When should you adopt slavery?

[reflec]

I've heard you should do it right after you finish your 1st settler but wondering if it's better to adopt earlier and whip your 1st settler instead.
Another thing I was thinking about is if you are going to build a settler at size 3 and only get a 1 pop whip, you may as well get bw early and get in a whip at 2 pop.

I think as long as you adopt before 2nd city is built you should be fine and I might be overthinking, but wanted to hear opinions

 

[dankok8]

Depends on the start. Sometimes if I start with low food or if I had high value tiles in the capital (like Gold or Gems) I may not even switch until much later.

 

[Fine_Distinction]

I've heard you should do it right after you finish your 1st settler but wondering if it's better to adopt earlier and whip your 1st settler instead.
Another thing I was thinking about is if you are going to build a settler at size 3 and only get a 1 pop whip, you may as well get bw early and get in a whip at 2 pop.

I think as long as you adopt before 2nd city is built you should be fine and I might be overthinking, but wanted to hear opinions

Civ 4 is way to complex to have an answer like "always switch to slavery at this point". So you will always get an answer "It depends"

If you want to get a better feel for it, try a couple options in your game - make a save and then try to slow build and whip a settler etc. I mean, reply from the same save trying different options

 

[reflec]

Another question I have about slavery: when you still have unhappiness from a whip and you whip a 2nd time, the 10 turns from the 2nd whip just get added on to the 1st whip, and still total -1 happiness?
I thought I saw -2 unhappiness which I didn't think could happen so I thought I'd ask

 

[AcaMetis]

Another question I have about slavery: when you still have unhappiness from a whip and you whip a 2nd time, the 10 turns from the 2nd whip just get added on to the 1st whip, and still total -1 happiness?
I thought I saw -2 unhappiness which I didn't think could happen so I thought I'd ask

The 10 turns (or more/less, depending on game speed and Sacrificial Altar) do get added on to the timer of the first whip, and the unhappiness from both whips do stack. Basically, a city will have 1 per 10 turns left on the whip timer, plus another if there's a fraction of those ten turns remaining. Every city decreases it's whip timer by 1 every turn no matter how many times it's been whipped or how many turns remain on the whip timer, so be careful about whipping a city a lot, because the timers from those individual whips will not all tick down simultaneously.

 

[5tephen]

Stacking whip anger isn't always horrible though. 50 turns whip anger (-5 happy) to get an army out to conquer a sizeable portion of the map and gain a bunch of happiness resources can sometimes be fine.

 

[ArchGhost]

Another thing I was thinking about is if you are going to build a settler at size 3 and only get a 1 pop whip, you may as well get bw early and get in a whip at 2 pop.

Whipping is a complex case-by-case subject, but suffice it to say this isn't efficient.

If you whip at 2 for one population, you're left with a 1 pop capitol to start all over. If you are improving tiles with your worker like you should be, you'll just be waiting on regrowth before working them again, slowing your relative progress as the city can't contribute again for more time.

Whipping at 3 can be better as it leaves a bigger city, but the time saved is minimal or even nothing (if you can't get to BW + whip threshold of 70/100 before the settler would just complete anyway) but you gain an unhappy penalty and little overflow for nothing but a time save. Maybe.

There's also less overflow from 1 pop whips in addition to having to wait longer to meet the whip threshold. 2 pop whipping at size 4 can be done as early as 40/100 on the settler, which makes up for some of the time spent growing to 4, and leaves you with a size 2 city again. You also have the option to put more progress into the settler which delays it, but allows overflow hammers to be put into something else immediately after the whip, when regrowing or just to more efficiently use your tiles on other workers/settlers (essentially turning food into hammers on them through whip + overflow).

The timing of BW is such that it's usually not saving much time on the first settler to whip it, and even if it does, repeatedly whipping that way as fast as you can might cripple the city with unhappiness quickly too. Unless the tiles you're working at size 3 are very strong, you also risk delaying the 2nd settler/worker too if you whip the first settler, and so on. It's a complex relationship and I admit that I mostly feel it out myself rather than really crunch numbers, but it's important to have a sense of the interaction between slow building and whipping.

There are many scenarios where it can or can't be a good idea to whip, slow build, or chop at a particular size. It depends heavily on the start and how you're able to manage it with the played civ what works best, or certain gambits you may wish to undertake can dictate speed over efficiency (I NEED to take land ASAP) etc.

 

[BornInCantaloup]

Whipping the 1st settler is usually pretty bad, unless you have like 3 corns, whip from size 4 and share the 3rd corn with city 2.
Because when you whip, you lose use of tiles. So, say you spend 5 turns growing from 3 to 4 and then you whip from 4 to 2 and then what ? You overflow into warrior/stonhenge, which is useless, and spend how many turns to regrow ? Well, overall, you're much better off doing your first build at size 3 (while completing improvements with worker) and then growing to 4 (with a better food surplus = less turns).
It's not as much about how fast you get your settler but rather about how much global production you get. If you have 2 sites with pigs, rushing city 2 and delaying city 3 (cause that's
what it does) is a nonbo.
This thing about global production is exactly the same as : do I want to grow another size (work another tile) ? build a settler (claim a tile) ? build a worker (improve a tile) ? Tiles, tiles tiles.

When you're approaching your first "base", i.e. at low tech level, so the first 2-4 cities, depending on the wealth of the land,
The settler you should aim to whip is the last.

Because, yes, whipping gives instant production but regrowth takes time. So, unless you're in that 3 corns scenario, whipping early is usually bad.

The switch into Slavery is a different thing.
If you have Bronze before your 1st food source is improved, you might want to switch immediately.
The thing is : you want to switch at the time your Empire is the least productive.
Often times, that it after the first settler is produced and when it's travelling (so no slowing of city 2). If you're just chopping, it might be after a worker is produced.

 

[dankok8]

What @ArchGhost said, I find to be true. I find myself rarely whipping the first Settler (which is often helped by chops) but the second/third Settler etc. may be whipped. If I have several strong sources of food where it can be done efficiently, I like growing into unhappiness then 3-pop whipping.

 

[Snowbird]

Because when you whip, you lose use of tiles. So, say you spend 5 turns growing from 3 to 4 and then you whip from 4 to 2 and then what ?

This thing about global production is exactly the same as : do I want to grow another size (work another tile) ? build a settler (claim a tile) ?

That is gross oversimplification at best.

So you have two corns (cause you said whipping okay with three corns) and a bunch of hills. Let say there is something like plain cows+horse side nearby (or another two corn or whatever worth settling).

So you whip 4>2 eliminating two mines (cause I think you would actually mine hills, which is move of questionable worth). So compared to working stuff like plain forests... you loose whopping two hammers per turn (okay, 4 hammers since the mines have been whipped away).

Global production wise you loose two hammer per turn and delay another city, which is worth 2f1H in center+whatever citizen works (2f1h for start but should be improved to 5-6 yield soonish). The thing is new city+plain cow is +7 yield global wise, so you need like 7 mines to compensate for it.

Of course, instead of wasting time to build mines worker could be chopping. 2 mines is more time than two forest chopped (which I would typically combine with that whip overflow into another worker). And you know there is no need for mines cause these two citizen are going to be whipped away.

I think for over ten years most people think that early mines and farms (in other words non special tiles non cottages) suck and early expansion is all about getting power tiles (5+ yield - I don't think stuff like dry rice/riverside sugar classifies as power tile).

 

[6K Man]

I tend to adopt it as soon as I learn BW, unless I am close to finishing a Settler. In that case I revolt while the Settler is walking.

My thinking has always been that it's better to swap earlier, because if you wait, you will lose more commerce/production to anarchy than you would when your civ was smaller. I also recognize that early production/commerce is the most important, so being able to leverage Slavery earlier is generally better.

 

[FlyinJohnnyL]

Another reason to switch immediately is because you are so reliant on BUG for whipping, and you'll forget to revolt into it otherwise because BUG won't be telling you that you can whip something...

 

[DigitalBoy]

I try to swap to Slavery after finishing a worker/settler because moving your units is the only thing unaffected by anarchy. Other than that, I'm not sure it really matters exactly when you swap. If you switch earlier, it sets you back a turn in developing your empire. If you swap later, you lose a turn when you're more developed. You're set back a turn either way, so does it really matter? Just swap when you're ready to start whipping is what I think.