Drinking the Slavery Cool-Aid

[DaviddesJ]

Can you articulate these mistakes? I wonder if I am making them.

I don't think so. If it were easy to describe exactly how to use slavery most effectively, then there wouldn't be multi-hundred-post threads debating how useful it is. Sometimes the mistake is rushing too soon, and accumulating extra unhappiness. Sometimes the mistake is rushing too late---there are frequently situations where one can and should rush before the previous unhappiness expires. Often a mistake is rushing the wrong thing, or not planning one's builds so that the project to be rushed is at the right stage of construction. Sometimes the msitake is simply rushing too often at the expense of growth, which is also important. Sometimes the mistake is not situating cities well to take advantage of slavery. Sometimes the mistake is not improving the right tiles to make slavery pay off. Etc., etc.

 

[cabert]

some basic rules to the use of slavery?

- working good tiles is a priority, over 30 hammers most of the time (gold mine someone?)
- slavery is more powerful at low level of population
- Whipping is only worth what you rush is worth ! rushing a theater in a city not needing culture is more often than not a bad move. Same thing for an aqueduct (am i the only one that never builds those?) if you face no health problem.
- You get the same unhappiness from whipping 1,2,3, 4 ... pop. So if your goal is to get rid of unhappies, whip for bigger stuff. I almost never whip for 1 pop (exception is granary, that i always rush, because of it's high value). In time of war, remember that war weariness depends on city size. So whipping 2/3 pop will often give you a happiness "bonus" (better said, it will remove 2/3 unhappiness from size + 1/2 for ww).
- the 10 turns cycle is only good for calculation sake! If you micromanage your cities, you can be in a good position to whip at this point. But if you don't or if the happiness cap went up (example : you previously whipped a temple ), it's not at all mandatory to whip every 10 turns!
- ...

just my 2 cents

 

[Calavente]

I thank the Op for doing such a great job.

even if your numbers may (or may not) be innaccurate,
even if I may (or may not) disagree with your conclusion,

I highly appreciated the work on numbers.

As an engineer, I understand numbers well and think they show much.
As such I really hate when people say : it is X much more because every y turns you can whip then produce 2 more pop ..Etc. the information is lost in all the explanation blush: I know I sometimes write like that, and i always think : what a mess I did !! my apologies, it makes me hate myself)

As an anti-math guy I hate when people come with answers in terms of equations without giving an real exemple with numbers of with tables/charts. (but giving the equation + an exemple is exemplary )

May the people advocating slavery as an all-out civic answer the OP with corrected tables/ charts ..etc instead of just saying "slavery is more efficient / it use the food boni better / the principle is to whip more than one pop...". If the principle is to use more than one pop, show the table showing how does that improves the hammer production so much. instead of just saying so.

(I won't do the table myself as I am convinced by cfacosta. even if I love to and I will still whip a lot : as an usefull tool and no more as an all powerfull thing)

Thanks again Cfacosta.

Now I will consider going to cast system when going to an all out war:

most of the times, if I take a 12pop city, out of unrest due to no-fatcross that leaves at least 4people not working even if my happy boni is good enough + without any cultural income. Some other times with 6-12pop cities, even whipping a 4pop building does not permit me to have positive food. This happen when the food tiles are in the outer ring of the fat cross. So I still loose 1 to 3 pop to starvation even if I whipp each turns. (even with eight towns arround the city, if most are on plains, it gives lot of money but not enough food to feed even 6pop).

This force me to whip until reaching 4-5pop to only loose 1-3 starving pop instead of 8-10. Loosing pop to starvation is really ugly : no 30 hammer for sacrifying it.

I am always sad that I had to tranforme a great 12-14pop city in a backward 4-5 pop village due to my inefficiency in claiming the surrounding tiles (some of the times this city becomes uber-great at medium size : 10-15pop due to all the towns, but it needs the food. At small size it is a burden for the empire: either it has very few town to work on, either it works only food).

using 3 such un-working guys as artists would give me growth of the fat cross the next turn !! giving access to the close-by food ressources or grassland-farms-or even to happy-ressources I didn't have before!! only lost 1 pop to starvation !!! great!

(even whipping a theatre or a library or propagate your own religion is not quick enough : it takes respectivelly 4 turns / 5 / 10 turns to grow the fat cross in which you loose at least 4 pop to starvation + more to whipping)

 

[cabert]

using 3 such un-working guys as artists would give me growth of the fat cross the next turn !! giving access to the close-by food ressources or grassland-farms-or even to happy-ressources I didn't have before!! only lost 1 pop to starvation !!! great!

though a good idea per se, it's not working in most situations.
The only way for this to work is to put the culturally overwhelming enemy cities out of business. As long as there is ancient enemy cultural pressure, you won't gain any tile (it would take hundreds of turns at double cpt than your enemy city to gain one tile!).
Those cities will be starving anyway if you don't kill your neighbour.

 

[Paeanblack]

All we do is look at the possible use of the last citizen to be born. The options are obvious, so none of this should be new. You either whip the citizen into 30 hammers, or you put him to work in the field. The field work can be conducted on either a mined grass hill or mined plains hill. The two scenarios are summarized in the following production schedule.

Your entire analysis is only considering whipping one citizen at a time and you discover it to be roughly on par with letting the citizen work a mined grassland hill tile. Rerun the analysis whipping two at a time. With the unhappiness penalty cut in half, guess how slavery fares in actual game use.

 

[Paeanblack]

(even whipping a theatre or a library or propagate your own religion is not quick enough : it takes respectivelly 4 turns / 5 / 10 turns to grow the fat cross in which you loose at least 4 pop to starvation + more to whipping)

Did you know you can whip multiple buildings in a single turn instead of letting them starve?

 

[cfacosta]

You are right about the only whipping one guy at a time. I forgot that whipping more than one will get you a net happiness bonus. I will redo my calculations for 2 pop at a time when I get a chance. Nevertheless, if you do happen to whip only one person at a time, the numbers are correct.

 

[cabert]

You are right about the only whipping one guy at a time. I forgot that whipping more than one will get you a net happiness bonus. I will redo my calculations for 2 pop at a time when I get a chance. Nevertheless, if you do happen to whip only one person at a time, the numbers are correct.

yes, numbers are correct, but your vision of how to use slavery obviously isn't

 

[MrCynical]

I have noticed that whipping has become increasingly popular and it has reached the point that many people seem to believe that slavery should be an automatic civic selection.

I think the reason for this is the very early point at which slavery appears, and the generally weak nature of the other civics in this column. What are your other options?

Caste System: While available relatively early this is both a more expensive civic than slavery, and near useless unless you're running a specialist economy (also a dubous decision, and many of the SE advocates insist on slavery as an advantage of it, hence they don't run caste system). Aside from maybe a little fine tuning of a great person farm, Caste system doesn't really give much benefit to other economies.

Serfdom: Has anyone got a strategy for using this civic? If there's one on the whole panel I never seem to see mentioned, it's this one. 50% faster workers and it isn't available till the middle ages. Frankly by that stage, your workers should be running out of things to do unless you didn't bbuild enough early on, hence a fairly useless civic. At best saves you the cost of a couple of workers.

Emancipation: Available much later than the others, well into the Renaissance, but the first one other than slavery which really seems worth having. For a cottage economy, this does offer reasonable compensation for losing pop-rushing, in the boost to cottage growth. It doesn't offer much to the specialist economy except maybe saving a couple of happiness points if other civs start using it.

The point on slavery I don't agree on is those who argue that it should be your only source of production, and that high hammer tiles are pointless. Picking slavery over the other civics in the column does seem a no-brainer at least till emancipation though, and for a specialist economy, even after that.

 

[DaviddesJ]

The point on slavery I don't agree on is those who argue that it should be your only source of production, and that high hammer tiles are pointless.

Is this a strawman? Who are "those" guys who supposedly said that?

 

[MrCynical]

DaviddesJ; it's been a persistent theme, particularly recently, when discussing high production cities, and most recently in the "slavery; convince me" thread and which has been getting on my nerves. I threw it in as a comment that wasn't completely off topic at the end of a long post since my stance could appear contradictory to the views I'd expressed recently in other threads.

It is not a strawman. It's just a comment to clarify two arguments which I have often seen confused. Given I agree with you both in the discussion prior to the comment, and to clarify, immediately afterwards as well this would seem blatantly obvious. Your response comes over as aggressive, rather incongruous, and rather misaimed, since I'm one of the ones who agrees with you.

 

[DaviddesJ]

It is not a strawman.

It seems like a strawman to me. It's a silly position that's easy to refute. Is there really someone saying that you shouldn't work that grassland/hill/iron mine, because it only has 1 food and doesn't contribute enough to slavery?? I haven't seen it.

I'm sorry that my feeling offends you. But I don't see this as some sort of team sport where we are supposed to choose up sides and talk up the virtues of those we agree with while attacking anyone we disagree with. I just respond to comments as I see them.

 

[MrCynical]

DaviddesJ: it is not a strawman in that I haven't claimed this is the point being debated, indeed I have specifically stated that it is not the same argument. I only threw it in because of an earlier comment in this thread form Malekithe about grassland hills, and similar debates involving him and others, some who have made this argument in the "Slavery, convince me" convince me thread. Therefore it's refutation is of no relevance.

You might claim the comment I made was slightly off topic, but it cannot be claimed to be a strawman. The kind of aggressive response you made, and the still rather defensive (against an strawman I haven't given) second response, are the kind of things which turn threads sour and, as is rapidly happening here, threadjack them onto completely different lines.

Calm down, stop being so defensive about anything which could be perceived as an attack on slavery, and stop trying to argue against tactics you claim I've used, but which I never have and personally dislike. In any long posts there would be comments that lead off in other directions, and the overly defensive can read as a non-existent attack.

To avoid this turning into a complete threadjack, and to stop this souring the thread any further I am not going to respond to any more of this "strawman" rubbish here. I offered my views in a lengthy post, where you have read into one unimportant line a meaning that didn't exist. Stop trying to turn it into an argument. PM me about it if you insist on continuing it.

 

[DaviddesJ]

DaviddesJ: it is not a strawman in that I haven't claimed this is the point being debated, indeed I have specifically stated that it is not the same argument. I only threw it in because of an earlier comment in this thread form Malekithe about grassland hills, and similar debates involving him and others, some who have made this argument in the "Slavery, convince me" convince me thread. Therefore it's refutation is of no relevance.

It's funny that you claim I am being defensive, when you seem unreasonably upset about something you admit is "of no relevance". If the point is so minor, then I can't understand why you object to my disagreement. Anyway, I'm glad that you are done complaining about it.

(What I really wanted was an actual answer to my actual question, I was curious who "those" guys are, since I haven't seen their postings. But now I tend to agree with you that given the ratio of heat to light, it's better to just drop it.)

 

[Wodan]

I think the reason for this is the very early point at which slavery appears, and the generally weak nature of the other civics in this column. What are your other options?

Caste System: While available relatively early this is both a more expensive civic than slavery, and near useless unless you're running a specialist economy (also a dubous decision, and many of the SE advocates insist on slavery as an advantage of it, hence they don't run caste system).

Few cities have enough food to support more specialists than normal buildings or wonders permit the city to have. A couple of cities, perhaps. In those few cities, running caste system can pay for itself easily. For example, in your super science city with Oxford, Academy, etc.

This doesn't preclude you from whipping in the other 90% of your empire.

Note that this applies to both CE and SE. In some CEs, you have your GP farm and/or super science/commerce city running massive specialists. Either way, caste system can be a real good choice, especially if you're past the point where whipping is a good option, because all your cities are so big.

Aside from maybe a little fine tuning of a great person farm, Caste system doesn't really give much benefit to other economies.

Right, what I just said (sorry I should have read your post all the way before starting to reply).

I think there are cases where it goes beyond "fine tuning" though. Not that I'm any huge fan of caste system (I'm not). Just that I can easily conceive of a GP farm with enough food to run a pile of scientists.

Serfdom: Has anyone got a strategy for using this civic? If there's one on the whole panel I never seem to see mentioned, it's this one. 50% faster workers and it isn't available till the middle ages. Frankly by that stage, your workers should be running out of things to do unless you didn't bbuild enough early on, hence a fairly useless civic. At best saves you the cost of a couple of workers.

I run for a few turns sometimes if I switch from SE to CE. My cities are beyond slavery, and it's important to get cottages planted as fast as possible.

A SE on the warpath might find serfdom useful to terraform newly conquered territory. A CE would want Emancipation even here, I think, because the CE might want to plant cottages. Though, if it's late in the game even the CE might want to become hybrid and plant farms instead so he can toss merchants in the new cities.

Emancipation: Available much later than the others, well into the Renaissance, but the first one other than slavery which really seems worth having. For a cottage economy, this does offer reasonable compensation for losing pop-rushing, in the boost to cottage growth. It doesn't offer much to the specialist economy except maybe saving a couple of happiness points if other civs start using it.

At this point in the game, a SE who is on the warpath probably is conquering some partially developed CE cities. Most AI leaderheads don't spam cottages early like humans do, so their cottage maturation lags behind a lot of the time.

The point on slavery I don't agree on is those who argue that it should be your only source of production, and that high hammer tiles are pointless. Picking slavery over the other civics in the column does seem a no-brainer at least till emancipation though, and for a specialist economy, even after that.

I agree with your disagreement.

Don't necessarily agree that a SE always wants Slavery, though, as I hinted at above.

Wodan

 

[Calavente]

Did you know you can whip multiple buildings in a single turn instead of letting them starve?

oups ..


didn't knew about that ..

thanks.

but it won't change that my city would have become a size 4 city instead of a proud 12.

 

[Calavente]

though a good idea per se, it's not working in most situations.
The only way for this to work is to put the culturally overwhelming enemy cities out of business. As long as there is ancient enemy cultural pressure, you won't gain any tile (it would take hundreds of turns at double cpt than your enemy city to gain one tile!).
Those cities will be starving anyway if you don't kill your neighbour.

hmm for me the idea is to kill the neighbour.

when you attack a whole civ with 2-3 stacks. usually the surrounding cities are dead/ or at least they are your some time before the first city gets out of unrest.
and it is only after unrest that the pop goes down.

If take a city close to a 3rd civ, or if you intend to make peace with the former owner, I agree with you that this technic seems less interesting.

otherwise, in the optic of razing/taking all cities of a civ, I think it is still a great idea that might work very well

 

[MrCynical]

Note that this applies to both CE and SE. In some CEs, you have your GP farm and/or super science/commerce city running massive specialists. Either way, caste system can be a real good choice, especially if you're past the point where whipping is a good option, because all your cities are so big.

I suppose you could have up to three specialist cities in a CE if you used Caste system, one with Oxford one with Wall Street and one with the Epic, since you could then run one pure scientist and one pure merchant city. I'm not entirely sure I'd ever find this worth switching away from slavery though. Would be nice to be able to stack a load of merchants in a city with tht eshrine and Wall Street, but Emancipation would be near, if not already available by the time that's built.

Don't necessarily agree that a SE always wants Slavery, though, as I hinted at above.

There does seem a certain disagreement on this. With the higher food surplus slavery should be more effective under SE than CE. It depends how essential you regard running purely scientists/merchants to SE whether yo go for Caste system. Before Education/Banking you'd only be able to run two of each in a city which does seem a bit limited.

 

[DaviddesJ]

There does seem a certain disagreement on this. With the higher food surplus slavery should be more effective under SE than CE.

Why do you think the SE will have higher food surplus than CE? The SE will have more farms, but also more specialists who aren't producing food at all. In some sense, the SE often has no food surplus at all, because you can usefully channel all food into specialists.

 

[DaviddesJ]

but it won't change that my city would have become a size 4 city instead of a proud 12.

A big advantage of Caste System, in wartime, is that you can capture a city, and immediately get cultural expansion in a single turn by assigning all of its citizens as artists, so you don't have to slowly starve while waiting for the borders to expand.