Proposal for a change to slavery (rebalancing)

[Civthusiast]

It has occurred to me that much of the speed up from the early game is in part due to the new rework of slavery. While it is good that slavery is now far more useful than it used to be in 1.75c (as it should be), it is now far too strong and unrealistic.

The bonuses given by slavery combined with the other production bonuses of the early civics give far too many hammers. slavery alone gives a free slave (3 hammers) in the capital AND +10% hammers. This is the equivalent of having an extra free mine 6 to 10 turns into the game without having to research mining, and without having enough citizens to work.

Not only does it offer too much production, it is also somewhat unrealistic. Here is what I propose to re-balance slavery:

Instead of making slaves a specialist make them a resource. The resource would be received from creating a special "slaving camp" on a new resource tile called a "lesser tribal village" which would resemble a smaller version of the regular tribal villages. This would supply 1 slave resource which would give +1 hammer each. Some buildings would also give access to more slaves (such as the slave market might give +2 slave resource).

I'm not sure how difficult this would be to implement but it would be a much better more realistic way of balancing the early benefits of slavery.

 

[JosEPh_II]

Slavery has been OP for so long. In most of my games the AI may stay with slavery well into the industrial era and beyond depending upon the Leader's traits. When I would've moved on to other Civics long before that.

C2C is finally toning slavery down abit.

I'm happy to see you are pursuing this along with your other thread on maintenance costs.

JosEPh

 

[Civthusiast]

Slavery has been OP for so long. In most of my games the AI may stay with slavery well into the industrial era and beyond depending upon the Leader's traits. When I would've moved on to other Civics long before that.

C2C is finally toning slavery down abit.

I'm happy to see you are pursuing this along with your other thread on maintenance costs.

JosEPh

Yes, well I rarely used it before 1.76, but with the change it has become MUCH more appealing and is practically game breaking early on imho.

I've tried the following changes so far:

Have removed the +10% hammers yield and have reduced the slave specialist yield from 3 to 2. I've also removed the +10% gold yield from the slave market and instead of being able to turn one citizen into a slave (which made no sense since slavery gives unlimited slaves) made it give +1 free slave. This adds extra unhappiness for the use. I'm also debating on whether to have the slaves give -1 food as well. Will be testing that shortly.

The city maintenance is all kinds of unbalanced, still needs alot of fine tuning imo to be perfectly balanced, which is very difficult because to get a feel for how small adjustments you have to play at least 100 to 200 turns of gameplay.

 

[Randomness]

Having coinage be a viable option would be helpful in reducing the power of slavery as well.

 

[Civthusiast]

Having coinage be a viable option would be helpful in reducing the power of slavery as well.

Here's what I've done so far:

Removed the +10 hammer and gold yield

Added a +50% increase to trade revenue instead. I think this is also more historically accurate as the majority increase in commerce from slavery was in high trade yields and the extra trade commerce of the slave market.

Reduced the hammer yield of slaves to 2 per slave and reduced their unhappiness factor to -0.3 per slave.

Made a new national wonder called "slavery expedition" which provides access to a slaves resource, which in turn will allow creation of other slave buildings that will give free slaves, such as the slave market (also removed it's hammer and reduced the gold yield on it). Slaves resource also gives -1 health to reflect the extra food consumption and the unhealthy conditions in which slaves were kept.

Slavery now gives +1 gold yield to plantations, +1 gold to cotton tobacco spices sugar.

It also increases home maintenance modifier by +10 percent

I agree that coinage also needs to be reworked. Is it still giving the permanent removal of gold bug?

 

[Civthusiast]

My current rework of slavery that I'm working on (nearly complete):

Slavery:

* Increases national rebelliousness

* +10% home area maintenance

* +25% gold yield from trade (only trade)

* Plantations give +2 gold yield

* + 1 free slave all cities (broken atm not sure how to fix, currently only gives +1 slave to capital)

* Allows construction of Slave Expedition, Slave Market, Slave Quarters

Slave Specialist:

* + 2 hammers

* - 0.25 happiness

* - 0.25 health

Slave Expedition:

* Requires slavery

* Gives access to "slaves" resource

* National Wonder

* +1 trade routes

* +10% gold

* + 1 free slave

* 120 cost

Slave Market:

* Requires "slaves" resource

* Requires slavery

* +10% gold yield from trade

* +2 free slaves

* 60 cost

Slave Quarters:

* Requires "slaves" resource

* Requires Slave Market

* Requires slavery

* +5% maintenance

* +2 free slaves

* 50 cost

 

[JosEPh_II]

That looks Soooo Much better IMHO!



JosEPh

 

[Randomness]

That looks great!

 

[Civthusiast]

Thanks for the comments.

Its part of the civics rework I'm doing. I am considering releasing an unofficial xml patch when I'm finished with my changes, if it's ok with Afforess.

 

[JosEPh_II]

Thanks for the comments.

Its part of the civics rework I'm doing. I am considering releasing an unofficial xml patch when I'm finished with my changes, if it's ok with Afforess.

In my last EMs with Afforess as long as you give due credit where it belongs he's not going to mind at all.

JosEPh

 

[Civthusiast]

In my last EMs with Afforess as long as you give due credit where it belongs he's not going to mind at all.

JosEPh

This is good to know, I'd love to share my optimizations and changes with everyone. I had originally started out only to make some minor adjustments for balance and I guess the latent designer in me took over and I ended up designing a rework for the civics.

I have been absent from programming for a while, but will be going to school soon (for programming) so this is somewhat of a good way for me to refresh my skill set.

Interestingly enough I looked for a way to pm Afforess in regards to access to the SVN, but I could not figure out how to do it... do i need to be in his friends list? Excuse my noobishness I am new to the forums and their set up.

 

[Rasma]

When you click his name does the menu pop up with the option to send a pm?
If not try composing a pm through the options at the top; My account, private messages, Compose new message

 

[Civthusiast]

When you click his name does the menu pop up with the option to send a pm?
If not try composing a pm through the options at the top; My account, private messages, Compose new message

Thanks very much for the assistance, that worked.

 

[Camarada78]

I like the way this is going but the main form of slavery was conquest and war. Since slavery was very common for hundred of years, i think we need to go deeper:

Slavery (tech)

* Allows the civic Slavery

* Can build Slave Market (with trade)


Slavocracy (tech)


* Requires Slavery Tech

* Reduces change of Slave Revolt.

* Allows the production of unit Slave Maker

* Can build Slave Field (with Slavery Civic and Agriculture tech).

* Allows the production of Slave Camp (with Fascist).

* Allows the production of Slave Commando (with Fascist).

* Allows production of Wonder: "Civilizatory Mission" (with Divine Right).

* Speeds up Caste System, Divine Right.



Fascist (civic)

* same as original ROM-AND

* Can build Bureaux of Propaganda

* Can build Slave Camp.

* Can produce Slave Commando (unit).


Civilizatory Mission (World Wonder)

* Starts a Golden Age.

* -25% unhappiness during war.

* +50% unhappiness for war against "brothers of faith".

* +1 happiness in All cities (with Intolerant).

* +1 happiness from Slave Field, Slave Camp.

* Slave Maker 100% damage

* Slave Expedition produces 1 extra slave resource


Slave Field (building)

* Requires Slavery Civic and Slavocracy tech. Can be build without Slavery Civic with Divine Right tech.

* Requires Slavery tech

* Consumes 1 Slave Resource

* Farms give +1 food, +1 gold, -0.5 happiness

* Mines give +1 hammer, -0.5 happiness

* +5% gold with Cotton.


Slave Expedition:

* Requires slavery

* Gives access to "slaves" resource

* National Wonder

* +1 trade routes

* +10% gold

* + 1 free slave

* 120 cost


Slave Camp

* +20% Production

* -20% happiness

* -10% food

* -1 Health

* +1 happiness with Cilizatory Mission

* Requires Slave resource, Fascist


Slave Maker (unit)

* Requires Slavery civic to be produced

* Requires Slavocracy Tech

* Attack 3 / Movement 1 (+100% attack with Civilizatory Mission).

* 30% Chance to capture enemy units and turn it into Captured Slave (50% versus Barbarians).

* Promotions: Extra % change to make War Slave


Captured Slave (unit)

* movement 1, attack 0 (visuals of a worker)

* Can be added to a city as a Slave Specialist


Slave Specialist:

* + 2 hammers

* - 0.25 happiness

* - 0.25 health



Slave Commando [/B}

* Requires Fascist civic, Slavocracy and Slavery techs, Automatic Weapons Tech.

* Attack 26 / Movement 1

* 50% Chance to capture enemy units and turn it into Captured Slave (100% versus Barbarians).

* Promotions: Extra % change to make War Slave


************

We could elaborate even more... I can think of Abolitionist (spy-like) unit that gives +100% angryness from slaves, destroy slave-related buildings...