimizer]

I would consider adding a cost increment for slaves. That would prevent over-use.

Slaves would not be able to learn skills from Indians, either.

 

[Optimizer]

It seems to work so far; of course the Expert Miner has to be made more expensive, too.

 

[Cornhog]

Here's how I would make a slave unit work:

-- A new slave should be created on regular intervals (say every 10-15 turns) in Africa, which can be traveled to in the same way you can travel to Europe.
-- Slaves would be part of the trading screen when trading with other colonies.
-- A slave requires no food.
-- Slaves get a bonus to working fields but CANNOT work in any buildings.
-- Slaves cannot be trained in anything or given guns, horses or tools.
-- For every slave (or maybe every two) in a city, a soldier is required to be fortified there to maintain order. Otherwise the colony will slip into a slave revolt where the slaves start killing off white folk every turn.
-- Allow an emancipation civic when you start the revolutionary war and/or a founding father that converts all slaves into free colonists. After wards you would be prevented from getting new slaves.
-- There is a chance, say 1-100, that your slave will simply run away. The unit will disappear and you don't have it anymore. You'll have to scramble to replace their productivity.

Obviously you'd have to fine tune the different probabilities and such, but that's generally how I'd do it. What ya think?


Politically correct disclaimer: I'm talking about gameplay here, so don't be touchy.

 

[akr71]

uhh doesn't Indentured Servant = Slave ?

 

[Commander Cody]

Indentured Servant is not a slave. An indenetured servant was an individual who had a lot of debt and owed money. So they would work off the debt to repay the money that he or she owed.

As for the slave idea. The chance of a slave running away is just going to be annoying and nothing more. If anything it will make the idea and concept worthless. Besides where is the slave going to run to? It is not like there are other towns or areas in which slavery is outlawed. Heck if you want to be historical, the native americans even had slaves. They would enslave other tribes when they would win a war or battle.

 

[Wheldrake]

Given the abstract nature of the game, I don't see a need for a specific slave unit different from the indentured servant. Admitedly, slaves and indentured servants were not the same, though indentured servants were often exploited in such a way that they could never earn their freedom, making them slaves for all intents and purposes.

If you really wanted to implement slaves, why not make their game effect the same as native converts - bonus to harvesting, but really crappy in buildings.

About slaves escaping: in many colonial contexts, slaves did escape and form their own communities, or join existing native communities. The French call this "negres marrons" or "maroons" in English. Maroon communities were noted both in the caribbean and in South American colonies, I'm not sure to what extent they existed in North America.

This could be simulated by setting up a new native nation with a high hostility rating. But it hardly seems worth the trouble, given the marginal nature of the phenomenon.

Cheers, --- Wheldrake

 

[akr71]

OK, point taken. Slaves and Indentured Servants are not the same, but in the game, Indentured Servants never actually gain their freedom.

Would slaves be available the same as other immigrants on the Europe screen? Shouldn't they be cheaper to purchase than other immigrants? For that matter, shouldn't petty criminals be cheaper too, since you're helping rid the motherland or rabble and undesirables?

 

[BobTheBull]

Indentured servants do get their freedom if you educate them. Upon graduation they will at the least be a free colonist, or any speciality you can provide.

Thought: Given that, shouldn't the graduated IS get a one point production bonus, as I think the IS will be very grateful for the opportunity you have given him/her in their new profession and will work harder, for you, than someone who came to you offering their already acquired skills.

 

[vindex246]

What's the latest status report on modders adding slaves to the game? I'm playing AOE 1.06 and enjoying it, only I wish slaves could be incorporated. I know Dom Pedro was working on slaves AND adding Africa as an alternative Europe-style port, but it looks like he's disappeared. Has anyone else picked up the baton?

If it's impossible to add a completely new colonist type, I'm in favor of combining expert silver and ore miners, as suggested, and turning one of them into slaves. In my opinion, slaves should:

* consume only 1 food per turn
* not be educate-able
* produce raw materials like a regular colonist
* not be able to produce finished products at all
* maybe some bonus for producing sugar, or else a penalty for everyone else (sugar required the hardest labor, relied the most on slaves)

Both convicts and indentured servants should be kept as is. Maybe some further changes should be made to differentiate them from slaves.

To truly add an interesting game dynamic, slaves should be an economically appealing short-cut early on, but with long-term negative consequences. Perhaps a penalty on liberty bells? Some kind of revolt risk, as has been suggested?

I'd love to see this idea implemented in the game, it's so sorely missing now. Anyone agree?

 

[Keeshi]

I agree. This would add more realism to the game.