Starting work on Slavery Mod. Looking for suggestions.

[patrick.nagel]

I'm starting work today on my first Civ V mod and am looking for suggestions and tweaks as I write the code. I'd like to keep this simple at first--diplomatic options will be added later.

Here are the mechanics I'm adding. Feedback is appreciated.


**New Mechanic**
- Pillage City
- Upon successful conquest of a city, the player may select "Pillage City" instead of the traditional options.
- Pillaging the city will yield a number of Slave units equal to original city population/2 and reduce the population of the city to 1, but leave the city under the control of the original owner.
- Pillaging any city state triggers permanent war with that city state.
- Useful for farming slaves.

**New Unit**
- Slave
- Cities cannot build the Slave.
- Slaves are generated by the Pillage City mechanic above.
- Successfully defeating a unit in combat will have a 20% chance of generating a Slave.
- A Slave may be joined to any city for an instant 1 population growth.
- A Slave may be sacrificed in any city containing the coliseum improvement for 10 turns of +5 happiness.

**Social Policy Changes**
- Freedom
- Adopting the Freedom SP tree will disable the Pillage City option and adjust the combat spawn rate of Slave units to 0%
- Freedom provides double beakers in all cities.
- Adopting Freedom triggers an instant Golden Age.


**Civilization Changes**
- Aztec Unique Ability
- Every slave sacrificed provides +5 culture.
- Slaves may be sacrificed in any city, regardless of improvements.

Sound balanced?

 

[Sonereal]

Sounds interesting.

I would lower the happiness bonus to +3 for sacrificing inside cities but tweak the Roman UA so that its +5.

So, what do slaves do? Build improvements faster? Any small chance of "slave escapes"?

 

[patrick.nagel]

Sounds interesting.

I would lower the happiness bonus to +3 for sacrificing inside cities but tweak the Roman UA so that its +5.

So, what do slaves do? Build improvements faster? Any small chance of "slave escapes"?

The idea is that the Slave isn't a super-worker. It can't construct tile improvements, but can work city tiles by joining it to the city for the 1 pop growth.

I was shooting for a way to allow ancient civs to grow massive and stay happy through use of the Slave unit.

I've been thinking about a "Slave Revolt" feature, where barbarians start spawning adjacent to cities if too many Slave units are joined to the city, but I'm not sure how to program that yet.

 

[Sonereal]

Maybe you should add an emancipation option for a slave unit so that there's a 50/50 chance of the slave either disappearing or becoming a worker but with a temporary happiness bonus either way.

Settling a slave in a city could create some extra unhappiness for population or something. Right now there seems to be a lot of options already for happiness (sacrificng slaves and if you go with the emancipation idea, that as well) so some unhappiness for forced labor in cities doesn't seem out of line.

 

[Moss]

Moderator Action: Moved to C&C forum.

 

[Decimatus]

I like it. Also, maybe an invisivle slaver unit that can sneak behind enemy lines and enslave workers and settlers.

Need it for my CtP project.

 

[jackdhammer]

I think that it would be cool if they did contribute to construction or something. If you think of Rome and how they used slaves to construct their buildings in record time.

Maybe if while in a cities borders they added a very small bonus to wonder construction but also consumed food. Or something similar so that you couldnt just farm slaves and stack them in a city border.
Pretty cool Idea though.

 

[Tabris]

Maybe they could Hurry Building, but only for a few hammers?

 

[Optimizer]

I am sketching on a social policy mod where Aristocracy and Republic exclude each other. Slavery could be one aspect of Aristocracy.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=381895

Why has some societies have slavery? There has been many reasons, but mainly it was because labor was a scarce resource, while there was plenty of land. The ruling class needed to control their workforce, so they didn't leave their masters to settle somewhere else.

In Europe, slavery was abolished in the Middle Ages, as most land had been settled. Eastern Europe had serfdom well into the Early Modern Age. The Southern USA kept slavery until the civil war mainly because of the same reason.

Slavery should give an advantage to small cities with plenty of unused land. In my Civ 4 mod, I made Slavery provide a food bonus.

 

[Chibiabos]

Maybe, instead of joining a city, a slave could be adjoined to it in a special category, add +1 food (as farm labor whose own rations are very meager), +1 production (working in a factory) or +1 gold (forced service labor). If a city starts getting too many slaves, maybe there should be the chance for a slave revolt in which buildings are destroyed (they are rather expensive to build aren't they? ) and/or maybe improvements around the city. A unit garrisoned in the city might allow for more slaves-to-citizens before such a revolt takes place.

Or, possibly, slaves could be made to work tiles, adding to an existing improvement -- farms would get +1 food, markets +1 gold, mines +1 hammer. They should not be allowed to enhance the science or cultural tile improvements made by great scientists or artists (but maybe they could add food to the tile those improvements are on anyway).

 

[Erfeo]

I am sketching on a social policy mod where Aristocracy and Republic exclude each other. Slavery could be one aspect of Aristocracy.

That wouldnt make much sense, the Romans are the prime example of a republic/liberty civ, but they used slaves a lot. Then again the Romans were just as much an aristocracy as they were a republic

 

[SolkaTruesilver]

Any news from this mod? Is it going to be published soon?

I can't wait to sent my Aztec armies on raiding expedition, bringing back dozens of slave... (for +60 culture.. yush, not much. Eh, still funny)

 

[patrick.nagel]

Estimated release date is mid November.

 

[killmeplease]

very interesting.
could you report your progress here please?

settling slaves is maybe too overpowered but hurrying buildings sounds great. maybe +10-20 hammers would be ok.

settled slaves should work with -1 productivity imo (with minimum of 1, so 2 hammers from mine, 1 food 1 hammer from forest etc). so it would be effective to run slaves only in small cities where population cant work all surrounding tiles. also slave settling should create unhappiness and slave revolt chanse. on city screen slaves working on surrounding tiles and slave specialists should be marked by different color and/or by cuffs icon.

 

[Kruelgor]

I made a CiV III mod a while back and I had slaves, but I also had a required building called Slave Camp. The Slave Camp would cause 1 unhappy face in the city, but would increase production in that city.

 

[Louis XXIV]

I'm starting work today on my first Civ V mod and am looking for suggestions and tweaks as I write the code. I'd like to keep this simple at first--diplomatic options will be added later.

Here are the mechanics I'm adding. Feedback is appreciated.


**New Mechanic**
- Pillage City
- Upon successful conquest of a city, the player may select "Pillage City" instead of the traditional options.
- Pillaging the city will yield a number of Slave units equal to original city population/2 and reduce the population of the city to 1, but leave the city under the control of the original owner.
- Pillaging any city state triggers permanent war with that city state.
- Useful for farming slaves.

I would change the name to "Sack city". The question is if you could simply conquer the city again next turn.

**New Unit**
- Slave
- Cities cannot build the Slave.
- Slaves are generated by the Pillage City mechanic above.
- Successfully defeating a unit in combat will have a 20% chance of generating a Slave.
- A Slave may be joined to any city for an instant 1 population growth.
- A Slave may be sacrificed in any city containing the coliseum improvement for 10 turns of +5 happiness.

Ideally, the slave population should require half as much food or something, but I don't see how it's possible to implement that. I'd definitely say this is balanced. It might even be a tad underpowered (but that's not a bad thing, there's no harm in being cautious with a new feature).

**Social Policy Changes**
- Freedom
- Adopting the Freedom SP tree will disable the Pillage City option and adjust the combat spawn rate of Slave units to 0%
- Freedom provides double beakers in all cities.
- Adopting Freedom triggers an instant Golden Age.

Not bad, although I wonder if the Golden Age is a bigger change (you could simply ignore the slavery feature and it will still be extremely useful). Considering no one goes with Autocracy, this might be too much.

**Civilization Changes**
- Aztec Unique Ability
- Every slave sacrificed provides +5 culture.
- Slaves may be sacrificed in any city, regardless of improvements.

Sounds good.

 

[SolkaTruesilver]

Don't make an "integrated slave" a simple +1 population. Rather, make it increase the food reserve by.. err... 30?

Also, we need a mechanic regarding slave revolt, that's for sure. You need to have a healthy slave number in your empire if you want to avoid backdrafts.

Hmm.. we could replace one of the Social Policy tree to include Slavery. A high Slavery notice would be something like the Roman society: a slave is eventually freed, and can become a citizen in his full right. That would decrease the caused by slaves.

Okay, I'm at lost wits about what could be the caused by too much slavery. I want something nice. Maybe a random event that causes [X]% of slaves integrated in your cities revolt around your empire, causing each of those cities to be reduced by [Y] population (where Y is a number in function of how many slaves you have integrated). The revolted slaves are weak, but numerous military units that are of your level of technology. Be careful, these slaves can span a Great General like Spartacus!

 

[evanbgood]

An interesting idea, but I would think it might work better to make the slave generation an event, rather than a unit. Otherwise, the player would end up spending a great deal of time dragging dozens of slaves back to their cities.
If, instead, pillaging resulted in the option of generating slave builders (hammer production), servants (extra population), or something else in the nearest city, it would help to streamline the process. There could also be the option of ransom, or converting them into a worker unit.
Just some thoughts!

 

[patrick.nagel]

An interesting idea, but I would think it might work better to make the slave generation an event, rather than a unit. Otherwise, the player would end up spending a great deal of time dragging dozens of slaves back to their cities.
If, instead, pillaging resulted in the option of generating slave builders (hammer production), servants (extra population), or something else in the nearest city, it would help to streamline the process. There could also be the option of ransom, or converting them into a worker unit.
Just some thoughts!

The input is appreciated. I will say that it is strangely satisfying to sack a city and watch a pile of slaves march back to your coliseums, and it's a bona-fide emotional event to watch your capital get sacked and see your citizens enslaved.

 

[killmeplease]

“The greatest happiness is to scatter your enemy, to drive him before you, to see his cities reduced to ashes, to see those who love him shrouded in tears, and to gather into your bosom his wives and daughters.”

Gengis Khan