Using (and Abusing!) Slaves

[jrandrew]

Last Edited 3/23 8:20 PST

I was pleasantly surprised in my latest Lanun OO game to find that Slaves can be converted into Lunatics for a relatively cheap 65 gold. I have Iron Working, and I am running the Slavery civic.

It's not too hard every few turns of old-fashioned "raid-the-nasty-dark-elves" to haul back a truckload of elven slaves, throw them into the Asylum, and come out with a bunch of 9/6 Lunatics. Bonus: slaves retain their racial characteristics after being converted into Lunatics, so the elven Lunatics get double forest movement! Yeah, sometimes they go running off screaming into the forest and get nailed by some Svartalfar stack but it's all in good fun. Sometimes they win and I get more slaves!

The major thrust of this thread is to figure out the other good uses for slaves.

1) Lunatics (via OO and an Asylum) for any civ (and Lunatics eventually upgrade to Berserkers although Rage is a pretty expensive tech)
2) Balseraph Slave Cages
3) Balseraph Arena (if they win they come out as Warriors, right?)
4) Doviello Beastmen to Sons of Asena to Battlemasters
5) 1/2 Value Workers (well workers that are twice as slow)
6) Good old 10 hammer sacrifice for buildings (and you can use the undercouncil to rush buy a bunch of slaves to speed up wonders or other large buildings, tnx popejubal)
7) Amurite Slave Spellcasting (aka the Skellie Rush) -- Back in the day Govannon could teach slaves spells, maybe he still can (tnx ur_Vile_Wedge)


This is all I can think of, anything else beyond this?

Oh, one other question -- slaves that are converted into Lunatics don't get the experience point bonuses from a) civics such as Apprenticeship or b) Command Posts. I would also bet they don't benefit from the Form of the Titan although I haven't verified this. I can see arguments both ways but I kind of think they should get those exp. benefits. After all, the "regular" built-at-home Lunatics do and the "regular" Lunatics are probably the poor/crazy/unfortunate folks from the home city instead of the slaves hauled in from the forests.

 

[cyther]

The lunatics built from slaves don't get experiance because they were created in the field. Units that get built in a city are the ones that would get bonuses like that.

 

[zup]

It is very reasonable for them not to get free xp. They were never trained in combat after all. Just armed, armored and then left to fend for themselves (yes, the reference to the axed compassion civics is intended).

 

[jrandrew]

I would normally agree with the distinction between units constructed in the field (armed, armored, and let go!) not receiving XP and those constructed in a city receiving the experience.

However, I don't think it makes sense for Lunatics. You can't upgrade them "in the field" like the Doviello -- you have to send them to a city with an Asylum. Presumably the poor souls that get fed into the asylum when a Lunatic is "built" normally aren't that different then the slaves that get shoved in there for the quickie upgrade Lunatics. They both come out crazy! The "training" process is the same.

 

[Tacgnol]

The question is, is it worth building an Asylum in a city to use to upgrade them and essentially preventing that city from ever building living combat units. I really don't like doing that to myself, but it probably is worth it since you can just have that city churn out stygs who are technically demons. Lunatics are strong, and assuming you have some cash on hand buying them from slaves is a good deal, but asylums just really, really suck.

 

[Furin]

Granted it is a rare thing to happen, but when you have to get a wonder fast and haven't started yet it is cheaper, instead of completely buying it with gold, to hurry the first "turns" with slaves from the undercouncil and then finish it with gold. I don't know the math behind it, but I have experienced it, bought five slaves that bought another 5 slaves, all within one turn, and after they hurried the production I could afford to finish the wonder with gold, which I couldn't before using those slaves.

I believe it is because the value of a slave is fixed while the amount of money you need to hurry a wonder for is decreasing over time.

 

[Imuratep]

I always considered it quite a pity that soul forge didn't give you extra if you sacrifice a slave in that city. Would have made a lot of sense and would have given the wonder a use.
To lunatics: Doviello being able to upgrade slaves to Drowns or Lunatics on the field would be great and finally a religion which was synergistic with my favorite civ.

 

[popejubal]

Granted it is a rare thing to happen, but when you have to get a wonder fast and haven't started yet it is cheaper, instead of completely buying it with gold, to hurry the first "turns" with slaves from the undercouncil and then finish it with gold. I don't know the math behind it, but I have experienced it, bought five slaves that bought another 5 slaves, all within one turn, and after they hurried the production I could afford to finish the wonder with gold, which I couldn't before using those slaves.

I believe it is because the value of a slave is fixed while the amount of money you need to hurry a wonder for is decreasing over time.

It's because you have to pay an extra penalty to rush a wonder (with $$ or with ) and you do not ever have to pay a penalty to buy slaves which just add hammers directly.

Getting a stack of 5 units to each hire a slave who then hire 5 more, who then hire 5 more, who then... is a very cost effective way to buy a wonder. The neat thing is that you can send out those slaves to improve tiles that are 1 move away from the city and still get them back in time to hurry the wonder on the next turn. I've done that in frontier cities and gotten a ton of "free" improvements along with my rushed wonder.

 

[Ur_Vile_Wedge]

IIRC, Govanon could teach slaves spells. (Last I played the amurites he could, but that was a long long time ago, before the scenarios were released.)

I always thought it was a little weird. "Hmm, lets teach our slaves to summon dangerous skeletons. What could *possibly* go wrong?", but it gives you a vast and disposable force to throw at people.

 

[civ_king]

absolutely fracking awesome