Something I came up with

[PPQ_Purple]

Here is a question that has been lurking in my mind for a while now. I could test it my self but that's a sample size of one, and not a terribly good one at that which is why I am asking you lot.

We all know slavery is a very good way of turning excess population into hammers. Unfortunately it comes with the down side of having to regrow those people which is made even slower and worse by the it generates. However, late game corporations provide you with a means of producing idiotic amounts of food via trade with NO input from your citizens. So, theoretically at least, a corporation + slavery economy could be running cities with zero productive citizens and still pumping out units and wonders to conquer the world. And thus using ity moderation should be an insanely good source of free hammers. Right?

Am I missing something? How well would this strategy work out?

 

[floydmcw]

Emancipation pressure gets really bad once everyone switches into it -- in large cities it can be as much as 8-10 unhappy faces. That's the only reason to switch from slavery to emancipation anyway, emanc sucks as a civic.

In a space race you can whip labs and factories, but once you get to the spaceship slavery can't be used for parts.

If you're warring, whipping a lot of tanks and such is nice. But war weariness + emancipation pressure might be too much to handle.

 

[Pangaea]

Am I missing something? How well would this strategy work out?

I'd say it works quite well >> Space win in 90AD (on Marathon)

Naturally a lot of stuff in play there, but one key ingredient in games like this is to (cold) whip executives under Slavery and quickly spread corporations worldwide. Sushi ensures quick regrowth and soon enough you're working tons of Rep-boosted specialists.

 

[6K Man]

Yeah, Emancipation unhappiness is the killer. Even with Sushi or Cereal Mills, you'll eventually run into major happiness issues. If you can eliminate unhappiness in a city (i.e. Globe Theater, or a ton of Hereditary Rule units) you can whip every turn if you have enough food. Get a good enough city location and you can do that without Corps, even.

BTW, shouldn't slow regrowth, if you plan it right. Always 2 or 3-pop whip.

 

[Nick723]

Am I missing something? How well would this strategy work out?

I think you are missing something. You can only grow 1 pop/turn and so whipping can effectively produce 30 base hammers/turn no matter how much food you have (once you have whipped away all your pop). That’s fairly underwhelming for a late game city (perhaps not an island one). Late game workshops outperform slavery for steady state production. Whipping can of course produce more in bursts.