Anyone Else Largely Skip Slavery?

[jihe]

Hey everyone.

I always read alot of articles (I've lurked here a long time lol) where people are debating the mathematical advantages of whipping every certain amount of turns, how some players even keep slavery for as long as possible, and some articles which suggest slavery is almost too overpowered and open to abuse because the a.i can't manage it to as much as an advantage as the human players.

However, am I the only one who prefers to largely skip whipping my population and proceed as quickly as possible Caste System?

I tend to run a hybrid economy that has some cottages (maybe around my capital for bureaucracy, or some financial cities) but which probably leans more towards a specialist economy by a ratio of 60/40 or 70/30.

So I have never really seen the advantages of long term whipping. Sure every now and then when your cities population is too high, and you can't maintain happiness levels you can whip out a building or national/normal wonder and alleviate, the problem for a few turns, but by and large I prefer large cities with big populations that can not only work lots of tiles, but also support lots of specialists aswell. Therefore reducing my cities population and incurring unhappiness I can't get rid of for a set number of turns seems like anathema to me.

I play on Noble/Prince difficulty, in which means I win all the time on Noble, but haven't completely mastered the transition to Prince so that it is an auto-win.

But am I missing a trick here?

Like I said, I know there are some excellent articles that break down things like, the hammer ratio to population whipped, or how overflow should be managed with in depth graphs and examples. But I just fail to see whats so great about whipping and prefer to beeline - Representation, Bureaucracy, Caste System, Decentralization (the other economy options come by the time I'm changing things around or winning) and Organized Religion. But do you think is this maybe missing out on some potential for my civilization games or is my strategy sound enough?

I largely skip caste system.

Slavery is most powerful when your cities are size 6-9, have a granary, a food resource, and a couple of farms. Often you just don't have the worker turns to improve enough tiles. Slavery isn't too good when your city is very small or large.

 

[Um the Muse]

Slavery is neccessary when you've got crappy land. It's also very important when you don't have any other means of increasing production (island cities tend to fall under this category). It's helpful in getting troops earlier. Its value is overstated in getting +% bonuses if you have decent production, but not worthless.

I personally would say that it depends on your case, but most of the time, slavery is better up to your first golden age.

 

[Unconventional]

Hey everyone.

I always read alot of articles (I've lurked here a long time lol) where people are debating the mathematical advantages of whipping every certain amount of turns, how some players even keep slavery for as long as possible, and some articles which suggest slavery is almost too overpowered and open to abuse because the a.i can't manage it to as much as an advantage as the human players.

However, am I the only one who prefers to largely skip whipping my population and proceed as quickly as possible Caste System?

I tend to run a hybrid economy that has some cottages (maybe around my capital for bureaucracy, or some financial cities) but which probably leans more towards a specialist economy by a ratio of 60/40 or 70/30.

So I have never really seen the advantages of long term whipping. Sure every now and then when your cities population is too high, and you can't maintain happiness levels you can whip out a building or national/normal wonder and alleviate, the problem for a few turns, but by and large I prefer large cities with big populations that can not only work lots of tiles, but also support lots of specialists aswell. Therefore reducing my cities population and incurring unhappiness I can't get rid of for a set number of turns seems like anathema to me.

I play on Noble/Prince difficulty, in which means I win all the time on Noble, but haven't completely mastered the transition to Prince so that it is an auto-win.

But am I missing a trick here?

Like I said, I know there are some excellent articles that break down things like, the hammer ratio to population whipped, or how overflow should be managed with in depth graphs and examples. But I just fail to see whats so great about whipping and prefer to beeline - Representation, Bureaucracy, Caste System, Decentralization (the other economy options come by the time I'm changing things around or winning) and Organized Religion. But do you think is this maybe missing out on some potential for my civilization games or is my strategy sound enough?

One more thing about the Cast System. I also used to stay in caste system as long as possible even until when my citizens cry for Emancipation But later in some thread I was told by Vranasm that staying in Caste System is not always as productive as we think unless you have Pyramids. He told that he would only switch to Caste System during Golden Ages together with pacifism and working as many specialist as possible at the expense of starvation to get the maximum advantage of Caste& Pacifism and the Golden Age. At the last turn of the Golden Age he switches back to slavery. If you are spritual, you don't need to wait for GAs, switch to Caste system pacifism when you need Great People, and switch to Slavery when you need to build infrastructure. Rather than sticking to a civic throughout the game, it is all about flexibility to do what the map and the game requires you to do.

 

[Higher Game]

Increasingly, I think the only whip worthy buildings are the granary, library, wonders, and AP religion buildings if you don't have caste by then. For units, it's all about the catapult and nothing else (others are hard to 2 pop whip anyway). Archers and a few elite bronze support units suffice whether on offense or defense, and they're not so expensive as to need whipping. More advanced iron units you really want, like pikemen, knights, trebuchets, and crossbows, come around when you have caste guild shops, and chemistry soon after.

Whipping seems favored most by monarch-emperor level guys who aren't newbies any more, thanks largely to the whip, but they haven't quite gotten down the caste timing right. Maybe they just feel guilty about killing a hybrid city's mediocre cottages and great people to make workshops. A great production city >>>> a soft hybrid city.

 

[sampsa]

Interesting thread. I created a test game for testing how much difference there is whipping a settler with a granary and slow-building a settler. I'm sure many people have done similar tests before, but I don't remember seeing a comparison here on the forums.

The city starts at size 4, with 14/28 in food bin and 35 hammers invested in a settler. I chose 35 hammers so the city can slow-build the settler in exactly 5 turns (13h per turn). I chose irrigated corn (6/0), dry rice (4/0) and two grass hills (1/3) as tiles, as I think they are pretty standard. We are not imperialistic of course, as that would change things a bit.

So slow-building has the settler ready in 5 turns and there is no over-flow, so it creates no extra hammers. Whipping generates all the necessary hammers on the turn you whip (2nd turn in this case, as you can't 2-pop whip 1st turn with 35/100 hammers). Compared to slow-building, it generated 21 extra hammers during those 5 turns. That's 4 hammers per turn, nothing to sneeze at.

But of course there is another side, as whipping loses food. But how much? For growing, I used 6/0 and 4/0 tiles of course, plus a 2/1 tile in size 3, as they are always available anyway and it allowed the city to grow back to size 4 faster.

Now for the fun part: Guess how many food whipping lost compared to slow-building?

Spoiler :

1 food.

The turn the settler is ready, there is of course still 14 food in the bin at size 4. For the whipping-route, there is 13 food in the bin at size 4 on the same turn, and with 21 extra hammers generated.

Of course, tiles such as 6/0 favor whipping, but they are not uncommon. With two of those monster tiles whipping would have WON food compared to slow-building...

Slavery is over-powered.

 

[Bloodstone]

Extremley limited scenario's are the only time I can think of to out right avoid it. I will at times impose a RL limitation on myself, say no more Slavery after the 1700's, but I've also used it as an "Alternate" Victory condition in some SP games where I just wanted the challenge.

 

[MilesBeyond]

I never use slavery, like at all, as in I don't change Labour civics until Caste System, and I don't have too much trouble winning on Monarch. I'm sure I'd have to use it if I were to ever want to jump up to Deity, but as I said in another thread, part of the appeal of Civ for me is being able to run a civilization the way you want to. And for me, that includes no Slavery.

 

[TheWilltoAct]

I largely skip caste system.

--switch to Caste System during Golden Ages together with pacifism and working as many specialist as possible at the expense of starvation to get the maximum advantage of Caste& Pacifism and the Golden Age. At the last turn of the Golden Age he switches back to slavery.

Caste System is very efficient in the scenario described.

 

[jihe]

Caste System is very efficient in the scenario described.

Of course I use caste to get a few scientists in golden age, but in normal non-golden age game turns I never use caste unless spiritual. Even if I have pyramids and representation, how many city can have enough food to support more than the two library scientists anyway?

 

[krikav]

Of course I use caste to get a few scientists in golden age, but in normal non-golden age game turns I never use caste unless spiritual. Even if I have pyramids and representation, how many city can have enough food to support more than the two library scientists anyway?

I have had similar experiences.

 

[AFS]

I'm no good player, but I can win most of the times on Monarch without using slavery, but using it certainly can make a huge difference, for good.

At noble/prince is not really necesary to use it, but it won't hurt you start practicing it. Like you, I don't like to use it but mostly that's because I hate micromanagement, but now that I'm moving to Emperor I guess I just have to get used to it, otherwise I won't have a huge army to defend myself when a SoD is in tha house.

 

[krikav]

In most circumstances, I will not change to caste-system, unless I have workshops set up, in cities that are low on production.

And I often find myself getting metal casting quite late...

I do get the feeling that I am under-using caste-system, but I can't really pin down in which way.

 

[lymond]

I do get the feeling that I am under-using caste-system, but I can't really pin down in which way.

Caste is always nice late, but try to get a good GP push in early with a spell of Caste around the time you tech CS. Starve out some GSs and watch your Lib date come much earlier. Ideally with a golden age. (or early Astro on certain maps)

 

[vicawoo]

Interesting thread. I created a test game for testing how much difference there is whipping a settler with a granary and slow-building a settler. I'm sure many people have done similar tests before, but I don't remember seeing a comparison here on the forums.

The city starts at size 4, with 14/28 in food bin and 35 hammers invested in a settler. I chose 35 hammers so the city can slow-build the settler in exactly 5 turns (13h per turn). I chose irrigated corn (6/0), dry rice (4/0) and two grass hills (1/3) as tiles, as I think they are pretty standard. We are not imperialistic of course, as that would change things a bit.

So slow-building has the settler ready in 5 turns and there is no over-flow, so it creates no extra hammers. Whipping generates all the necessary hammers on the turn you whip (2nd turn in this case, as you can't 2-pop whip 1st turn with 35/100 hammers). Compared to slow-building, it generated 21 extra hammers during those 5 turns. That's 4 hammers per turn, nothing to sneeze at.

But of course there is another side, as whipping loses food. But how much? For growing, I used 6/0 and 4/0 tiles of course, plus a 2/1 tile in size 3, as they are always available anyway and it allowed the city to grow back to size 4 faster.

Now for the fun part: Guess how many food whipping lost compared to slow-building?

Spoiler :

1 food.

The turn the settler is ready, there is of course still 14 food in the bin at size 4. For the whipping-route, there is 13 food in the bin at size 4 on the same turn, and with 21 extra hammers generated.

Of course, tiles such as 6/0 favor whipping, but they are not uncommon. With two of those monster tiles whipping would have WON food compared to slow-building...

Slavery is over-powered.

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.

 

[TheWilltoAct]

A thorough and welcome analysis vicawoo, thanks.

 

[MarigoldRan]

I think whips are most effective for rapid army creation to hit timing windows before the target AI gets a critical tech like Feudalism or Rifling.

Also, if you don't whip, you need a lot more workers to improve the land around your cities. One of the great things about slavery is it keeps the economy humming efficiently while saving gazillions of worker-turns in the early game.

Finally, whips are the way to go to get newly conquered cities into productive capacity quickly, while simultaneously removing the malcontents.

 

[Um the Muse]

Talking about "growing hammers" reminds me of a question I had. Suppose you're slow building a worker or settler with a ton of food. When you finish the build, how much, if any, of them turn to production?

Let's give a concrete example. If you need three production to finish the settler, and you have one and four surplus , do you get:

• one more in your food bar and one
• two extra in the bin
• two extra (the game converts the food into production and never switches it back)

Or some other combo that I never thought of?

 

[kossin]

1 surplus = 1 when building workers & settlers.

Overflow hammers remain hammers.

 

[Archon_Wing]

I sometimes remain in slavery for a very long time instead of caste because I am afraid of being attacked >.>

I'd imagine having more happiness resources or being charismatic with good hills would cause me to put off slavery.

However, it's not like being in Caste System lets you claim that much moral high ground.

 

[TheWilltoAct]

However, it's not like being in Caste System lets you claim that much moral high ground.