Liberty and Pyramids

[bouncymischa]

One of the interesting topics that came out of the previous discussion was whether or not the Liberty and Tradition trees are themselves misnamed. Consider the Romans as a classic version of this -- while a Republic (i.e. Liberty) they were fairly small, but once they gained a broad, sprawling empire, they became more monarchist (i.e. Tradition).

You could also compare the Greeks (a few little city-states) vs. the Egyptians (a rather large empire) as a more typical Liberty vs. Tradition comparison.

So it could be argued that Liberty should be the tree for small empires, while Tradition should be the tree for wide, sprawling ones...

 

[pilot00]

The term "slave" didn't carry the same connotation we ascribe modernly from the most recent 18th century examples. Slaves were more akin to how we'd view "indentured servitude", I guess. They were a lower class socially or foreigners, worked for the most part as laborers, weren't allowed to "leave", weren't allowed to hold office or be priests, and had no representation for their treatment or well-being.

Payment for working included modest lodging, meals and pay. Multiple generations of entire extended families lived "on site", like massive semi-permanent cities moving project to project. Occasionally if they were very obedient and productive they'd be allowed to be buried in the tombs, with the understanding they'd serve the pharaoh in the afterlife. This was the highest honor.

It depends on the actual time frame and culture you are talking about. The 'modern term' can be quite spot on in refering to the slaves of ancient Greece, Egypt and Rome.

There were exceptions were they were considered valuable due to varying reasons and those were the ones you refer to having modest lodging and meals but almost never pay.

I can hardly imagine the miners that Athens used in Macedon and Syracuse (that were dying in droves due to harsh conditions mind you), the Roman galley rowers were paid.

The gladiators now for example were given modest lodging and even women but those were 'entertainers'.

Yeah, this is a myth.

No its not, they were build by both free laborers/artisans and caste slaves. What we don't know is what were the numbers of each.

 

[steveg700]

I think this is an area of the game where the dev's did a fantastic job. Fantastic. It incentivizes picking a course for your empire that actually suits it, and it cuts down on the AI's ability to undercut the player with their annoying knack for building wonders even when to all appearances it doesn't seem to be any kind of time or resource sink for them.

The Pyramids remain a not-so-awesome wonder, of course, since the effort of building a coupel of workers is quite a bit less than that of building the wonder, so the net gain is really just the the 25% improvement bump in improvement speed. Not useless, but there are better things a civ can be doing with its hammers for my money.

The Forbidden Palace was the only one that feels someone out-of-place. Doing patronage means you don't really need the extra votes. Sure, every bit helps, but limiting it Patroange adherents just means the rirch get richer. I'd rather it be available as an alternative for a civ that might be losing the CS alliance game. To replace it? Well, weren't we all expecting the Panama Canal to make it in?

 

[bhavv]

The pyramids are a waste of production anyway.