Anyone else never use Slavery?

[Protozoan]

I use it all the time when I can't be bothered to increase the culture counter to make my cities happy.

City too crowded making you mad? Then you'll be happy to know that after you're done building my castle, it won't be a problem any longer.

I also use it to cure (ironically I suppose) unhealthiness in the short term.

Besides, I often roleplay my games which leads to strange situations where the powerful decadent kingdom is still using serfs and has vassals well into the modern age.

If people are going to raise moral objections about slavery in this game, I'm going to raise an objection to the idea that the only way to destroy a civilization is to commit to a genocidal total war against one's enemies, including the complete destruction of their culture.

Or you could be freeing their people of their false God and idolatry.

Or ushering their people from the backwardness of an inept ruler into your more technologically advanced kingdom bringing happiness and conformity to all.

FOR THE STATE!

 

[Sonereal]

Or you could be freeing their people of their false God and idolatry.

Or ushering their people from the backwardness of an inept ruler into your more technologically advanced kingdom bringing happiness and conformity to all.

FOR THE STATE!

That's what my current civilization is doing. It's going in and "liberating the poor heathens" from their "malignant ideologies". And if that means going in and killing a few (thousand) people, then that's that.

I'm appalled it's called a "Conquest" victory when it should be called a "Liberation" Victory.



Seriously, I'm surprised no one's made a 1984 mod yet.

 

[Deathstar]

Oh please. Slavery is essential in the beginning of the game. All of my cities get whipped. It's for the greater good.

 

[Sonereal]

Oh please. Slavery is essential in the beginning of the game. All of my cities get whipped. It's for the greater good.

*chants*

"The Greater Good!"

 

[Sydney Posada]

That's what my current civilization is doing. It's going in and "liberating the poor heathens" from their "malignant ideologies". And if that means going in and killing a few (thousand) people, then that's that.

I'm appalled it's called a "Conquest" victory when it should be called a "Liberation" Victory.



Seriously, I'm surprised no one's made a 1984 mod yet.

Oh man, that would be great. You'd have a Peace Advisor that helps you launch pre-emptive peace (i.e. wars). Slavery would be called Freedom, and whipping would be called Soul Liberation. The war negative would read as:

-8: We have always been at war with the Zulus!

 

[Duo]

I don't think my actions in civ say much about how I would handle real power.

 

[Dumanios]

I use slavery depending on my situation. If I have Bronze/Iron/Horses then I'll go and wipe me some praets/gallic warriors/jags/swords/vultures/axes/chariots/immortals/war chariot and kill some enemies. If I don't really have any military resources, then I'll not whip and save me the revolts, unhappiness and pop loss. If I have a lot of unimproved land, the I'll change to Serfdom when it's available.

 

[Jarlaxe Baenre]

For the longest time in Civilization I never used the whip. For me it was some sort of moral hangup.

Then I realized it is a game, and not a political or social statement.

Until a few months ago I never used slavery. I considered it not worth my time. I was patient enough to wait a few turns for my building or unit to finish. I felt as if I was giving too much population for my production, as I usually want to finish wonders ASAP and you can only whip it if it is almost done and you have a big city.

 

[Silvtown]

I use slavery quite often, especially to get monuments and granaries up.

My fiance refuses on principle. She has no problem razing cities though, go figure.

 

[Sydney Posada]

I use slavery quite often, especially to get monuments and granaries up.

My fiance refuses on principle. She has no problem razing cities though, go figure.

Well, she may be the type of city-razer that lets all the people get out first while she sets their homes on fire.

 

[azzaman333]

It's a game.

 

[MoGo]

That's one of the things that's fascinating about civ. You can play it like a straight strategy game akin to chess. Or you can play it like a strategy game that treats the AI as other players, giving yourself a code of ethics in how you deal with them (whether or not it's beneficial for you to do so). Or you can just role-play it completely, assuming the guise of your leader and trying your hardest to do the right thing for your empire and your people.

I intended to write that I felt no guilt at all for using slaves since there not real people, but this is a really good point. Ir's just another level of challenge to pretend they actually are, and act accordingly. I'm going to try this in my next game.

 

[acivguy55]

I never used to use slavery because I would rather have the extra population for more worked tiles... until I stumbled upon here he he he he he

 

[PreLynMax]

Flagged Kochman's post for obvious trolling...

For the longest time, because of the moral obligations above, and to this day, I have, will, and always been reluctant to crack the whip, but now I only crack the whip to control the population...

 

[mariogreymist]

I intended to write that I felt no guilt at all for using slaves since there not real people, but this is a really good point. Ir's just another level of challenge to pretend they actually are, and act accordingly. I'm going to try this in my next game.

Given the people I know, that might get me to whip more.

 

[Thain Esh Kelch]

Not because I don't think it's good. But because of...moral objections I guess.

I mean, straight whipping people to death to build stuff for you? On top of all the horrible things that go with slavery IRL...

I guess this is maybe a touch of hypocrisy since I have happily nuked people in games, but I've just never once used slavery because it felt wrong.

You are playing a game of war and world conquering, and you have a thing against slavery?

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Moral objections to something that is both 1) pretend and 2) not indicative of the real life effect (slaves were considered property with real value, thus not slaughtered deliberately under normal circumstances) at all are silly. If you're going to morally ban slavery, consider banning the following too since doing so makes equal sense:

- Police State ---> in real life, slaves suffer. In some (most) of these, people DIE.
- Vassalage ---> domination and unfair rule over entire other nations...
- Serfdom ---> well, actually the #1 reason to ban this is because it sucks and you probably should never consider it in ancient starts. Not that serfs had it nice.
- Caste ---> better than slavery, but still forcing people to do things they'd not otherwise choose
- Mercantilism ---> bad economic policy is a bad thing for one's people.
- State Property ---> Decision rights/incentive/reward? NOPE!
- Organized Religion ---> States run on religions do not have a history of treating all their populace kindly or equally
- Theocracy ---> Inquisition! Again, while it would SUCK to be a slave, it sucks even more to be tortured and killed. In fact, being tortured and killed is probably up there with the worst experiences possible.

Why not just start everyone in the bottom row holding flowers for each other .

From a gameplay standpoint, the degree one suffers from not slaving depends on the map and how many are available without it. Sometimes it doesn't even make sense to switch (albeit rarely, it happens). Sometimes it is the only competitive source of production available.

But in a game where so many possible actions are immoral, specific hatred on slavery just doesn't make sense period. If you're declaring wars, capturing cities, or running other pop-control civics, there's no excuse for avoiding slavery other than basic roleplay. Of course, not everyone thinks in rational terms. At least in civ nobody really cares if you lose except yourself ultimately, so if you want to avoid civics irrationally because that's more fun go for it.

 

[GhostWriter16]

Agreed. I rarely think about morals in video games.

I use slavery in war up till late, for a Space Race I'll use Caste System. I play on Warlord though so I'm no expert.

 

[Tristan_C]

Honestly I think slavery is just the nastiest word in the civic list, so all the touchy-feely people cringe at it. HR, barbarism, serfdom, the caste system, Despotism, vassalage, and the Police State are all just as morally bankrupt as slavery.
Gosh, I mean, there's so many fun ways for the strong to dominate the weak, why just stop at slavery?!


As for realism, I think the civic takes a rather crude route but has accurate results. While you can't build a granary in real life by suddenly beating 20,000 people to death one day, the civic captures the way slaves increased society's short-run productivity, at an overall cost to human potential.

- Police State ---> in real life, slaves suffer. In some (most) of these, people DIE.

No, comrade. Unpersons never existed.

 

[Chakram Bearer]

In my first couple of games I didn't use slavery because I felt my cities took too long to grow and I didn't want to lose population. However, after reading about managing city tiles I think it's not too difficult to get the population back, and I'm starting to develop an addiction to slavery. It's particularly useful when I need troops for an emergency, or when I really want a certain building in a city with few hammers production. Losing population doesn't have a huge impact if you can skip several turns in production!

There's no moral dilemma for me, there are lots of things that we all do in the game but would never do in real life -such as going for war and destroying a whole civilization.