Anyone Else Largely Skip Slavery?

[obsolete]

Slavery is neccessary when you've got crappy land.

Actually, when ever I hear people talk about crappy land, they are talking about food deficits. This would be the WORST time to use slavery.

 

[tdy99]

I've never really liked slavery just because I don't like the idea of deliberately whipping down a city's population, plus it requires more micromanagement than I'm really interested in. I'll probably never get beyond Emperor because of that limitation, but oh well.

 

[JulesDogg]

Currently playing Sury II at Immortal on standard fractal map. I have 11 cities and won the Lib race at 600AD. The whip was not used once, chopped out Mids in the cap whilst other cities built settlers and workers. Instead of slavery I moved straight to caste/bur/OR with a Great Artist from Music. Rep was used as soon as the Mids completed and the Cap is running 5 specialists and has produced 4 Gt Scientists with the fifth to arrive in just 8 more turns. Slavery, whilst powerful, is not the only way to go in this game.

 

[Amao]

I've never really liked slavery just because I don't like the idea of deliberately whipping down a city's population, plus it requires more micromanagement than I'm really interested in. I'll probably never get beyond Emperor because of that limitation, but oh well.

not worry. i've seen people won deity games w/o slavery. but i guess you still need the micro part.

 

[Zx Zero Zx]

Woah man what are you smoking? Can I have some? Sounds good.

 

[ben-jammin]

I don't skip slavery every because I try to win on Immortal. I imagine it's possible without whipping but it would be more difficult. I'm not sure what logic would tell you that it's actually BETTER to not take the first civic swap available that even without granaries gives you a favourable food->hammers conversion and an easy way to manage your unhappiness.

 

[ben-jammin]

First, you have a granary, which costs 60 hammers. Second, unless you stack anger, you'll whip once every 10 turns, so your 21 hammers over 5 is still 21 hammers over 10. So it takes 30 turns to break even - whereas a settler could have settled another corn/rice/double grassland hill city and produced 13 food/hammers per turn (much more than the 2.1 per turn from whipping).

Now let's say it's not your capital (which often wants to get a fast library before granary) and you don't have happiness resource, so your happy cap is 4. Now the 10 turns really hurts: you can 2 pop whip, but instead of spending 1 turn at size 2 and 2 turns at size 3, you spend 1 turn at size 2 and 8 turns at size 3.
Now instead of losing 1 turn x 2 + 2 turns x 1.5 (working a forest insead of 2 mines) = 5 mine turns (and 1 food and you don't get to use the hammers produced from 3 turns of growing produced for settlers, for a total of 11 yield + 3 discretionary hammers, if we're wondering where the rest of the 13 x 3 = 39 hammers went, it's in the overflow)

Instead of that you lose 1 x 2 + 9 x 1 = 11 mine turns (22 yield). If you don't plan to control your initial food value, you'll spend 2 turns at size 2, for an additional mine turns (24 yield). If you overflow into a settler, that's another turn at size 2, so it's
3 x 2 + 7 x 1 = 13 mine turns (26 yield). Finally, the hammers you spent growing won't go to settlers, and you'll spend 2 turns growing at size 2 (1 hammer each) and at some point 2 turns at size 3 (2 to 4 hammers each, depending whether you go forested grassland tile or grassland mine), so you lose 26 yield with 5 to 9 "growing hammers" unavailable to settlers.
The benefit is easy to calculate: 30 x 2 hammers for 12 + 13 food, so a net 35 yield.
If you don't value the growing hammers, you're gaining about 35 hammers for 31 yield over 10 turns. If you do value them, you're gaining 35 for 26, or 9 over 10 turns.

Finally, a few final points, -
this an example with an extremely high food:hammer ratio. The lower that ratio (say wheat, cows, maybe a copper mine), the more hammers you "waste" growing.
-with vast expansion, riverside grassland cottages may be preferable to mines. And while you can whip into hammers, you can't whip into commerce.

---
Or a short conclusion:
the benefit over cost of building a granary then whipping settlers, with all things considered, is surprisingly low
If you have a granary, because you didn't need more units to fogbust, you might as well squeeze some extra hammers out of whipping workers/settlers.

It's really only surprisingly low until you get into happy cap situations in which you would otherwise be working inferior tiles, or spending far too many early worker turns to improve tiles you dont otherwise need yet.

And as well yo uknow it's also a matter of timing. How often do you slow build a settler only to be beaten by a turn or three to your ideal spot, that would have easily been yours had you whipped?

In any case, unless you have food-poor land like Obs already pointed out not whipping is really handicapping yourself. That game mechanic is there for a reason...at immortal-deity its damn near impossible (on maps where you dont get lucky with AI placement) to claim the land you want quickly enough without slavery.

 

[obsolete]

i've seen people won deity games w/o slavery.

I try to avoid slavery when using industrious leaders. Particularly since I know I'm going to raise my happy ceiling in the BC era (without happy resources or monarchy) hint, hint...

The odd time I use it is if I got SCREWED by the normalizer, giving me only 1 or 2 hills (yes this happens), then I'll sometimes whip to convert what food I have into hammers to make up for not having those mines.

Boy, I just love it how Failaxis decided everyone needs a minimum of THREE hills to work, yet not only did they forget to check if that hill is under your capital, but they also count it as part of your fat cross even though it is separated by ocean tiles....

How many patches... and no one fixed that?

 

[MarigoldRan]

Currently playing Sury II at Immortal on standard fractal map. I have 11 cities and won the Lib race at 600AD. The whip was not used once, chopped out Mids in the cap whilst other cities built settlers and workers. Instead of slavery I moved straight to caste/bur/OR with a Great Artist from Music. Rep was used as soon as the Mids completed and the Cap is running 5 specialists and has produced 4 Gt Scientists with the fifth to arrive in just 8 more turns. Slavery, whilst powerful, is not the only way to go in this game.

Did you war to get to 11 cities, or did you REX your way to it?

Slavery is necessary for war-mongers.

 

[Lewarks]

@Obs

Spoiler :

Rep/Notre-Dame ?

Can't find anything else :s
Unless you use the culture slider ?

 

[oranje willem]

@Obs

Spoiler :

Rep/Notre-Dame ?

Can't find anything else :s
Unless you use the culture slider ?

He's referring to the Pyramids -> representation

 

[Um the Muse]

^^Oh, I feel dumb. I thought he was talking about taking vassals.

 

[TheWilltoAct]

^^Oh, I feel dumb. I thought he was talking about taking vassals.

I didn't get it either.

 

[ben-jammin]

I try to avoid slavery when using industrious leaders. Particularly since I know I'm going to raise my happy ceiling in the BC era (without happy resources or monarchy) hint, hint...

The odd time I use it is if I got SCREWED by the normalizer, giving me only 1 or 2 hills (yes this happens), then I'll sometimes whip to convert what food I have into hammers to make up for not having those mines.

Boy, I just love it how Failaxis decided everyone needs a minimum of THREE hills to work, yet not only did they forget to check if that hill is under your capital, but they also count it as part of your fat cross even though it is separated by ocean tiles....

How many patches... and no one fixed that?

Maybe, just maybe, that problem is so minor that almost nobody is worried about having no less than X number of hills to make their standard strategy work every game. Maybe some people would see this as one of the many things you need to adapt your strategy for to win, as opposed to something to complain about. You know, like which rival AIs you roll, military resource spawn, how good your surrounding land is, combat odds...

The way you and moan about Firaxis, you'd almost think they hadn't made a game that you're still playing regularly several years later. What a bunch of idiots.

 

[Keilah]

well, it IS poor execution to decide on a minimum # of hills for balance, and then forget to ensure that the hills are actually workable.

 

[ben-jammin]

We're talking about a game we're playing what, more than six years after it came out? Forums are still active, people are still modding. And people are complaining about getting 2 hills instead of 3? That's not at all ludicrous to you? Poor execution is Civ V.

 

[TheWilltoAct]

obsolete doesn't give a flip how many hills he has. The point is that Firaxis has produced bug-prone algorithms that in this case are at odds with its own expectations for a proper capital.

 

[MyOtherName]

I do find it interesting, though, that he complains that Firaxis is focusing on minor things while neglecting major issues, and then turns right back around to criticize Firaxis because there are minor things they haven't fixed.

 

[obsolete]

What a bunch of idiots.

I feel the same way about Failaxis fan-boys...