Slavery....convince me

[yavoon]

I've read the previous slavery threads. Aside from a bug involving modifiers from forges and so on, that was removed in Warlords, I couldn't find the rigourous proof you claim (and again are unwilling or incapable of presenting). They still suffered from the issue that they examined small time spans, and neglected the population stagnating effect of using slavery as a primary production source.

As to your comment about quibbling over numbers, proper analysis of the maths involved is important to examining these cases and you using numbers which are; a) guesses and b) significantly wrong, is not helping. I am open to a rigourous proof of whether slavery or non-slavery is better as a primary production source. I have expressed, and backed up, my view that the earlier discussion in this thread is flawed by operating over too short a timespan. If someone has a rigourous demonstration that slavery is superior, allowing for that query I've made, I would be pleased to see it.

ok I'll try a few more times, first my numbers are not significantly wrong, and they dont change the conclusion at all.

second the population stagnation is a complete myth. and again, in my example it is very easy to see the myth. sans ur hills and sans my farms we produce the EXACT SAME FOOD, if I use the food from my farms to whip and u use the hammers from ur hills to produce, u will not be one iota bigger than me in size(worked non hill tiles), ever. it is mathematically impossible.

like I said, if u have some abstract thought ability u can work out the problem.

 

[MrCynical]

I have used the example presented by Malekithe to demonstrate that the non-slavery case grows while the slavery case does not, for an equal production output and a cottage output that in the long term is greater than the slavery example. I have stuck to maths there to deal with facts rather than debatable issues. I made an error with granaries which you have pointed out, and I thank you for that, but when I allowed for it I still reached the same conclusion.

Please, give me a properly presented example, which doesn't suffer from the short time span problem I highlighted. Malekithe has presented one you could use as a starting point, but please present any properly worked example to demonstrate your point, not vague descriptions.

second the population stagnation is a complete myth. and again, in my example it is very easy to see the myth. sans ur hills and sans my farms we produce the EXACT SAME FOOD, if I use the food from my farms to whip and u use the hammers from ur hills to produce, u will not be one iota bigger than me in size(worked non hill tiles), ever. it is mathematically impossible.

As an example, this lacks rigour, because you've forgotten that grassland hills produce food as well as hammers. This food can therefore go to city growth, while retaining the same production as the slavery case. In any case as you have made clear, food and hammers are not 1:1 interchangeable.

 

[yavoon]

As an example, this lacks rigour, because you've forgotten that grassland hills produce food as well as hammers. This food can therefore go to city growth, while retaining the same production as the slavery case. In any case as you have made clear, food and hammers are not 1:1 interchangeable.

my example is meant for ease of use, its also true that slavers don't use grassland farms for production, they use cottages. so in essence I used the inferior tile on both cases.

grassland hills help ppl who dont want to slave whip, but the reason they help is they produce food. which is superior. which helps my case.

like I said, the example is meant to be simple so the clever ppl can take it and work it out. there are thousands of other considerations in game. happiness cap, war weariness, emergency production, newly captured cities, all of which help slavery. so I'm really leaving out a whole lot that could help me just to keep it simple.

 

[MrCynical]

Yavoon, I have now asked you on a number of occasions to present a proper example. Your above comments are vague, and of dubious validity. They belong to the "hand waving" school of explanation, lacking in both rigour and in your case factual accuracy.

my example is meant for ease of use, its also true that slavers don't use grassland farms for production, they use cottages. so in essence I used the inferior tile on both cases.

Well except on floodplain a cottage isn't giving you surplus food, so whether from grassland farms or not you need a surplus from somewhere. Have you considered presenting some numbers to demonstrate how these tiles are in practice inferior?

like I said, the example is meant to be simple so the clever ppl can take it and work it out. there are thousands of other considerations in game. happiness cap, war weariness, emergency production, newly captured cities, all of which help slavery. so I'm really leaving out a whole lot that could help me just to keep it simple.

...and equally neglects issues such as trade route production, unhappiness due to whipping and so on, to say nothing of the population growth issue I have repeatedly queried you about, and received no remotely adequate response. Your example is not so much simple as vague to the point of non-existence, and I'm not at all impressed by your persistent veiled insults on the lines of "a clever person would understand it" when you present an extremely vague explanation completely lacking in any substance to understand. So go with your veiled insults; assume I'm stupid, and spell out every last detail of your argument. I'm not interested in simple. Present as complicated an example as you like, but be specific. Rather than hinting you have the perfect explanation, but no one would be stupid enough to require it, try actually presenting the explanation you have so far been unwilling or incpable of giving. Analysis requires numbers, not the inaccurate hand waving style responses you've been giving me.

 

[yavoon]

Yavoon, I have now asked you on a number of occasions to present a proper example. Your above comments are vague, and of dubious validity. They belong to the "hand waving" school of explanation, lacking in both rigour and in your case factual accuracy.



Well except on floodplain a cottage isn't giving you surplus food, so whether from grassland farms or not you need a surplus from somewhere. Have you considered presenting some numbers to demonstrate how these tiles are in practice inferior?



...and equally neglects issues such as trade route production, unhappiness due to whipping and so on, to say nothing of the population growth issue I have repeatedly queried you about, and received no remotely adequate response. Your example is not so much simple as vague to the point of non-existence, and I'm not at all impressed by your persistent veiled insults on the lines of "a clever person would understand it" when you present an extremely vague explanation completely lacking in any substance to understand. So go with your veiled insults; assume I'm stupid, and spell out every last detail of your argument. I'm not interested in simple. Present as complicated an example as you like, but be specific. Rather than hinting you have the perfect explanation, but no one would be stupid enough to require it, try actually presenting the explanation you have so far been unwilling or incpable of giving. Analysis requires numbers, not the inaccurate hand waving style responses you've been giving me.

surplus food is a red herring. a cottage gives u 2 food, that is better than 1 food and worse than 3 food, and really ur complaining about where excess food is going to come from and ur the person using hills? hahah. this is as much a red herring as ur stagnation myth and ur attempts to complain about the food/hammer ratio.

ur trying to draw me into the trees, when all we need is to look at the forest, which is why this thread has dragged on as it is. its really not even a contest in-game terms that slavery is more powerful. I'm just trying to give ppl a tool that they can start to realize that.

 

[MrCynical]

As so you drop from the vague and content free argument to the lowest of the low in terms of debate:

its really not even a contest in-game terms that slavery is more powerful

No qualifiers, no explanation, no numbers, not even the remotest effort at explanation. Merely an "it's obviously right because I say so".

ur trying to draw me into the trees, when all we need is to look at the forest

Irrelevant analogy. Such padding does not hide the near total lack of content of your posts.

Does anyone capable of stringing together a coherent argument have a response to my query regarding the timespan issue in Malekithe's example? I don't particularly care whether I'm proved to be right or wrong on this issue, but I would like someone to at least have a decent attempt at responding to my query. Oddly enough Yavoon, I'm interested to know whether or not slavery is the most effective primary production source, and just because I feel there is an error in an argument presented for slavery does not mean I'm biased against it.

Yavoon, don't waste either my time or yours my posting any more of the vacuous rubbish above. A) numbers, B) details. These are not complicated requirements for a useful post.

 

[yavoon]

As so you drop from the vague and content free argument to the lowest of the low in terms of debate:



No qualifiers, no explanation, no numbers, not even the remotest effort at explanation. Merely an "it's obviously right because I say so".



Irrelevant analogy. Such padding does not hide the near total lack of content of your posts.

Does anyone capable of stringing together a coherent argument have a response to my query regarding the timespan issue in Malekithe's example? I don't particularly care whether I'm proved to be right or wrong on this issue, but I would like someone to at least have a decent attempt at responding to my query. Oddly enough Yavoon, I'm interested to know whether or not slavery is the most effective primary production source, and just because I feel there is an error in an argument presented for slavery does not mean I'm biased against it.

Yavoon, don't waste either my time or yours my posting any more of the vacuous rubbish above. A) numbers, B) details. These are not complicated requirements for a useful post.

ur complaining about things I've already conceded to. its possible u want to be arguing w/ someone else. like I already said, other threads have done this in rigorous detail. I was merely trying to give smart ppl a tool that could start them on the road to understanding the superiority of slavery. I tore apart some of ur more blatant myths, but ur right I dont want to go into gigantic detail, because its already been done.

so plz, for ur own sanity stop trying to whine and ***** me into doing something I said from the start I had no interest in doing. maybe u just like to hear urself flame, because I mean why read my posts that explicitly say what I will and will not explain and continue to cry like a child that I'm not doing something I already said I wouldn't?

 

[malekithe]

Okay, so I've been asked to draw out my example for an additional 10 turns. This, of course, assumes you've not yet grown to your happiness cap. For the sake of argument, we'll assume a happiness cap of 7. If you'd like to make this 8 or 9, then we could, but it would change the way both cases are managed (without substantially changing the conclusions that could be drawn).

Before I jump into the specific examples and the overly complicated charts, I'd like to repeat the principle that ensures that, in low(ish) pop scenarios with a food surplus that outstrips the available hills, slavery is better able to convert excess food into hammers. If you'd like that excess food to go into growth instead, that's fine, but in either case you'll be sacrificing some degree of hammer output in order to acheive that growth. For whipping, you'd whip less often; for non-whipping, you'd spend time working farms instead of mines.

So, the whipped case...

This was very straight-forward. The only real rule behind it was to always work the highest food tiles available. Since those are often grassland-cottages, so much the better. It's running at a 5-food surplus the entire time. This comes from the center tile (+2), a floodplain cottage (+1), and a 4-food tile (+2, unirrigated rice).

Turn	FoodBar	Pop	Food	Hammers	Cottages
0	16/26	3	5	90	2
1	21/26	3	5	0	2
2	13/28	4	5	0	3
3	18/28	4	5	0	3
4	23/28	4	5	0	3
5	14/30	5	5	0	4
6	19/30	5	5	0	4
7	24/30	5	5	0	4
8	29/30	5	5	0	4
9	19/32	6	5	0	5
10	24/26	3	5	90	2
11	16/28	4	5	0	3
12	21/28	4	5	0	3
13	26/28	4	5	0	3
14	17/30	5	5	0	4
15	22/30	5	5	0	4
16	27/30	5	5	0	4
17	17/32	6	5	0	5
18	22/32	6	5	0	5
19	27/32	6	5	0	6
20	16/34	7	-	-	-

SUM				180	73

So, in order to get an output of 180 hammers, 73 turns could be spent working cottages. Not too shabby.

Now, the non-whipped case.

This is a little more complicated from a tile management perspective. I had to throw in a plains hill in order for the simultaneous goals of growth and an equivalent hammer output to be realized. Note that this is now requiring 4 hills, a plot that would oft-times be better suited for a production city. Specifically, we now have enough hills to fully consume our food surplus, that is one of the distinguishing characteristics of a production city. I'll just throw the chart up first and explain the tile usage afterwards.

Turn	FoodBar	Pop	Food	Hammers	Cottages
0	16/32	6	5	0	5
1	21/32	6	5	0	5
2	26/32	6	5	0	5
3	31/32	6	1	10	2
4	16/34	7	0	13	2
5	16/34	7	0	13	2
6	16/34	7	0	13	2
7	16/34	7	0	13	2
8	16/34	7	0	13	2
9	16/34	7	0	13	2
10	16/34	7	0	9	4
11	16/34	7	0	9	4
12	16/34	7	0	9	4
13	16/34	7	0	9	4
14	16/34	7	0	9	4
15	16/34	7	0	9	4
16	16/34	7	0	9	4
17	16/34	7	0	9	4
18	16/34	7	0	9	4
19	16/34	7	0	9	4
20				-	-

SUM				178	69

There are 3 distinct phases in the tile utilization patterns above. To start out, they're trying to grow as quickly as possible, working all available food tiles and cottages (similar to the whipped case). One turn is spent transitioning to the next phase. During this transition, I'm working the floodplain, 2 grass-mines, 1 plains-mine, the 4-food tile, and a cottage. This give a surplus food of 1 and ensures that the two examples end at the same point in the food bar. After securing the growth to 7, the city begins spitting out as many hammers as possible, working all available mines and food tiles (3 grass-mines, 1 plains-mine, 1 floodplain, 1 4-food, 1 cottage). During the last phase, we've laid off the mines a bit (no longer working the plains-mine) in order to spend time working more cottages.

After all was said and done, the whipped case had higher output in both hammers and commerce (and received those hammers sooner).

 

[MrCynical]

Glad to see someone with some numbers .

I'm not sure quite I agree with your numbers for the non-slavery case, though when I run it through I do come out on the slavery side (I made a mistake with that floodplain cottage on my first run through). Can I run mine by you, and see if you can spot any errors?

OK, first phase (turn 1-3) I use the floodplain cottage, 4 grassland cottage, and the 4 food tile. With the 2 food from the city tile that's a 5 food surplus, so the population grows to 7 after turn 3. Second phase (turn 4-6), I keep using the same setup as above, with one extra grassland cottage, and grow to size 8 after turn 6. At size eight I then switch to using 5 grassland hills, a grassland cottage, the four food tile, and the floodplain cottage. This is phase three (turn 7-19). For turn 20, I then switch to using 8 grassland cottages.

Turn FoodBar Pop Food Hammers Cottages
0 16/32 6 5 0 5
1 21/32 6 5 0 5
2 26/32 6 5 0 5
3 31/32 6 5 0 5
4 20/34 7 5 0 6
5 25/34 7 5 0 6
6 30/34 7 5 0 6
7 18/34 8 0 15 2
8 18/34 8 0 15 2
9 18/34 8 0 15 2
10 18/34 8 0 15 2
11 18/34 8 0 15 2
12 18/34 8 0 15 2
13 18/34 8 0 15 2
14 18/34 8 0 15 2
15 18/34 8 0 15 2
16 18/34 8 0 15 2
17 18/34 8 0 15 2
18 18/34 8 0 15 2
19 18/34 8 0 0 8
20 - -

SUM 180 70

That gives a slightly better total, though still behind the slavery numbers. I'm aware I've slightly gone outside the criteria with there being an unlimited number of grassland hills available, and assuming the happiness limit is above 7, but the fixed nature of the terrain in this example as I've said concerns me. Doesn't matter anyway as they're still behind the slavery numbers. Would it make a difference either way if there were more hills, or more high food tiles available? Again the timespan is very short compared to a game, restricting the growth on the non-slavery side. I'd expect at some point with higher population there'd be a cross-over where non-slavery becomes better. Running even longer trials will be a pain, so I'll set up a spreadsheet rather than doing it manually, but it's getting late here so it can wait.

 

[Wodan]

I think it is often easy to compare two play styles as long as they start from the same condition and do the same things in game in terms of wars and capturing cities. Look at the comparative game I played with Sisiutil's ALC 7 Here: see Post 432 . There I compared running Slavery (my way from 720AD to 1530) with Sisiutil running Slavery (720 to 1140) and Caste System (from 1140 until 1530). Over that period I was using the whip aggressively and Sisiutil was less aggressive and then with Caste System lost the ability to whip in favour of free choice of specialists. In that comparative game I tried very hard to accomplish the same military achievements (take the same cities) and was successful and at the same time I researched the same techs (at least). That allowed my version of the SE to be compared with Sisiutil's (who was advised by many other players). It was relatively easy (and not difficult as you assert) to compare the overall effects of running the economy in these two different ways and to draw valid conclusions from that comparison.

A sample set of ONE? Statisticians would say you need a sample set in the hundreds, at minimum, before claiming any kind of trend from which to draw a conclusion. One game may be enough to postulate a theory, but to claim "valid conclusions" and "clearly" shown points as axiomatic facts is a bit much.

Anyway, I'm not disagreeing that Slavery is better for SE than Caste System. I usually do it myself. Only when you get a city which really pushes the boundaries does caste system become a good choice in my opinion. (e.g., a super science city)

Wodan

 

[Sir Janus]

Slavery....convince me

Because it gives +5 happiness - ooops. sorry, that's another game (also you need rubber resource).

 

[malekithe]

I'm aware I've slightly gone outside the criteria with there being an unlimited number of grassland hills available, and assuming the happiness limit is above 7, but the fixed nature of the terrain in this example as I've said concerns me.

In your scenario, I'm actually a little surprised that the slavery example was able to come out ahead. The city you've chosen is a very powerful production spot. 5 grassland hills and a couple of bonus food tiles is more than I get in some games. Specifically, 5 grassland hills is the perfect synergy for the amount of bonus food in the example. You're able to convert the entirety of your food surplus into hammers at the most efficient rate normally possible (once you grow your population to work enough tiles).

There is one caveat to the effectiveness of slavery. When a city has enough hills (predominantly grassland-hills preferably) to fully utilize any food bonus tiles and enough room under the happiness cap to work all those hills, I would recomend that city not employ slavery to the degree that other cities might. However, in a city with a couple of bonus food tiles (say wheat and fish), there's almost never going to be a case in which they can actually put all that food to use except for slavery. Slavery's power is in its ability to convert large food surpluses into hammers without you having to spend population-turns working mines (which may or may not even be possible).

 

[MrCynical]

In your scenario, I'm actually a little surprised that the slavery example was able to come out ahead. The city you've chosen is a very powerful production spot. 5 grassland hills and a couple of bonus food tiles is more than I get in some games. Specifically, 5 grassland hills is the perfect synergy for the amount of bonus food in the example. You're able to convert the entirety of your food surplus into hammers at the most efficient rate normally possible (once you grow your population to work enough tiles).

I was actually quite surprised as well, but now I've tried running it further it seems to be just due to the limited timespan again. 20 turns just wasn't long enough to grow the city to the point where it could use all the hills and a competititve number of cottages. Running for 40 turns, growing to size 9 or 10 wasn't a major part of the timespan.

Turn Food Bar Pop Food Hammers Cottages
1 16/32 6 5 0 5
2 21/32 6 5 0 5
3 26/32 6 5 0 5
4 31/32 6 5 0 5
5 20/34 7 5 0 5
6 25/34 7 5 0 5
7 30/34 7 5 0 5
8 18/36 8 5 0 5
9 23/36 8 5 0 5
10 28/36 8 5 0 5
11 33/36 8 5 0 5
12 20/38 9 2 9 5
13 22/38 9 2 9 5
14 24/38 9 2 9 5
15 26/38 9 2 9 5
16 28/38 9 2 9 5
17 30/38 9 2 9 5
18 32/38 9 2 9 5
19 34/38 9 2 9 5
20 36/38 9 2 9 5
21 19/40 10 0 15 4
22 19/40 10 0 15 4
23 19/40 10 0 15 4
24 19/40 10 0 15 4
25 19/40 10 0 15 4
26 19/40 10 0 15 4
27 19/40 10 0 15 4
28 19/40 10 0 15 4
29 19/40 10 0 15 4
30 19/40 10 0 15 4
31 19/40 10 0 15 4
32 19/40 10 0 15 4
33 19/40 10 0 15 4
34 19/40 10 0 15 4
35 19/40 10 0 15 4
36 19/40 10 0 15 4
37 19/40 10 0 15 4
38 19/40 10 0 15 4
39 19/40 10 0 15 4
40 19/40 10 0 15 4




Total hammers: 366
Total cottages: 176

While I'm not certain, I think that's rather beyond what the above slavery example can do under those conditions. Obviously the city is now stagnant, but at a level with production and cottage use beyond the slavery example. The city could obviously be grown further, at temporary expense of production to bring more cottages into use.

I think this is what was bugging me about the way this example's set up. With only 3 hills at three hammers apiece, then it's fairly obvious that if the slavery example can produce 90 hammers on a 10 turn cycle or better it can never be overtaken on production. As such, it would be impossible to ever produce a case where the non-slavery case would give more of both hammers and cottage turns worked, hence giving a definitively better demonstration.

The problem here is that I don't think it's realistic to have only 3 tiles in a city radius capable of hammer production. If there are more than three (even if they're also high food tiles) the slavery case begins to suffer, since it won't be using even the few hammers on high food tiles all the time. More than 6 hammer producing tiles, and it'll never use some of them. The hammers don't have to be from hills, they can be from absolutely any terrain type and improvement. There are plenty of tiles which generate 2 food and at least one hammer when improved, which would remove the problem of slowing the growth in the non-slavery case to bost production.

In your presented situation (very small number of high food tiles (2) and no hammers except from a small number of hills (3)) I agree slavery is better for pure production, though in the long run I would be inclined to turn this into a commerce city. Once grown the non-slavery case could use far more cottages than the slavery case, at the expense of production which is not all that much weaker.

 

[malekithe]

Alright, I'll take the slavery example out to 40 turns...

Turn	FoodBar	Pop	Food	Hammers	Cottages
0	16/32	6	5	0	5
1	21/32	6	5	0	5
2	26/32	6	5	0	5
3	26/32	6	5	0	5
4	31/32	6	5	0	5
5	20/34	7	5	0	6
6	25/34	7	5	0	6
7	31/34	7	5	0	6
8	19/36	8	5	0	7
9	24/36	8	5	0	7
10	29/36	8	5	0	7
11	34/28	4	5	120	3
12	25/30	5	5	0	4
13	15/32	6	5	0	5
14	20/32	6	5	0	5
15	25/32	6	5	0	5
16	30/32	6	5	0	5
17	19/34	7	5	0	6
18	24/34	7	5	0	6
19	29/34	7	5	0	6
20	17/36	8	5	0	6
21	22/36	8	5	0	6
22	27/36	8	5	0	6
23	32/28	4	5	120	3
24	23/30	5	5	0	4
25	28/30	5	5	0	4
26	18/32	6	5	0	5
27	23/32	6	5	0	5
28	28/32	6	5	0	5
29	17/34	7	5	0	5
30	22/34	7	5	0	5
31	27/34	7	5	0	5
32	32/34	7	5	0	5
33	20/36	8	5	0	5
34	25/36	8	5	0	5
35	30/36	8	5	0	5
36	35/28	4	5	120	3
37	26/30	5	5	0	4
38	16/32	6	5	0	5
39	21/32	6	5	-	-

SUM				360	200

360 Hammers and 200 cottages... Unless you were really attached to those 6 extra hammers, I think it's safe to say slavery did better.

I'm starting to very much dislike the unlimited happiness cap you're giving these cities, though. It strikes me as less realistic than the restriction on available hills. Of course you can find a happiness cap where mines outproduce slavery. It's always going to be true that slavery gets less efficient as your population gets bigger, especially if the largest food surplus the city can put together is a measly +5.

EDIT: Another thing that's bothering me. You speak of population growth as if it's impossible in the slavery case. However, who says you have to whip every 10-15 turns? The mined case took time off the mines to grow it's population. The slavery case can do the exact same thing; lay off the whip in order to grow. You can't, as a point of comparison between the two, argue that your population will grow faster with the mines than with slavery. The difference lies in how they convert food into hammers, not how they convert food into growth.

 

[curtadams]

OK, to make things comparable, assume you have a slavery city and a non-slavery city, starting with all citizens working cottages. How does the non-slavery city produce hammers? By switching one citizen to a grassy hill, producing -1 food and +3 hammers. But, to keep everything equal, that -1 food has to be made up by switching another citizen to an irrigated grassland. So, two cottages have to be sacrificed for 3 hammers.

With a slavery city, giving up those two cottages will produce 2 extra food. So any time it takes less than 20 food to produce a pop point slavery comes out ahead. With plains hills, it's three cottages for 4 hammers and the break-even point is 22.5 food for growth.

With the 3-4 example and a granary, slavery would produce 20/13s, or just over 1.5 times as much production.

Once a city reaches a pop limit, non-slavery gains an advantage in that the slavery city is normally running below the pop limit - an average of 1.5 if it's constantly whipping population in 2 citizen increments. In the 3-4 example, if the city were entirely focused on production, the slavery city would have an average of 2.5 citizens, working 1.5 times as efficiently, for production equal to 3.75 normal citizen, and thus is slightly behind.

In growing cities the advantage flips to slavery because the extra food will sometimes result in an extra pop point around for a while before it gets whipped away. The advantage is smaller, though, only 0.5 pop for whipping in bunches of 2.

So in a nutshell I'd say the non-whipping approach is equal or superior in pop capped cities with adequate hills but whipping is markedly better in growing cities or cities without enough hills around.

 

[malekithe]

Once a city reaches a pop limit, non-slavery gains an advantage in that the slavery city is normally running below the pop limit - an average of 1.5 if it's constantly whipping population in 2 citizen increments. In the 3-4 example, if the city were entirely focused on production, the slavery city would have an average of 2.5 citizens, working 1.5 times as efficiently, for production equal to 3.75 normal citizen, and thus is slightly behind.

EDIT: Actually, nevermind my whole previous criticism. You're looking at a very low food surplus for your "2-pop whip from 4" scenario. If a city can only put together a 2 food surplus at 2 population, I'd say it has no business using the whip.

 

[curtadams]

EDIT: Actually, nevermind my whole previous criticism. You're looking at a very low food surplus for your "2-pop whip from 4" scenario. If a city can only put together a 2 food surplus at 2 population, I'd say it has no business using the whip.

Actually, if you look at my analysis, it *does* have a business using the whip, until it reaches its pop limit. The point you're making is that a city with any substantial food bonus (resources or floodplains) will almost never have enough hills for whipless to match whipping. That's true enough, but a much more complex argument - it turns on how much production you need, which is hard to define or calculate. You'd need to look at lifetime (or at least development-time) production budgets, and that will be influenced by a host of factors like tech level, military unit needs, and location-specific particular requirements (lighthouse, aqueducts, walls, etc.).

If you're going for a conquest-oriented win, you need lots of units and the need to spew military units from almost every city, including flatland cities, practically forces you to slavery (via high lifetime production requirements). I suspect this is why many think on a high difficulty slavery borders on essential, because military is key to high-difficulty wins. If you're a builder, slavery produces hammers more efficiently for a key phase (city development) and often others but avoiding slavery is more like bumping up the difficulty a bit.

 

[Kartik]

Slavery is a useless civic imho I dont see the point in sacraficing half your entire population of a town in order to finish some stupid building or create some unit.

 

[DaviddesJ]

I dont see the point in sacraficing half your entire population of a town in order to finish some stupid building or create some unit.

And you call yourself a "noob". What a coincidence.

 

[a4phantom]

Slavery is a useless civic imho I dont see the point in sacraficing half your entire population of a town in order to finish some stupid building or create some unit.

That's how I felt. I was wrong.