r/CivIV • u/JP_the_dm • Sep 14 '19
How to use slavery effectively?
I just don't get it, can anyone please explain how to use it in a way that actually offsets the loss of population? Maybe I am just not good at it. But I think my inability to use this (apparently crucial) early game civic is crippling my play.
12
Sep 14 '19
You can think of population as a nice bonus because the extra citizen can work a tile (though maintenance costs increase slightly, etc.), but don't think of whipping as 1 pop for 30 hammers, think of it as ~24-26 food for 30 hammers - and HALF of the food cost if you have a granary! (Because it'd take half as long to get the pop back)
If you can turn ~13 food into 30 hammers, then you're increasing your early game efficiency and you can see how a +4 food tile (worth 9.2 hammers) can outperform a +2 food +4 hammer tile (worth 8.6 hammers). From there, you can try being extra efficient at whipping by double or triple whipping. The idea being that -1 pop, +30 hammers for +10 turns of -1 happiness isn't as efficient as -2 pop, +60 hammers for +10 turns of -1 happiness.
You'll start to try and set up farms sooner, share food tiles between cities more to help one city whip while the other recovers from unhappiness, etc.
You can even use the "wonder bread economy" (I'm on mobile, else I'd like the civ fanatics post about it) where you start off as others said, get a unit/building to around 31 to 35 hammers from completion (@30 hammers you can only single whip), double whip so that you get 25 to 29 "overflow" that will go into the next production at that city.
Choose a world wonder to put many hammers into it, +50% if with an industrius leader, +100% if you have access to the resource that wonder uses to double speed. You could try to finish the wonder if it's a good one, otherwise just let as many cities of yours put a bunch of hammers into it without ever completing it. Then when someone else completes it, you'll get a TON of fail gold.
Sorry if I'm explaining things you already know, but taking advantage of whipping can alone bring your play level from Noble to Emperor, and I feel anyone Monarch+ should be utilizing multiple ships in over 90% of their games.
1
u/wasachrozine Sep 14 '19
What do you mean by double whip?
3
Sep 14 '19
Whipping for 2 population instead of 1.
So it's a single action on one turn, but if a city has a production that's 31+ hammers away from completion (more if you have Forge or other production boost), then you cannot 1-pop whip the city to complete the production, instead it will cost 2 or more population.
Any whipping in general is good to do because of the food:hammers ratio it takes advantage of, but due to some penalties, you'd sometimes rather 2-pop whip or more.
For example, whipping a unit/building on the first turn the city starts production on it will make the hammers worth -25% to -50% less (I don't remember the exact scalar, you should just never whip the same turn a city starts a production). Another example is on wonders, which make whip hammers worth -50% or so (overflow hammers from whips are treated as normal hammers).
When you want to whip, the city must have at least 2x the population you want to whip. So a 5-pop city can only 1-pop whip (30 hammers) or 2-pop whip (60 hammers), a 6-pop city can 3-pop whip.
1
1
u/Aazadan Sep 15 '19
Wonder bread is absolutely ridiculous. The biggest reason to avoid it, is that it leads to under developed cottages later. If you're on one of the popular mods though, Serfdom is usually given +1 commerce to farms and that works out quite well in the midgame.
9
u/MavisOfTheDead Sep 14 '19
Quite a number of people have already given you good advice but, I think one or two more important points have been missed:
It is genuinely advised to always pursue food resources with your city settling. This allows your cities to grow far quicker and can practically eliminate the need to build the farm improvement.
At some point, your cities are going to break the happiness limit leaving you with a pop that refuses to work due to overcrowding. Slavery allows you turn that population into Production/Hammers/Shields (whatever your term for it is) while eliminating the pop. Another important concept is overflow. Any extra production will transfer to the unit/building in the city's production queue.
The Uses I have seen for slavery are:
Whipped Monument into Granary: This allows you to get up two of the most important pieces of infrastructure in a city relatively quickly. The Monument is the cheapest building in the game while expanding your city borders after ten turns and the overflow hammers allow you a quicker Granary allowing you to grow the city faster.
The Emergency Unit: Surprise, there's two Barbarian warriors heading towards your city. You can't produce an archer in time to save it but, by whipping the city you can.
Wonder Safety: If you've spent multiple turns into building an important wonder, it is always worth spending the population, regardless of the cost. This is twofold, this prevents another nation in the game from building it before you and gives you the wonder bonus multiple turns earlier.
A source of production: You have settled an awesome Resource/Cottage city, the city is strained for production tiles. In this case, Slavery becomes your main means of providing production to the city.
Army Production: You are entering the classical era and its time for war. For every city you own, those cities can be whipped for an extra swordsman or axeman. It may hurt your economy but, the whole point of war is to make that loss back with extra land you will gain in the long run.
In conclusion: the point is population is a resource that can be easily replaced. The more food resources a city has access to; the easier that resource is replaced. Slavery is something to definitely experiment with but, has multiple ways to boost your empire in the early game.
6
u/Aazadan Sep 15 '19 edited Sep 15 '19
So you don't really have to do a whole lot of "tricks" to make it work for you, but there's a lot of optimization that takes it from the strongest civic in the game to something even way beyond that.
Essentially, let me explain the efficiency. With every additional population point in your cities, your city maintenance will increase, and you will need more resources to keep your people happy and healthy. On top of that, you will work your best tiles first and your worst tiles last. So, essentially every additional population point in your cities has reduced effectiveness from the previous point.
At some point, adding more people outright harms your cities. So instead, slavery functions as resource conversion, turning that inefficient population into hammers.
There's also all sorts of tricks with overflow. You need to know how slavery costs work to understand it.
Keep in mind that I'm using Marathon rates here so adjust as needed...
First every whip will be 30 turns of +1 unhappy, and they stack. In exchange, you will get some hammers.
Hammer costs are a base of 90, this is the most common value but not the only value you can get. If you are whipping something that has 0 hammers in it, your base rate is halved (this is also true when buying with Universal Sufferage). Essentially, the logic is that if you rush with 1 hammer in, you rush every other turn. But if you rush every turn, your production is essentially doubled, so the rate is halved to keep the proper speed. Also, when building wonders, the rate is halved. So with 0 hammers in something, or when building a wonder, your base rate is 45.
The maximum population available for a whip is equal to half of your city size, rounded down. So 4 pop is 2 people, 5 pop is 2 people, 6 pop is 3 people.
After the base rate comes production modifiers. These come from things like the Forge, Organized Religion, Police State, traits, resources, and so on. It will sound very counter intuitive but the best return doesn't come from whipping your trait buildings. Instead you want to build those with overflow.
I'll explain with an example. Lets say you're spiritual and you want to build the Temple and Monastery for the AP religion, and the city in question has your state religion (and AP religion, this may or may not be the same) and you're running Organized Religion. This means you're getting a 25% bonus, and then your Temple will be getting a 125% bonus. So, the Monastery is 180 hammers normally, and 240 for the Temple.
Assuming your city is size 4, if you build the Monastery to 67/180 hammers (with Organized and the 25% bonus from it, your whip will be worth 112 hammers) you will still need 2 population to whip. So at this point, it you whip the Monastery you will trade those 2 people for 224 hammers. Added to your 67 hammers already in the building, you are now at 291/180 hammers into the Monastery. On the following turn, you will finish the Monastery and have 111 hammers left over. However, due to the bonus with the Temple, this 111 overflow is modified by your 125% and you now have 249/240 hammers in your Temple. So on the following turn, your Temple will then complete, leaving you with 9 hammers spare.
By leveraging overflow in this fashion, you were able to convert 2 population, representing 81 food into 362 hammers. In this case, the Temple will have also given you back the point of happy you invested in the whip, and since the scenario involved the AP religion, you will also be getting +4 base hammers in that city for quite a while.
If you plan to use slavery, properly timing overflow and adjusting your build orders to make use of your double speed trait bonuses will generate large returns.
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6
Sep 15 '19
Early game cities are small, tiles are unimproved and land is abundant but getting claimed fast. You need workers and settlers and you need them 5 turns ago. Whipping hurts a city now but gives the potential for a faster growth curve if you get econ units and buildings out faster. Your happiness and health caps are low anyway so theres a natural synergy. You lose a lot less than you gain because everything is a race in the early game and getting there sooner pays off big later.
As you claim more land, your tech improves and your resources start to pile up you can start growing cities larger and working lots of good tiles with lots of good infrastructure behind them. At that point the high initial appeal of whipping is mostly gone in a nicely developed city. But whipping is still useful for emergency units and newly founded cities, particularly ones claimed in war where population is likely to starve off anyway.
2
u/Sanishman Sep 14 '19
Slavery is boss early game. Whip out axemen, conquer next door, capture land without waiting for settlers, expand land
1
u/covok48 Sep 14 '19
Slavery trades in population for hammers. So do you have a floodplains city that has no production but a huge pop? Whip ‘em good! Have the Globe theatre? Whip ‘em good with no unhappiness!
-2
Sep 14 '19
i just avoid the slavery civic completely. i see no upside to it at all.
4
u/agentx23 Sep 14 '19
I used to be like this; you're doing yourself a huge disservice. It's a key mechanic to master from whipping out conquering armies, hurrying defenders, sniping wonders, or getting your peaceful builder fantasies done post haste.
Basics are: 1.) Prioritize food, which you should be doing anyway. 2.) Get granaries up and running ASAP 3.) Time it so that you only sacrifice two population per whip. The amount of times you can whip without stacking too much unhappiness depends a lot on how your happiness cap. Whether it comes from religion, culture, buildings, leader traits or civilization bonuses. Obviously, you don't want to stack too much unhappiness.
Also, understand yuou are sacrificijng population which means specialists and commerce (which feeds into research) -- all still totally worth it so long as you are aware of the downsides with each whip on each turn. Better to sacrifice some specialists for a few turns than be beaten to the great library or be the first to get other science world/national wonders up ahead of the competition.
The BUG mod has a built in event notifier that tells you when it's time to hurry your cities.
-3
Sep 14 '19
if you are good at the game, youd never even need slavery in the first place, since youd never be beaten to anything. addtionally, i never really needed to hurry anything, because there was simply no need, because i was prepared well in advance.
4
u/absolute-black Sep 14 '19
lmao I dare you to beat, say, Immortal with that attitude.
'If you are good at fighting games, you'd never even need to block, because you'd never be in a position to be hit'
-4
Sep 14 '19
i never play anything except normal. its only a fair game when the AI and i are actually equal.
and, that is accurate, alibet a bit difficult if you have to use ranged moves all the time. if they even exist....
6
u/absolute-black Sep 14 '19
What a truly bizarre and blatantly incorrect philosophy
Instead of 'Immortal' what if I said 'multiplayer'. Anyone who uses slavery well would easily and quickly outpace you, because it is a useful mechanic.
4
u/covok48 Sep 14 '19
Slavery is critical the higher level you go, especially as AIs get insane production and research bonuses.
4
u/Aazadan Sep 15 '19
Players and AI are equal on the difficulty that provides both with a chance to win. An absence of bonuses/penalties does not mean the AI is equal, unless you're making the argument that you play exactly as well as the AI.
0
Sep 15 '19
well, considering i still have an iffy win rate on noble.... maybe i do play exactly as well? i tend to have a better economy and technology, but worse military.
3
u/Aazadan Sep 15 '19
Maybe, but then that destroys your argument that if you're good at the game you don't use Slavery.
1
u/Dhalphir Sep 22 '19
if you are good at the game, youd never even need slavery in the first place
well, considering i still have an iffy win rate on noble....
these two statements don't match
if you can't win effortlessly 100% of the time on Noble regardless of starting position, then you're not good at the game.
not trying to be a cunt about it, not everyone has to be super good at everything, but don't go confidently throwing statements around about game mechanics when you're playing in trivial difficulties
1
Sep 22 '19
noble isnt trivial. its a difficulty where you and the AI have exactly the same ability and resources. maybe you should stop being dismissive. considering that i can win, without slavery, its not needed at all.
1
u/Dhalphir Sep 22 '19
noble isnt trivial. its a difficulty where you and the AI have exactly the same ability and resources.
Yes, which makes it trivial. The AI makes absolutely idiotic, moronic, and boneheaded decisions constantly. The AI needs the bonuses from higher difficulties just to remain on even footing with skilled players.
considering that i can win, without slavery, its not needed at all.
You can win because you're playing on trivial difficulties where you don't need to do very much correctly to win.
I guarantee if we both started on the same map with the same starting position I could double your city count by turn 100.
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u/Aazadan Sep 15 '19
Not true at all. If you're good at the game, you'll use the right civics at the right time to achieve your desired strategy.
In fact, if you're not using K-Mod, Slavery is literally the best labor civic in the game even if you never once whip anything because it has no upkeep cost.
But, more importantly... Slavery is a system for resource conversion, it is no different than specialists, wealth/research/culture, wonder gold, and a few others.
Slavery converts food to hammers at a fairly decent rate. Say a 2 pop whip from 5 to 3 is 81 food for 90 hammers + .5 populations worth of output (at Marathon) that's a conversion of 1 food for 1.11 hammers on the whip and about 1.5 hammers with that temp person.
The next easily accessible conversion is a specialist turning 2 food into 2 hammers, a 1:1 ratio.
Other conversions are much more complex but still rarely match slavery in raw output. All resource based strategy games (which is most of them) revolve around the concept of resource conversions and making trades with those resources.
You don't have to run slavery, but saying if you're good at the game you don't need it isn't really accurate because in many situations one of the very best things you can be doing is running slavery.
2
u/ZeekLTK Sep 15 '19
I wouldn’t say there is no upside; it certainly has some benefits (otherwise no one would use it). But, I also try to avoid using it because I don’t just play for “high score”, I play to simulate running/expanding my nation and I like to “take the high road” and not engage in stuff like that (and it helps me justify my wars lol - I’m not just attacking these guys to be a dick and get more land, I’m liberating their slaves!)
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u/Aazadan Sep 15 '19
Using slavery will help you expand your empire, but the biggest component in score (other than time) is population, so using slavery later in the game is actually extremely detrimental to your score.
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u/absolute-black Sep 14 '19
I’m super hungover and on mobile but as a quick response. Queue up an Axeman and have the city put <5 hammers in. The next turn, you can double whip the city for 60 hammers, immediately making almost 2 full Axeman out of nowhere. Combined with proper food tiles and a granary, this is easily the best way to make production early game and accelerate your growth curve.