Workers and Slaves

[Leoreth]

So these are two game elements where I have made changes a while ago and that have come under discussion recently. I think they both require further changes (or reverting of changes I've made), and although I addressed both of them for different reasons I think they are related. Let's quickly review the reasons why I made these changes.

Worker limit: the main point here was that it was often too easy to develop your core territory very quickly, especially for later civs with starting workers. I wanted your improvements to develop more gradually over the course of the game.

Slave unit: just to be clear, Native Slaves are just a renamed continuation of an already existing game element, so Slaves are the new thing here. The idea mainly was to give the Slavery civic something more useful and unique feeling than just some improvement yield changes, after it has lost the hurry button. The means of generating slaves were meant to make the civic useful for warlike civs or games.

I don't really want to summarise the criticisms especially of the worker limit again because they have already benn made a couple of times in other threads. So let me instead suggest/brainstorm changes.

What I definitely want to do:
- remove the worker limit
- remove the ability to capture workers

I think with this you are actually encouraged to build workers and have to make the trade off to decide not to build other useful things. I never liked the worker capture mechanic very much, because the AI isn't good at defending against it and for how strong it is.

Other things I am considering for workers:
- workers cost +1 gold upkeep (or equivalent changes to the upkeep rules)

I don't think that's a too expensive while still providing indirect push back against having tons of workers. It also makes upgrading to laborers more worthwhile instead of just building more workers.

Changes to Slavery:
- remove the Slave unit (rename Native Slave to Slave again) and the civic ability to capture them
- Native Slaves from native units remains
- add the ability to capture enemy workers
- (maybe) enable workers to hurry buildings

I think this would synch up nicely with the worker changes. Worker capture isn't removed from the game, instead it becomes a civic specific ability like hurry or draft. It fits slavery thematically and without the complicated solution using an extra unit.

I'm not to sure about allowing workers to hurry buildings because we already experienced AI problems when Slaves shared both worker and engineer AI.

(Possible) changes to Serfdom:
- if extra worker upkeep is implemented, Serfdom could enable to ignore it

Just to give Serfdom something useful in exchange.

 

[borhap88]

I agree with every proposal you made, even with the "maybe" ones.

 

[Imperator Knoedel]

- remove the worker limit
- remove the ability to capture workers

I see you still follow your "one step forward, one step backwards" doctrine.

Couldn't you make captured workers have a lower workspeed?

 

[Mxzs]

Workers:

the main point here was that it was often too easy to develop your core territory very quickly, especially for later civs with starting workers. I wanted your improvements to develop more gradually over the course of the game.

What I definitely want to do:
- remove the worker limit
- remove the ability to capture workers

Given this goal and these constraints, I think start15389's suggestion is the simplest and most intuitive: Increase the number of turns it takes a worker to improve a tile.

The question, though, is whether it unduly burdens warmongers and expansionist civs who rely on worker-capture as a tactic. Or, as you imply, do you just call that the opportunity cost that comes with being expansionist? Sure, you can try conquering your neighbors. But you'll have to neglect developing your core. Same as players who like to quickly develop their cities with health, happiness, coin, and science buildings will have to throttle those back if they want to get the landscape improved quickly.

Slavery:

Native Slaves are just a renamed continuation of an already existing game element, so Slaves are the new thing here. The idea mainly was to give the Slavery civic something more useful and unique feeling than just some improvement yield changes, after it has lost the hurry button. The means of generating slaves were meant to make the civic useful for warlike civs or games.

Changes to Slavery:
- remove the Slave unit (rename Native Slave to Slave again) and the civic ability to capture them
- Native Slaves from native units remains
- add the ability to capture enemy workers
- (maybe) enable workers to hurry buildings

I think this would synch up nicely with the worker changes. Worker capture isn't removed from the game, instead it becomes a civic specific ability like hurry or draft. It fits slavery thematically and without the complicated solution using an extra unit.

I'm not to sure about allowing workers to hurry buildings because we already experienced AI problems when Slaves shared both worker and engineer AI.

I really liked the addition of Slaves as a barb bonus. It meant that barbarians weren't only a threat and/or nuisance. Sure, China could use the Terracotta Army to score Great General points off them, and as one of Near Eastern powers you could sharpen you stick against them. But they were at best a tiresome distraction, and often I felt like the game was just being a [censored] by throwing them at me. As a source of Slaves, though, I actually kind of looked forward to them, though, especially when I thought you'd given us an early Xmas by turning the capture rate up to 100%. So it didn't just benefit warlike civs -- it benefited everyone that you tortured with barb spawns.

Couldn't you make captured workers have a lower workspeed?

Wasn't that a Civ III feature? Or am I hallucinating a memory?

 

[Leoreth]

The question, though, is whether it unduly burdens warmongers and expansionist civs who rely on worker-capture as a tactic. Or, as you imply, do you just call that the opportunity cost that comes with being expansionist? Sure, you can try conquering your neighbors. But you'll have to neglect developing your core. Same as players who like to quickly develop their cities with health, happiness, coin, and science buildings will have to throttle those back if they want to get the landscape improved quickly.

I would agree with that. Expansion should be a choice of playing wide versus playing tall.

 

[Tigranes]

I see you still follow your "one step forward, one step backwards" doctrine.

Couldn't you make captured workers have a lower workspeed?

Why nobody asks something much more simple: if worker unit is removed -- how can one capture it?

 

[soul-breathing]

Now, as worker limit by 1 per city, I find it very slow for some civs which has big flip zone and many undeveloped tiles, such as Arab and America, to build improvements on tiles at the very beginning. It makes Arab and America a little uncomfortable for human player.

My suggestions: 1.How about make captured worker by chance? For example, 30% to capture worker and 70% to capture slave, or 50% to 50%(This is for Arab and some 600ad civs). 2. This way is a little more complex, I choose America as an example. First, improvements on resourses(such as mine on iron, pasture on cow, and road on them) built automatically in American core area and flip zone, when those tiles covered with American culture. Second, All cities in American core area and flip zone get more buildings(same as Amsterdam initial buff) and initial population when they belong to America(also same as Amsterdam, e.g. 6 for Boston, 10 for New York, 6 for Charleston). These 2 ways can slightly buff America, and not make it unbalanced.

 

[FraggleJock]

Would it be possible to have a slave worker you get when you hurry a worker/capture a worker that has a cost of -1 Happiness in your capital city.

if you retain the national worker cap and have these slave workers as an additional available force, it opens different ways to handle the fallout of rapid land development. eg Monarchy+capital units is sort of like +1gpt but not quite if you have vassalage.......

 

[Royal Tenenbaum]

Building a bank should +1 the worker/slave cap

 

[inthesomeday]

I have an idea about the slavery mechanic but it's pretty out there. For the sort of pre-Columbian slavery of, say, Ancient Rome, Han China, or the Caliphates, I think that captured workers turning into a slave unit is a fine way to go about it. However, I think that when it comes to the New World, the current mechanics of slavery don't really show the way that New World slavery operated or the extent of its importance to the development of pretty much every single modern American state.

How I think it should be for New World civs is that there is a slave resource, and this resource can be bought and traded from African civilizations as well as harvested by European colonies in Africa (to simulate not only transatlantic slave trade but also the Triangle Trade, in which the Americas contributed specific resources towards the trade.) This resource would be targeted by some specific corporation, to represent the massive industry of slave labor, which would return gold, production, or resources like sugar and dyes and rice. Then later, as emancipation occurred (through civic change), the resource could become obsolete or even transfer into population growth if that is possible.

From a gameplay standpoint this would also help to develop the wealth and population of New World cities, something I sometimes find trouble with compared to Old World cities, which will synergize with historical play in that slave populations were immensely instrumental in building up the populations and industrial power of countries like the US, Mexico, and Brazil. It could also be used to cause tensions between slave-owning countries and free countries, if it's possible to implement conflict along resource ownership lines.

Historically, slavery was possibly the most crucial economic development in New World states to creating them today. However, it's really underrepresented in-game and usually when I'm playing as a New World state (except Brazil) I change away from slavery as soon as I can. I feel like treating it this way, and making slavery a powerful and important way to increase national wealth and population, will help create incentive to maintain the institution, which basically made the US and Brazil the monstrous beasts they are today.

 

[Zaduzai]

Very interesting idea.

I'm hoping to get in game mechanism which some way or other simulates need to get new slaves because previous ones died. Historically especially slaves in sugar and tobacco farms on Caribbean and Brazil died after few years. So there where need to get new slaves all the time. One way to put this grim fact in game would be that tobacco and sugar slave plantations would last only 10 turns and after that they would lost plantation improvement or turn to normal plantation. And actually inthesomeday idea above would be too solution to need to get fresh blood - no sorry I meant work force constantly in game.
BTW I think tobacco should create one unhealthiness.

 

[Royal Tenenbaum]

Introduce Great Worker points for accomplishing worker tasks.

 

[1SDANi]

Introduce Great Worker points for accomplishing worker tasks.

That actually sounds really cool, maybe they can be used to build a great improvement. Ofc, that would require a lot more coding.

EDIT: Just noticed it'd also buff Cottage Economies and Expansionist Warmongers

 

[Imperator Knoedel]

Introduce Great Worker points for accomplishing worker tasks.

Aaaaaaah I want to make a reference to that one movement in the 30s in the Soviet Union where that one worker exceeded the quota by 200% or something and it started a movement but I forgot what his name was and I can't find it aaaaaaaaah.

At any rate, :heroofsocialistlabourintensifies:

That actually sounds really cool, maybe they can be used to build a great improvement. Ofc, that would require a lot more coding.

You mean like in Civ5? I'm not sure if I like it. What would a great improvement even be? Can it be pillaged? What if you found a city on it?

 

[borhap88]

Stakhanov?

 

[Imperator Knoedel]

Stakhanov?

Yes, exactly, thank you!

 

[1SDANi]

Aaaaaaah I want to make a reference to that one movement in the 30s in the Soviet Union where that one worker exceeded the quota by 200% or something and it started a movement but I forgot what his name was and I can't find it aaaaaaaaah.

At any rate, :heroofsocialistlabourintensifies:


You mean like in Civ5? I'm not sure if I like it. What would a great improvement even be? Can it be pillaged? What if you found a city on it?

I was thinking more like just a more powerful version of a normal improvement. Probably give great person points. Yes I would assume it would be able to be pillaged, maybe in order to destroy it you'd have to pillage it multiple times though, as a testament to the grand scale of the build. Maybe not. Yes, I was thinking like in Civ 5. I would think that if you founded a city on it it'd just be added to the city as a building, you know, the city's build around it. Though maybe not.

It was just the first thing that came to mind when they said great worker.

Other ideas could be:

Able to build improvements at a faster rate and retire in cities to increase the production rate of future workers

Able to build improvements and every worker in the stack works faster (probably the most broken idea)

Able to join a city and make citizens produce 2 production instead of 1 (or +1 production from citizens)

IDK, it seems like while great workers and great settlers would be cool, now that I think about it they don't seem to have a lot of potential abilities that are interesting and/or not overpowered

 

[1SDANi]

On a different note, I've had an idea in my head for a while and this thread may actually be a good place for it.

Workers are useless in a developed nation. I would say it may be a good idea to increase the percent rate of production in a city per worker fortified in it. In order to make it so you can't just build everything in one turn by stationing 50 workers in a city, I'd suggest that it be tied to culture. At the lowest culture level only 1 worker will boost production, and every culture level after it increases it by one. I would also suggest that the first stationed worker will give a standard boost, second give less, third even more less, and so on.

I feel like this idea would give players something to use their workers for after gaining all the land whilst also giving players a way to boost the development of cities that have poor land. Then again, maybe I've been playing wrong and no nation should ever stop building improvements.

 

[Cosmos1985]

Could it make sense that if you run slavery and capture an enemy city, they lose extra pop points upon capture, but you then gain x number of workers, simulating that you capture some of the enemy civilians as slaves? I can see that "stealing" enemy workers may be a bit cheesy, but capturing a city requires some effort and doesn't it make sense intuitively?

 

[Imperator Knoedel]

On a different note, I've had an idea in my head for a while and this thread may actually be a good place for it.

Workers are useless in a developed nation. I would say it may be a good idea to increase the percent rate of production in a city per worker fortified in it. In order to make it so you can't just build everything in one turn by stationing 50 workers in a city, I'd suggest that it be tied to culture. At the lowest culture level only 1 worker will boost production, and every culture level after it increases it by one. I would also suggest that the first stationed worker will give a standard boost, second give less, third even more less, and so on.

I feel like this idea would give players something to use their workers for after gaining all the land whilst also giving players a way to boost the development of cities that have poor land. Then again, maybe I've been playing wrong and no nation should ever stop building improvements.

I'm liking this idea, there has been talk about alternative uses for workers dependent on which Labor civic you run, and this could very well be an option.

I can see that "stealing" enemy workers may be a bit cheesy

I can't. It is a good and logical and realistic feature that should stay. The AI should be taught to do it too and to protect its own workers. This "Oh the AI can't handle it so we will cut it out" line of thought reeks of Shaferism, and even Civ5 never removed worker stealing! Should we remove navies as well because the AI can't handle it? Why don't we remove improvements altogether, after all the AI is so stupid that it keeps bulldozing fully grown towns for workshops?