SLAVERS!!!

What would you like to see in Freeciv? Do you have a good idea what should be improved or how?
ahfretheim
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SLAVERS!!!

Post by ahfretheim »

In Civilization Call to Power, there are these wonderful units called slavers that enable you to conduct slave raids, which lower the population of the raided city by one, and bring the nearest city a slave who works a tile for half the food of a normal citizen. They also can accompany military units to take slaves after a victorious battle, and can enslave settlers. They are a stealth unit, but can be stopped by city walls, and evicted by military units without having to be at war with their owner. In FreeCiv, they could send the slave to their home city, and have a variable enslaving cost based upon distance from home city and gold upkeep to make this even better! We should totally have an effect set to support slavers, slaves and slave rebellions in rulesets!
Lachu
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Re: SLAVERS!!!

Post by Lachu »

Many years ago I have developed slave patch, which allow to set flag to units allowing to move only inside player's border.
BrentBoyer
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Re: SLAVERS!!!

Post by BrentBoyer »

It was interesting having civ 2 slavers. U had different races and fascism gov. The game always turned to genocide for me, as foreigners protest in your cities when at war. The issue with slavers and religion is no one has the balls to set up the negative aspects of it. I think it makes women upset. Thats right i said it. It did however restrict rapid world domination. u had to eradicate the old blood from the soil
adamo
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Re: SLAVERS!!!

Post by adamo »

Slavery? Yeah, I thought about that. Every form of government has its own advantages and disadvantages. Slavery should be allowed in most primitive (Despotism) or totalitarian (Communism) forms of government. In the other govs, the slavery should be banned.

How would that look in practice?

1. Only most primitive (Despotism) and totalitarian (Communism) forms of government can use slaves.

2. In Despotism, every city might have its own "slaved" citizen, that simply "works for food" (in communism, it might be increased to two "unslaved" citizens per city). These citizens are not counted in overall happiness city factor, nor in any of them (they doesn't care about happiness, luxuries etc.). As long as they are excluded from the normal society, they wouldn't mutiny (protest), as "normal" citizens sometimes does if unhappy.

3. If you want a slave, you simply click at one of your citizens and it will be treated as a slave labour force. You can always change back the slave to "normal" citizen, taxman or whatever.

4. The slaved citizen will work for just one unit of food - not two, like the other citizens.

5. Slaves are not very effective labour force, so you can't gain any bonuses from the tile they work on (you only gain the "regular" food, shield & coin production). The tile the slave works on, behaves like it doesn't have additional improvements (road, irrigation, mining, etc).

6. Exploiting slaves might give you limited (1 city - 1 slave for Despotism or 2 for Communism) boost to the economy, but other civs wouldn't love you for that (if you use slaves, your international status will be lowered: -1 to "love factor" in international relations for every city exploiting slaves). Civilizations with Democracy (American democracy fought for slavery abolition), would hate you even more for using slaves and your "love factor" will be yet more lowered (-2 to "love factor" for every city that use slaves).

7. As being said, slaved citizen is excluded from normal society. That means, it doesn't care about luxuries, army units present in the city, etc. As they doesn't take part in culture, they also lowers your overall literacy rate.


Historical background: it's sad, but slaves were widely exploited during history; most ancient civilizations used slaves to build their empires (Ancient Rome, Ancient Greece etc). In modern times slavery was formally banned, but - in reality - Communism used slaves to build up economy, even if this kind of labour force were not too efficient: for example Stalin used political prisoners' labour force (actually, the slaves) in labour camps all over the USSR; Hitler and Mao did so for their own pupropes.


...all these above are just my propositions; I can realize, that implementing slavery as I see it, would require huge changes in the code. Feel free to critisize and present your ideas.

(if something is incomprehensive, sorry for my english)
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GriffonSpade
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Re: SLAVERS!!!

Post by GriffonSpade »

Monarchies and Republics own slaves too. Serfdom was very much slavery, and the United States is a notable slave-republic. I should think hating on them would relate more to having an 'emancipation' and/or 'suffrage' small wonder if your government isn't Democracy.
adamo
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Re: SLAVERS!!!

Post by adamo »

@GriffonSpade
"Monarchies and Republics own slaves too"

Yeah, I know; historically, there were slavery virtually in every form of government (from Greek democracy by ancient Persian despotism to modern USA), but slaves were mostly used in despotic regimes, like Despotism or Communism (which, in practice, was nothing more than a "modern" kind of Despotism); feudal monarchies, modern republics etc. did that less often. Generally, more enlightened and educated societies were more likely to abolish slavery. Nevertheless, I would restrict slavery to most primitive or totalitarian forms of governments, because it could give a boost of economy. Every form of government must have its own advantages and disadvantages and slavery fits well to Despotism, not Monarchy and Communism, not the Republic.

The idea of Republic and Democracy (and, somehow, even Monarchy) is that you can develop science and culture easier, because these are more effective. The idea of Despotism (and Communism) is that you get a short-term economy boost by exploiting and forcing enslaved people to work ('let's enslave people and force them to work, so we could build an army with the rest and send them to attack somebody"). The primitive Despotism and totalitarian Communism are the ideal governments to conduct endless wars (to conquest - which is an external development), which fits well with slavery, exploitation and conquest. More civilized forms of government are good to develop science and economy (internal development), which doesn't fit well with slavery.

PS. Monarchies (not only European ones, also Russian and Chinese versions of monarchy) didn't need a slavery as we know it from the ancient times; in monarchies, there were a feudal system (serfdom), which was quite similar to the "regular" slavery, but it wasn't the same (I would say the serfdom was a more civilized version of slavery). That's why I wouldn't like to let the monarchies to exploit slaves; after all, Monarchy is a better version of Despotism.
adamo
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Re: SLAVERS!!!

Post by adamo »

As for the point (6), I have better idea now: the more educated society, the less support to the slavery; it might be related with literacy rate.

...when you use slaves, more educated Civs hates you more (more negative points to the "love factor", used in AI international relations), than less educated ones. For example: uneducated, primitive Aztecs with 1 library and 2% literacy rate doesn't care about your slavery, while a developed Spains with 10 universities and 90% literacy rate is outraged for you, which gives a lot of negative points in international relations.

Here's how it might look: every 10% of literacy might give an additional negative point for a civilization, that uses slaves. So 2% literacy Aztecs "love factor" for you is modified by 0 points (they doesn't care), while 90% literacy Spains' "love factor" for you is modified by -9 points (they're outraged).
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GriffonSpade
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Re: SLAVERS!!!

Post by GriffonSpade »

I would actually group Monarch with Communism and Despotism: It's totalitarian. It's more civilized than 'despotism' only in that it's better organized. Serfs were essentially livestock, owned by the nobles as part of the property, rather than just anyone owning slaves. Likewise, Republic should allow slavery, but it's known that many hated the practice. Thus, slavery should probably cause anger in Monarchy and Republic.

So while a city's slave in despotism and communism might cause 1 unhappiness, it would caise 1 anger in Monarchy and 2 anger in Republic. (The peasants are revolting! rule)

Likewise, Slave citizens should never be able to be at any happiness level over 'content' for any reason.

The idea that literacy makes people hate slavery also wouldn't be linear, as slave-owners would be wealthier, more literate people on average. So while 40% literacy might have -1 love factor, then 60% have -2, and then 80% have -3, and finally 90% have -4.
However, this would only come into effect once you yourself have 'emancipation' small wonder(or become Democracy, who would get a happy citizen in every city or something from it). 'Emancipation' might only work under Monarchy, Republic, and Democracy.

Likewise, an 'emancipation proclamation' wonder should make any nation have an extra unhappy(or maybe angry) citizen for each slave. Possibly negated by civilizations with Radio. (Propaganda rule)

A 'civil rights organization' small wonder should likewise double the negative love factors. Possibly even making /not/ having 'emancipation' (if they're also not a Democracy) a casus belli. (Liberator rule)

Having 'emancipation' would increase the unhappiness of foreigners in your cities, but be negated by the 'civil rights organization'. (Civil Rights Movement rule)


How are you imagining slaves being implemented? Using the normal 'citizen switch' used for specialists wouldn't work, as they'd still have to be working tiles. I was thinking more along the lines of a list box that would allow you to ennumerate up to all of your tile workers (save for the exception that you must have at least 1 non-slave population in your city) as slaves. In return you'd get reduced food cost, but be penalized with unhappiness and increased corruption. If you are not allowed to have slaves, it would simply be greyed out. If slaves were capture-only, it obviously wouldn't be changable either.
adamo
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Re: SLAVERS!!!

Post by adamo »

(heavily edited)

Well.. maybe you're right. I give up! All forms of government except Democracy* used some form of slavery (serfdom etc.), so it should be possible for all of them - it should be regulated by related wonders you mentioned (United Nations, Statue of Liberty, Women's Suffrage, radio propaganda, Civil Rights etc), and maybe literacy rate.

* - well, excluding ancient Greece (democracy) and modern USA (democracy), which did use slaves, but let's say the slavery doesn't fit well with the idea of a real democracy

How about that:

1. When you capture the enemy city, you can get the slaves from the conquest (each in cost of one citizen, but there should be some limits, like maximum two slaves from one captured city; obviously, you can't get any slaves from a one-citizen-city, because it would reduce to zero, so the city was disbanded).

1b. You can change some population (citizens) of conquested city to slaves only in the moment of city capturing. Obviously, after that, conquered population automatically become citizens of your empire.

2. The Slave is just another civilian unit (a "Slave"), which works exactly as a Worker unit does - the only difference is that it works two times slower than Worker, but, on the other hand, is not maintained by any city (no home city).

2b. In the contrary to other non-military units (Workers, Settlers, Engineers), Slaves cannot be included (added) to to city as additional citizen (they can't even enter the city tile, see point 7b).

3. If the hostile army attacks others' slave, it doesn't "kill" him, it just "takes him over" instead - he changes his color and now he works for the new power - remember, Slaves is just a free working power, so it's not worth to kill them, if they could simply work for you.

3b. If the army unit that has a democracy (or a civilization that doesn't use slaves for some reason - mentioned wonders, literacy rate etc.), attacks hostile slave, it doesn't simply "takes him over", but "liberates" him (which basically means the same, but changes the enemy Slave unit to "regular", maintained Worker, not Slave, instead).

4. You could gain slaves only by conquest captured cities. There is no way to enslave your own citizens.

4b. Once the slave is "liberated" for any reason (changed to Workers or slaves rebellion units - see point 7), you can't change them back to Slaves, no matter the government you have (Workers cannot be changed back to Slaves in any way).

5. If you change the government to Democracy, the slaves are automatically "liberated" (changed to regular Workers), so you need to maintain them as a Workers (which means, as a regular, civilian unit, they need food).

6. Slavery does have regulated negative influence on international relations (only due to the Democracy or the wonders such as Statue of Liberty or United Nations); generally, non-democracy, non-educated governments, before building such things as Statue of Liberty, doesn't care. Democracy can't use slaves, no matter when, and hates civilizations that exploits them (negative "gain_AI_love" points in international relations).

7. As somebody said in the first post, it would be good make an extra option to cause a slave rebellion (possibly when a hostile Diplomat meets one of the enemy slaves to incite them to mutiny) - in this case, all slaves in the country changes to barbarian Warriors/Militia (in case of ancient times - this action should be free of charge for a Diplomat) or barbarian Partizans/Guerrilla (after discovering Communism in modern times) - this time the Diplomat needs to pay some gold to equip them with guns).

7b. If we allow the slave rebellion, we must assure, that Slave units cannot enter city tiles (for example mining, transforming city tile or cleaning up city tile pollution), to avoid the situation, that the Slave unit transforms to barbarian guerrilla unit just while working on a city tile (that would possibly cause city auto-capture or a game crash).

Historical background: in the ancient times, many armies, except loots and killings, took slaves in the time of capturing the conquered city.

This (slave unit) is not so attractive as the idea I described three posts above (changing in-city citizens), but - as just another "regular" unit - wouldn't require so many changes in the code.
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GriffonSpade
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Re: SLAVERS!!!

Post by GriffonSpade »

Actually, the US would be a Republic (elected officials run the government, rather than run by referenda). Likewise, ancient Athens would be an 'ancient democracy', which sadly is not represented. It would be like comparing Despotism to Communism.
I imagine for rules, it would be something like Monarchy, but with all the restrictions of Democracy. (With the exception that corruption would be like Communism)

Ah, I suppose such Slave units would be useful at the beginning and middle stages of the game.
Interestingly, I think you /could/ do a kind of slave system now, though you'd have to convert your own citizens into the slaves. (Which is something that Despotism, Monarchy, and Communism might do.)
You might be especially brutal about it and allow them to go to other cities and 'enter marketplace' like a caravan...provided they don't have something proscribing slavery. (I forget if that can be unlinked from 'establish traderoute' in 2.5)
Alas, I don't think there's a way you could directly sell the unit and have it put under the other's control.
Likewise, I just realized that I don't think it's possible to check different types of units for how angry upkeep should be used. It'd make it impossible to implement differently without some kind of function distinguishing 'slave' from normal 'military' angry upkeep.
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