Slavery in BNW

[moysturfurmer]

I know how much all you [CHAPS] loved the slavery mechanic in cIV, and personally I could see it coming back in BNW. All you'd have to do is make sure each captured worker is tagged as foreign, and make it give you -1 happiness (don't capture too many else you'll have a slave revolt). perhaps that number can increase with each era.

Yeah, okay moysturfurmer, sounds dumb, but how does that relate to BNW?

I'm glad you asked. The slavery mechanic can interface with the new ideology system too. So picking freedom might force you to free you captured slaves (facing penalty of extra unhappiness) or maybe there's a tenet that lets you emancipate them while retaining them as workers or something. Autocracy could have some stuff that lowers the unhappiness, and order can reduce maintenance on all slaves in your empire or something.

I mean it's not a gamechanging system or anything, but the total absence of slavery seems like a gross whitewashing of world history to me. And it seems elegant to me at least.

I dunno I'd talk more but I gotta go to [MY OTHER CLASS]

Moderator Action: Chaged the thread title as we didn't want members looking for part 1.

 

[Snoopaloop]

I think it should be represented in-game somehow.

I don't think -1 happiness would make owning many (at all) worthwhile though. I'm thinking back to Civ III expansions, when captured workers worked a little slower..they were never worth keeping I thought. There would have to be a worthwhile reason to force slave labor, not a penalty immediately...maybe they're maintanence free upon capture. The developers might want to stay clear of adding in slavery and giving it positive effects though.

I like your idea of tying it in to the ideology system. Freedom would then force upon a lot of negative modifiers, and maybe diplomatic ones. At that point of the game, they're an easy "delete" and 1 turn build/buy a new one.

Sounds like an interesting idea for a mechanic that should be in the game. I just don't know where to go with it...but that is why I am mod down-loader, not developer.

 

[HaloCapella]

Slavery is a mechanic i missed. but I have no idea which policy tree it could be on.

I think it should be a follower belief like paying faith. the one who takes that perk gets it first. and it shouldn't be used too cheaply either. we'll have to consider the amount of food you've put into your city. if something costs 100 production and food costs is doubled from that, then it may need to cost around 200 food. that may lose about 2-3 citizens. (and we would keep the no-more-than-half-the-population feature too) I'd think that's alot of citizens, production costs and time to get those population back. depending on the land that is. tho it would be alot to work to figure it out. I'm sure it would appear in the Purchase menu.

 

[AriochIV]

Why should the existence of slave Workers make my regular citizens unhappy? If anything, I would expect the opposite.

Keeping the ethnicity of Workers made sense back when city populations were multi-ethnic and you could absorb Workers back into a city to increase the population. Not so much now.

Slavery was best implemented when it was a very abstract function for rushing production. Making game mechanics where you actually take or trade slaves is just asking for trouble from some videogame-hating politician with an axe to grind.

 

[Gamling]

I think it should be in the game in the early ages. You should be able to capture some of the defeated enemies as slaves to keep as poor workers or have them join the cities. To many resulting in the risk of slaverevolts. Most civilizations has had slaves at some point in history.

And later in the game other enlighten civs will dislike you for it and eventualy you have to set them free or go down the diktator tree.

 

[moysturfurmer]

Why should the existence of slave Workers make my regular citizens unhappy? If anything, I would expect the opposite.

Keeping the ethnicity of Workers made sense back when city populations were multi-ethnic and you could absorb Workers back into a city to increase the population. Not so much now.

Slavery was best implemented when it was a very abstract function for rushing production. Making game mechanics where you actually take or trade slaves is just asking for trouble from some videogame-hating politician with an axe to grind.

I've always felt like happiness was an abstraction of empire order/control rather than of just the plebes' dispositions.

Well, there's no such thing as bad publicity. And honestly, I really doubt ANYONE would ever try to rail on Civ when there's every other game out there. Any campaign to take Civ(in some respects an educational game) off the shelves would be laughed out of DC, at least as long as GTA still gets released (long may it reign). Especially considering the only thing that's different is that now kidnapping foreign laborers and forcing them to build your highways is met with a penalty.

 

[Verified_Confection_Being]

Why should the existence of slave Workers make my regular citizens unhappy? If anything, I would expect the opposite.

Keeping the ethnicity of Workers made sense back when city populations were multi-ethnic and you could absorb Workers back into a city to increase the population. Not so much now.

Slavery was best implemented when it was a very abstract function for rushing production. Making game mechanics where you actually take or trade slaves is just asking for trouble from some videogame-hating politician with an axe to grind.

I've always felt like happiness was an abstraction of empire order/control rather than of just the plebes' dispositions.

Well, there's no such thing as bad publicity. And honestly, I really doubt ANYONE would ever try to rail on Civ when there's every other game out there. Any campaign to take Civ(in some respects an educational game) off the shelves would be laughed out of DC, at least as long as GTA still gets released (long may it reign). Especially considering the only thing that's different is that now kidnapping foreign laborers and forcing them to build your highways is met with a penalty.

I agree. You could also see it as a representation of the happiness of your whole empire, so slaves included seeing as they are a fundamental part of it (and usually adopted into it upon emancipation rather than expelled).

 

[Deggial]

I totally agree to the posters above. Indeed I think that the term "Happiness" was an incredible bad choice and caused a lot of irritation.

"Stability" would have been so much better in my regards to mirror what this concept does represent in Civ5.
And in this thinking, a certain ammount of would be quite reasonable for the use of slaves.

 

[Inhalaattori]

Yeah I think one of the biggest problems in Civ 5 is the Happiness mechanic.

 

[Deggial]

@Inhalaattori:
Well, at least I didn't refer to the underlying mechanic, which is totally fine in my regards.

My point is only the terminology, which is awkward. Not that the wording really change things, but it is very important nevertheless: If people expect certain characteristics due to the chosen name and are confronted with something different, they will be annoyed and question the whole mechanic.

For example:
"Why are people unhappy, when the war goes well and new cities are conquered or when new cities are founded and the empire grows in strength?"
That doesn't seem to make sense! But as soon as you change the name of the thing, it will be more like:
"If my empire grows in size, it gets more and more unstable." - which is very reasonable!

Happiness-buildings and luxuries don't make people happy. Its more like they appease them.

 

[kingchris20]

I think it should be represented in-game somehow.

I don't think -1 happiness would make owning many (at all) worthwhile though. I'm thinking back to Civ III expansions, when captured workers worked a little slower..they were never worth keeping I thought. There would have to be a worthwhile reason to force slave labor, not a penalty immediately...maybe they're maintanence free upon capture. The developers might want to stay clear of adding in slavery and giving it positive effects though.

I like your idea of tying it in to the ideology system. Freedom would then force upon a lot of negative modifiers, and maybe diplomatic ones. At that point of the game, they're an easy "delete" and 1 turn build/buy a new one.

Sounds like an interesting idea for a mechanic that should be in the game. I just don't know where to go with it...but that is why I am mod down-loader, not developer.

"No maintenance" makes the most sense for something like this

I think it should be in the game in the early ages. You should be able to capture some of the defeated enemies as slaves to keep as poor workers or have them join the cities. To many resulting in the risk of slaverevolts. Most civilizations has had slaves at some point in history.

And later in the game other enlighten civs will dislike you for it and eventualy you have to set them free or go down the diktator tree.

I think this idea works well, as you start moving into the 19th and 20th century, major pressure is put on "slave using" nations.

For example:
"Why are people unhappy, when the war goes well and new cities are conquered or when new cities are founded and the empire grows in strength?"

I believe it makes sense as it is referring to the city you just captured, those people are definitley not going to be producing happiness for your empire, they should be producing loads of unhappiness for being "siezed" and taken control of by a foreign nation. for being

 

[Deggial]

I believe it makes sense as it is referring to the city you just captured, those people are definitley not going to be producing happiness for your empire, they should be producing loads of unhappiness for being "siezed" and taken control of by a foreign nation. for being

It does make sense for "happiness" somehow. But it would make even more sense for "stability".

Conquered and later on annexed cities are a very good example, by the way.
Why should a courthouse make people happy? It doesn't!
But it adds stability to the city! All of a sudden, everything is very reasonable...

 

[kingchris20]

It does make sense for "happiness" somehow. But it would make even more sense for "stability".

Conquered and later on annexed cities are a very good example, by the way.
Why should a courthouse make people happy? It doesn't!
But it adds stability to the city! All of a sudden, everything is very reasonable...

touché

 

[muhtesem insan]

I think it'd be more realistic if it meant more upkeep rather than more unhappiness.

 

[Biologist]

Instead of having "slavery" be centered around units or rushing production, why not simply have a mechanic where citizens of captured cities are relocated to one of your cities (rather than simply deleted)? Rome: Total War offered a similar mechanic, if I remember correctly. This might be something available to all civs, or it might be a unique trait of, say, Assyria (who often took captives in war).

At that point of the game, they're an easy "delete" and 1 turn build/buy a new one.

Something about this struck me as slightly ironic and disturbing. "Okay, we've just developed a concept of egalitarianism, the rights of all people are now equal! Should we emancipate our unfree laborers? Nah, easier to just massacre them and hire new ones."

 

[Avatan]

I totally agree to the posters above. Indeed I think that the term "Happiness" was an incredible bad choice and caused a lot of irritation.

"Stability" would have been so much better in my regards to mirror what this concept does represent in Civ5.
And in this thinking, a certain ammount of would be quite reasonable for the use of slaves.

Ha! Thats the actual word I use when referring to this mechanic with my civ playing friends!

 

[JanghanHong]

mmm... Yes, everything about Happiness mechanic makes sense when you call it "Stability"


Even if you called it "Harmony" it would make sense, you wouldn't have to change the icon either.

 

[iconocast]

didnt rome have problems wit slaves takeing up to manny jobs causeing citizens unhappyness? or was that something i picked up from the "rome" tv series ( the good on)

 

[MisterBoomBoom]

I would like to see a slavery mechanic...captured workers turn to slaves IF you have Ideology X etc.... This will make the world congress vote to make Slavery "illegal" very doable.

 

[LostKnight]

What if the Honor tree gave the ability to spawn slaves every time you make a specific action?

Honor really suffer now as the starting SoPol, even if you are planning to conquer everyone. Having the ability to get slaves while warmongering will help this tree as long as you keep fighting somebody.

Slaves could be mini-engineer, boosting production in a specific city. Not enough to 1-turn a building, but having 3-4 turn shaved out of your granary is still very good!

Action that could spawn slaves might include:

• Capturing any civilian unit(worker/settler)
• Pillaging(I burned your farm, now you are coming with me!)
• Killing an enemy unit(small chance)
• Capturing a city
• Razing a city

It will also help make Honor a little more viable, as long as slaves unit are not too powerful.

Freeing slaves could also be an incentive for the defender, maybe giving a small amount of gold or temporary happiness* every time your free one of your countryman,