Slavery

[Patine]

Are you that annoyed about the other thread? Oh my god man let it rest
Not that a slavery system and an ideology system is even barely comparable

I was just referncing the other thread as an example. Please keep the discussion civil.

 

[Patine]

Are you that annoyed about the other thread? Oh my god man let it rest
Not that a slavery system and an ideology system is even barely comparable

And the distasteful historical subject matter underpinning the two mechanics are comparable for atrocities and crimes against humanity with a feeling, at the time, of being justified and even, "good." But, that being said, I will be gulled into arguing itt further.

 

[GeneralZift]

Right, anyway. I'm not suggesting to bring back Civ4's Slavery system. Was wondering what people's thoughts are on any Slavery system in general.

 

[Patine]

Right, anyway. I'm not suggesting to bring back Civ4's Slavery system. Was wondering what people's thoughts are on any Slavery system in general.

I think anything but an obliquely implied reference should not, ideally, be included, and certainly not a system that is a net benefit and attractive for a player to embrace over other options. How about yourself?

 

[GeneralZift]

I think anything but an obliquely implied reference should not, ideally, be included, and certainly not a system that is a net benefit and attractive for a player to embrace over other options. How about yourself?

I do not really think it is suitable for Civilisation realistically speaking. But brainstorming it is a fun idea. I know that other games have slavery, and worse, mechanics (aforementioned Rimworld which is a story-telling simulation game). My general idea is that it really depends what their target audience is. Some people can handle concepts like that, and some people cannot.

 

[Patine]

I do not really think it is suitable for Civilisation realistically speaking. But brainstorming it is a fun idea. I know that other games have slavery, and worse, mechanics (aforementioned Rimworld which is a story-telling simulation game). My general idea is that it really depends what their target audience is. Some people can handle concepts like that, and some people cannot.

And the broader market, as a whole is moving away from them.

 

[GeneralZift]

I guess? Again it depends on the game doesn't it?
As an anecdote, you can say that popular TV media like Netflix is moving away from nuanced storytelling. Does that mean that audiences cannot handle that? No. Does that mean there is no demand for interesting complex storylines? Also no.

Same thing applies here. Yes a lot of media is moving away from such things as depictions of slavery. But some media still depicts it. Some media for topics generally received as negative or abhorrent is necessary to outline their weaknesses and their root causes.

 

[Patine]

I guess? Again it depends on the game doesn't it?
As an anecdote, you can say that popular TV media like Netflix is moving away from nuanced storytelling. Does that mean that audiences cannot handle that? No. Does that mean there is no demand for interesting complex storylines? Also no.

Same thing applies here. Yes a lot of media is moving away from such things as depictions of slavery. But some media still depicts it. Some media for topics generally received as negative or abhorrent is necessary to outline their weaknesses and their root causes.

I didn't say TV media is moving AWAY from nuanced storytelling. I said quite the opposiite, especially regarding certain subject matter. And, it is not about what audiences, "can't handle," (which sounds so Glen Beck of a statement), but changing attitudes and views toward them.

 

[Evie]

I don't think anyone is suggesting any past mechanism should be brought back.

There's merely been a suggestion that slavery was represented directly in Civ VI and therefore anyone who say it wouldn't work in further games is wrong. I disagreed.

 

[GeneralZift]

I didn't say TV media is moving AWAY from nuanced storytelling. I said quite the opposiite, especially regarding certain subject matter. And, it is not about what audiences, "can't handle," (which sounds so Glen Beck of a statement), but changing attitudes and views toward them.

Didn't say that you did say that
I thinnk we are in agreement, just semantics

 

[leif erikson]

Moderator Action: Please stick to the topic.

 

[pineappledan]

The Eagle warrior's ability to convert defeated units into worker build charges is a pretty explicit gamification of prisoners of war used as slave labor.

The Corvee and Ilkum policies, and the Mit'a Incan ability are forms of taxation. They are labor performed by people on behalf of the state for a period of time, more comparable to a modern income tax than to slavery.

Triangular trade's connection to slavery is explicit in the civilopedia:

the most profitable and horrific [triangular trade] was surely the transatlantic trade in enslaved people operating from the 1500s to 1800s; engaged in by various nations, enslaved West Africans to the Caribbean and American colonies, cash crops and raw materials from there to Europe, and manufactured goods to Africa. And repeat …

sidebar, why does this policy give you faith on trade routes? Is this some sort of reference to John Newton?

the game lets you pick fascism and communism as governments, and has other unsavory options like 'police state' as civics.

In summary, I'm not given the impression that depicting slavery is actually taboo, it's just that it is not a very fun topic. While the game devs did not really shy away from it, I think they mainly considered whether or not having slavery in the game more than it is would actually be enjoyable.

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

sidebar, why does this policy give you faith on trade routes? Is this some sort of reference to John Newton?

I always envision it as a reference to the African religioun diaspora, such as Vodou, found prominently in the Carribean, Latin America, and Southern U.S.

 

[vorlon_mi]

In Civs 3-5, workers lived on, the same as most military units. Capturing workers in battle made sense; one could even *trade* for workers in Civ3. In Civ1 and Civ2, workers didn't exist; settlers served to both found cities and carry out terrain improvements. Several of those games allowed workers (either captured or native) to be joined to cities to increase their population.

Modeling an enslaved worker in the Civ6 system, where builders have a finite number of charges, doesn't make as much sense to me. In the normal process of the game, I use production (or gold or faith) to generate a unit that DISAPPEARS after its work is done! The main reason that so many groups engaged in slavery (as @Boris Gudenuf described in post #2) was to keep the captives around!

For me to consider either a) a return to "pop rushing" from earlier civ games or b) representing some sort of involuntary servitude, we would need to move back to workers instead of limited charge builders.

 

[Patine]

The Eagle warrior's ability to convert defeated units into worker build charges is a pretty explicit gamification of prisoners of war used as slave labor.

The Corvee and Ilkum policies, and the Mit'a Incan ability are forms of taxation. They are labor performed by people on behalf of the state for a period of time, more comparable to a modern income tax than to slavery.

Triangular trade's connection to slavery is explicit in the civilopedia:

sidebar, why does this policy give you faith on trade routes? Is this some sort of reference to John Newton?

the game lets you pick fascism and communism as governments, and has other unsavory options like 'police state' as civics.

In summary, I'm not given the impression that depicting slavery is actually taboo, it's just that it is not a very fun topic. While the game devs did not really shy away from it, I think they mainly considered whether or not having slavery in the game more than it is would actually be enjoyable.

In Civs 3-5, workers lived on, the same as most military units. Capturing workers in battle made sense; one could even *trade* for workers in Civ3. In Civ1 and Civ2, workers didn't exist; settlers served to both found cities and carry out terrain improvements. Several of those games allowed workers (either captured or native) to be joined to cities to increase their population.

Modeling an enslaved worker in the Civ6 system, where builders have a finite number of charges, doesn't make as much sense to me. In the normal process of the game, I use production (or gold or faith) to generate a unit that DISAPPEARS after its work is done! The main reason that so many groups engaged in slavery (as @Boris Gudenuf described in post #2) was to keep the captives around!

For me to consider either a) a return to "pop rushing" from earlier civ games or b) representing some sort of involuntary servitude, we would need to move back to workers instead of limited charge builders.

I always envision it as a reference to the African religioun diaspora, such as Vodou, found prominently in the Carribean, Latin America, and Southern U.S.

The unavoidable fact is that slavery, by definition, has been a dark sin of the history of the human species (shared only with ants), that has appeared in many, many forms, under many names, with many traditions, laws, purposes, supposed justications, and by numerous peoples in every part of the world. It even still carries on despite a formal condemation by the UN and no recognized sovereign nation considering it legal, today (Mauritania was the last to criminalize it in 1984). Prison labour in China, North Korea, Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, the United States, etc., is believed, by many, to qualify due to the shift from penal labour working on public infrastructure, or tasks with no productive value for correctional purposes, to producing profitable, marketable goods or extracting marketable resources. It does not just exist in one or a few highly publicized paradigms, with everything justified, as though by a soulless defense lawyer, as being somehow completely different contrivances. But it is an evil that has always been far inferior, in results to free labourers who are properly incenticizedd, and should never, under of it's many guises (which need to all be recognized as such), be portrayed as any truly beneficial institution in any responsible game.

 

[BuchiTaton]

In Civs 3-5, workers lived on, the same as most military units. Capturing workers in battle made sense; one could even *trade* for workers in Civ3. In Civ1 and Civ2, workers didn't exist; settlers served to both found cities and carry out terrain improvements. Several of those games allowed workers (either captured or native) to be joined to cities to increase their population.

Modeling an enslaved worker in the Civ6 system, where builders have a finite number of charges, doesn't make as much sense to me. In the normal process of the game, I use production (or gold or faith) to generate a unit that DISAPPEARS after its work is done! The main reason that so many groups engaged in slavery (as @Boris Gudenuf described in post #2) was to keep the captives around!

For me to consider either a) a return to "pop rushing" from earlier civ games or b) representing some sort of involuntary servitude, we would need to move back to workers instead of limited charge builders.

The model I want merge Workers/Builders into Settlers, so the "build charges" to build improvements will be represented as part of the settler founding the improvements that pretty much are villages (farming villages, pastoral villages, mining villages, fishing villages, forestry villeges, etc.). Other functions of workers/builders could be done by traders (roads), military and the production queue.

 

[AffineConstant]

In Civs 3-5, workers lived on, the same as most military units. Capturing workers in battle made sense; one could even *trade* for workers in Civ3. In Civ1 and Civ2, workers didn't exist; settlers served to both found cities and carry out terrain improvements. Several of those games allowed workers (either captured or native) to be joined to cities to increase their population.

Modeling an enslaved worker in the Civ6 system, where builders have a finite number of charges, doesn't make as much sense to me. In the normal process of the game, I use production (or gold or faith) to generate a unit that DISAPPEARS after its work is done! The main reason that so many groups engaged in slavery (as @Boris Gudenuf described in post #2) was to keep the captives around!

For me to consider either a) a return to "pop rushing" from earlier civ games or b) representing some sort of involuntary servitude, we would need to move back to workers instead of limited charge builders.

Sure but over time a lot of slavery systems also had the population of slaves disappear, and since Civ takes place over the course of centuries the slaves disappearing could just be reflective of historical accuracies. Besides you make it sound like workers aren't worth building in Civ VI, but of course they are.

That being said I don't think the trade route/workers/etc. system is the most interesting right now. Infrastructure is a major reason for a "civilization" if you will's, economic progress. But it's not modeled very well or interestingly in Civ to date, war has most of the units and tons of tile rules, and etc. etc. But infrastructure has "workers build an improvement, traders auto build trade routes" and that's it. Maybe room for a bit more there.

 

[GeneralZift]

I don't realistically think Slavery will ever make it into Civ, but I don't think that the idea of a slavery mechanic is totally 100% taboo. Even as a mechanic with both benefits (free production) and drawbacks (rebellion).
Again, I would point towards Rimworld in this case. I think also Stellaris has slavery?
There is also interesting gameplay ramifications: greed.
DO you play morally sound by not enslaving anyone? Or do you take a chance and grab workers from other nations, generating contempt and hate for your nation, risking rebellion, all for that extra production to perhaps produce vital infrastructure or units in your war?

This is interesting - but quite dark - and so I reckon it doesn't suit Civ specifically (to reiterate)

 

[Patine]

I don't realistically think Slavery will ever make it into Civ, but I don't think that the idea of a slavery mechanic is totally 100% taboo. Even as a mechanic with both benefits (free production) and drawbacks (rebellion).
Again, I would point towards Rimworld in this case. I think also Stellaris has slavery?
There is also interesting gameplay ramifications: greed.
DO you play morally sound by not enslaving anyone? Or do you take a chance and grab workers from other nations, generating contempt and hate for your nation, risking rebellion, all for that extra production to perhaps produce vital infrastructure or units in your war?

This is interesting - but quite dark - and so I reckon it doesn't suit Civ specifically (to reiterate)

Rimworld is a science-fiction RPG. Not really related at all. Anakin Skywalker was originally a slave in the Phantom Menace. But he also becomes a mystic-warrior with special powers and a destiny to decide of the Galaxy. It's dovorced from reality.

 

[GeneralZift]

Well, if you class it as a simulation management game, then it's not really too far from Civilisation, is it?

Rimworld is a science-fiction RPG. Not really related at all. Anakin Skywalker was originally a slave in the Phantom Menace. But he also becomes a mystic-warrior with special powers and a destiny to decide of the Galaxy. It's dovorced from reality.