How many slaves?

[MaxArt]

In a regular game of yours, when things are developed enough how many slaves do you own?

With "developed enough" I mean that your civ must have an adequate number of cities, an average productivity (compared to the times and your gaming style) and your national/slave workers ratio is kept almost constant through times.

Slaves are meant to be captured or created in newly conquered cities.

Also, I'm not referring to scenarios with heavily modded rules.

 

[thetrooper]

About 25% I guess, maybe closer to 50%.

 

[Theoden]

Almost always between 40% and 50%.

 

[iguana1]

I rarely ever keep captured workers after the war is over. During a war I put them into forced labor to keep from risking my own workers during the conflict. After the war I either merge them into cities if I have liberated all of their cities or return them to their ruler as a peace offering.

 

[Gilder]

I get around 25%. I get unlucky, for whenever I go to war, there is not a worker to be found running around.

 

[vmxa]

Hum, well often I will not have any native workers after the game goes to all conquest.

If I have enough slaves to do all the work that will be required, I get rid of my own workers. Usually after I have rails on my lands. Depends on where my support level is. Am I at the point that I have so many cities I have more free support than I have units? If so I keep my workers, if not I dump them.

 

[garyg]

There is no upkeep but it takes twice as many to do the job.
About 75% is actually less than 40% of my work force as far as output.
You need more to get the job done. Lazy foreigners.

 

[mastertyguy]

Depends. I rarely declare war, so I don't have a lot normally, but if someone attacks me, I end up with lots of them. If I get lots of them and only little work (pollution cleaning), I'll end up meging my national workers since slaves are free.

 

[Evil Tyrant]

I usually have somewhere between 20 to 60 slave workers, once I get enough of them I add native workers to my cities, slaves are slow, but if you have enough of them you can get most jobs done in one turn, and as they cost nothing to keep, you can have over a hundred of them without cost, allowing you to maintain a bigger army.

 

[oldStatesman]

I trade (buy) for them as often as I can. Keeping them from the aI who never creates enough workers is a huge advantage.

I try to get as many as possible...they are free which offsets their half speed work ethic - quantity over quality - allowing a larger military. Plus I am not wasting my pop or shields to build workers. If conditions are right I will usually have at least 75% slave workers, often 100% with no native workers at all. (I expend the natives to build airfields and radar towers late in the game to avoid an attitude hit - the aI's get pissy when you disband, trade or expend a slave - small but important factor if going for a diplomatic win.)

 

[oldStatesman]

I rarely ever keep captured workers after the war is over. During a war I put them into forced labor to keep from risking my own workers during the conflict. After the war I either merge them into cities if I have liberated all of their cities or return them to their ruler as a peace offering.

Returning them will get a bad attitude from all the aI including their original civ- even if they are from the same civ you got them from. It's okay to trade or give away native workers, but not slaves. Important if attittude matters to you such as going for a diplomatic win.

You can join them to a city with no problems though - just don't disband them, trade them or use them to build colonies, airports or radar towrs.

 

[MaxArt]

...just don't [...] use them to build colonies, airports or radar towrs.

I didn't know that!

 

[Lord Emsworth]

I just counted in my current game playing (industrious) Persia: 14 nationals vs 41 slaves

Those slaves do not cost any money and they are as good as non-industrious workers.

But normally I think the numbers are more balanced and that is what I voted.

 

[MaxArt]

Those slaves do not cost any money and they are as good as non-industrious workers.

Slaves always work at half speed, whether they belong to an industrious civ or not. So, your slaves are industrious, but compared to your national workers they work at half speed nonetheless

 

[Lord Emsworth]

Slaves always work at half speed, whether they belong to an industrious civ or not. So, your slaves are industrious, but compared to your national workers they work at half speed nonetheless

I meant your slaves if playing industrious (like Persia) are as fast as nationals if playing non-industrious.

 

[iguana1]

Returning them will get a bad attitude from all the aI including their original civ- even if they are from the same civ you got them from. It's okay to trade or give away native workers, but not slaves. Important if attittude matters to you such as going for a diplomatic win.

You can join them to a city with no problems though - just don't disband them, trade them or use them to build colonies, airports or radar towrs.

I didn't realize that returning them to their original civ was a bad thing. I did know that selling them off to someone else or dibanding them was not good but figured giving them back to the orig civ would be a good thing for your rep.

This probably won't change how I play, it kind of goes with my style. I tend to try to be the "good guy", only fighting "just" wars, not violating many treaties/trade agreements, protecting "third world civs" from their big bad neighbors, etc. Sometimes it doesn't take much to "justify" a war or I abandon the little guy to get whiped out and other stuff as it fits my needs or my attitude of the moment but I play the game with much more of a "role play" feel than strictly a crush the world mentality.

 

[oldStatesman]

I didn't realize that returning them to their original civ was a bad thing. I did know that selling them off to someone else or dibanding them was not good but figured giving them back to the orig civ would be a good thing for your rep.

Not rep...attitude. There is a huge difference!

You would think so...but it don't work that way.

 

[truckster]

I generally have about 15%, I think. I've never really counted them. I have have e related question. Do they show up as regular workers when you check your military advisor and sort the units? I think they should show up as a seperate unit. It would make keeping track of them much easier.

 

[Butcher_Bill]

About 25- 50 % of my work force are always slaves. BUt i have played one game( as Rom) were almost all my workers were slaves. Aboute 80 units....

 

[oldStatesman]

I generally have about 15%, I think. I've never really counted them. I have have e related question. Do they show up as regular workers when you check your military advisor and sort the units? I think they should show up as a seperate unit. It would make keeping track of them much easier.

They are not in the regular list...they are in the bottom under "Captured units" in the MA screen.