Anyone else never use Slavery?

[TheMeInTeam]

Use slavery and this might happen to you...

That only happens if you forget to disable imbatrash...wait no I mean gheyvents...wait no...what were they again?

This one isn't the worst, but it's annoying because 1) for almost every map, the ROI on slavery risk-adjusted for this gheyvent is still higher than all alternatives for a good chunk of your turns and 2) the resulting penalty for what is essentially the same decision is randomized. Penalizing players AT RANDOM for making an optimal choice is not good design...but yes if you play with poor settings you might suffer in this game .

 

[Yxklyx]

I used to use it a lot but find it's use is rather limited to due population unhappiness - each city will only be able to use it a couple of times before you'll want to switch to a better civic. Nice for an occasional wonder. Lately I've begun to like Workshops and Caste System.

 

[Kwik E Mart]

I never understood the thought process for the Slavery civic model. It seems counter intuitive to me that utilizing slaves to create buildings or units would result in a decrease in a civ's own population. Why not give the player (or AI, I suppose) a couple of options after capturing a rival or barb city:
1) Convert x% of the cities population into workers or combat units. Make these combat units and/or workers somehow slightly less capable than the capturing civ's own workers and combat units. Give these workers/combat units some small chance to gain their freedom (maybe with a raining frogs event or something )
2) Convert x% of the cities population into hammers for buildings or wonders
3) Insert your own
4) Use these percentages of population converted to trigger certain advantages or disadvantages in the slaving civ

Just some thoughts...

 

[Dragonxander PR]

With slavery properly used, a high imput of food can be used more efficiently (that high food imput would be necessary for the later stages of the game, to sustain bigger production, specialists or drafting).

Also, slavery helps minimize (not eliminate at first) the city unhappiness--a common way to do this is in the game's early stage--you could have a total 5 in a certain city; let it grow above 5 pop just in the right moment & whip off 3 population points to maximize the slaves' production yield.

 

[draeh]

Use slavery and this might happen to you...

I was playing an SP round a night or two ago and the AI player to my South never transitioned out of Slavery. I had fun sending spys into his cities to incite unrest that always seemed to cause a revolt.

 

[Killazeke14]

For some reason i cant make myself do it. Its just that whenever i see the word i think of people whipping other people to death.

 

[PreLynMax]

I admit it. I am a chronic whipper. I can't help it. I'm destined to whip. I need mental and psychological help. I can't stop whipping...!

 

[CHEESE!]

Use slavery and this might happen to you...

AND you got Plainscowed. Switch the English leader for Shaka and the game can't get any more painful.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

AND you got Plainscowed. Switch the English leader for Shaka and the game can't get any more painful.

Actually, slavery was an awful choice in that screen shot. Getting plainscow'd = not much food, and there wasn't much in city #2, either. What, then, was the point of running slavery just yet? I know its ROI usually justifies it, but not *always*, and certainly not when you have more hills than food! All it does is burn a turn of anarchy that could have been used to get more phalanx units. Just because it's among the worst starts you can find doesn't mean you have to make it worse still!

And shaka isn't an awful draw when sitting bull is around because the garbage peaceweight system will draw them to each other like magnets.

 

[player01]

I only use whipping when I'm expensive and building granary. Other times I might use it are when someone is building a wonder you're also building but 1-2 turn ahead. It is also good for emergencies.

 

[vicawoo]

That only happens if you forget to disable imbatrash...wait no I mean gheyvents...wait no...what were they again?

This one isn't the worst, but it's annoying because 1) for almost every map, the ROI on slavery risk-adjusted for this gheyvent is still higher than all alternatives for a good chunk of your turns and 2) the resulting penalty for what is essentially the same decision is randomized. Penalizing players AT RANDOM for making an optimal choice is not good design...but yes if you play with poor settings you might suffer in this game .

Psychological studies show that non-random applications of punishment leads to decay in behavioral modification over time.