Grim_Fendango

In the capturing thread where I originally posted this, I thought that they were in the general direction of my initial proposal but it was at it's simplest form a discussion on what could be captured and what coudln't. To tie this more together I would incorporate the feature simply by having the amount of slaves available to be proportianal to the amount of enemy units 'defeated'(not necisarily killed). Obviousely the civ you decide to play as would have a role in deciding that ratio. As you guys said not all civs used slavery so for those with a 0:1 ratio(units enslaved:enemy units defeated) I'm sure they could have their own unit benefits to compensate. Look I'm glad that this is being discussed and considered. Slavery was a real aspect in history. How graphically represented this is, is of course up to you guys. I mean if you had some african sort of race(I haven't played much of 0AD so you may already) and you pitted them against the romans, it could be a battle of blacks vs whites. Well obviousely, and of course some players could draw their own racist conertations from this. When I initially proposed this I did specify however that there incorporate it with a risk reward machanism(which by the way technically for a slave revolt all you would need to do would be to change the freindly slave AI to a wild bear AI). So be that as it may you just have to present it as what it is with a straight face(e.g., Heshen cloathing for slaves). One more interesting aspect to this could be that while you civ may like doing slavery another civ on your team may not. Perhaps making the slave ratio adjustable as a diplomacy civic option thing could make negotiations more interesting. Maybe even make it effect trade benefits(e.g., reduce the trade route pay loads as the slave intake increases). Ofcourse these are just ideas but can you see the implications! As for what happens if the cart gets destroyed, well yeah that would be awesome. A highway revolt! Slaves could be sent to a jail sort of thing where they can be trained as a group of slave units. In such a way enemy captives would have their own role as a resource(though I suspect for realism the numbers would diminish and would be capped depending on the amount of jails you had). Slave revolts, I don't think would add that much micro-ing. Just makesure the slave driver doesn't die, keep them within city walls. There are so many ways that this could be incorporated. And as a full time student I unfortunately cannot devote time to be a prime contributor to this project. In the end it is up to those at the helm to decide what elements should be included and in what manner also. Though as I said before simply converting villagers to me is too unrealistic. Also treating them as a trainable unit like anyother, while it does sound appealing would only represent slaves in a shallow sense(though would be easy to impliment). To wrap up: Here's how I would impliment(the names and figures are completely arbitrary): To produce slaves you need an amount of captured prisoners(well call these slave points, SP). SP is generated by defeating enemy units within their territory and would accumulate at a ratio Y:1 ratio(SP generated:enemy units defeated). Y is decided by a civic option or a preset figure depending on the civ you are playing as, or a mixture of both. Slaves become active(get put to work) when a slave driver is trained and the resources are payed. These then become active slaves(AS) component of the total slave population(TSP). The X amount of slaves used in the slave groupe are then deducted from the SP amount and added to the AS amount. TSP(total slaves) = AS(active slaves) + SP(inactive slaves) TSP is capped by the amount of slave containment buildings(Jails) the player has. When jails are built theTSP cap is raised. Slaves can be produced X times faster then normal workers because all you are training is the slave driver(you already have the slaves). Slaves work harder(well wouldn't you?) If the slave driver is killed the active slaves from that groupe change to using a wild AI and will attack your units untill they are killed(making slaves a bit risky if poorly managed). Slaves perform are able to perform the duties of a normal civilian. Though they cannot build civic centres(it just doesn't seem right, they are not civilians). A group of active slaves can be regarded and controlled like a single unit. Well thanks guys for the chat. I hope I have inspired you somewhat. Best of luck with 0AD, I'm exited to see where the project goes.

Slavery is a topic that has been touched on before but never directly I found. Though I think it is a topic that is worth discussing individually in its own right. In the capturing thread, unit conversion with female villigers was talked about. Though here I give my own take on how unit conversion or rather 'slavery' could be added to the game in a way that would be unique and alter the tactics of 0AD in a verry interesting way. IMO I generally found the unit conversion wih the preists in AOK to be a bit of a waste of time(unless of course you really wanted to annoy someone). Having units turn to your alegiance almost magically on the field adds a whole new aspect to the micro management side of combat, because part of the spoils( the new slaves) are killable and to reap the full spoils of war they need to be brought into safety(if they were villagers). Such tasks I found often to distract me from the battle tactics at play and thus lessoning my enjoyment of the battle overall. Taking a note from the Total War series, slaves were meerly an after thought, you made the decision about what you would do with your captives after the battle. I'm not suggesting that a choice is required but rather, make slaves feel like a reward and less like a choor when you get them. I would prefer that the slaves be sent back to the capital, where they can be put to work. In The Way of Kings a book by Brandon Sanderson, slaves that came from war were loaded up into carivans(more like wagons with a big people cage on it) and sent to where they would be used(i.e the capital). I'm not a histery guru, but can you see what I'm getting at here? Certain civs were more favourable of slavery than others, so this benefit of war could vary between civs, rather than just simply being a stock standard feature to fascilitate more balancing. To make slaves more autimated to me makes sence also on a psychological level also because, in slavery being removed from your homeland in a sense is like having a great part of your identity removed. To players it would really only be a subconciouse thing but would give the game a more consistent and realistic tone. On that note having a converted slave individually controllable would be inconsistent with the whole identity having been removed thing. Perhaps employing a slave driver unit that controlls a groupe of slaves would be a better approach. So a unit from your civ - that you created could exhibit dominance and controll over a captured unit. In that context a slave would not fit into the citisen catagory and as such would not contribute to the pop count. However, I do suggest that some sort of slave population management system would need to be instigated where slave capacity is dictated by the number of slavedriver units you have. Lastly you guys have mentioned(in other threads), what would happen if a slave did turn on you. I'd like to think that this would usually happen in the event that a slave groupes slave driver was killed, and as a result the group would then revolt. Though Im not suggesting that they return to their long lost home land, but rather they become wild hostile like in behaviour and simply attack anything they can see until they die. No one ever said slavery would be always fine and dandy. Perhaps the effect of such an event could be lessoned with tech upgrades. But could you imagine say if you had all your slave drivers working a forrest, and then an enemy cavalry archer killed one slave driver, it could cause a dominoe effect resulting in a multitude of slaves resulting and killing anything they can see. If the numbers were right you could just about whipe your self out. This could give slave keeping a bit more of a risk reward sort of feel . I mean if you could garuntee the safety of your slaves(e.g., with walls) then perhaps you would feel confident on having a 40: 60 slave to citisen ratio. I think slavery is a verry interesting concept and one that I have not really seen explored in a lot of games. But you should be thinking of ways to use its premise to explore new and interesting gameplay concepts, that give a more unique feel to the game experience. I mean, slavery not only would increase the management tactics, but enemies could verry much incorporate this into their attack stratagies. "Aim for the slave drivers so a revolt can happen to weaken the enemy". Anyway this would probably require a substantial overhaul to the game mechanics and AI, but I think it would be totally worth it. Yep, those are just some of my thoughts. I'm just starting my second year of my bachelores of Software Engineering at uni, so I really don't have a lot of time for games anymore. But AoK was a classic and I really like the project and look forward to seeing where it goes. .

More streamlined micro management support within the GUI. Units that have been grouped can be selected quickely through the UI as well as with hot keys. Perhaps even you could integrate unit groupings in such a way that with certain unit combos there is a bonus e.g., in the total war series when a captain is leading the troupes they would have more moral and generally fight better, swap out captain for hero and wallah. A more obscure example could be a slave driver grouped in with a bunch of villagers, could evnforce work to get done at a faster rate(it's the power of the whip).

IMO I generally found the unit conversion in AOK to be a bit of a waste of time(unless of course you really wanted to annoy someone). Having units turn to your alegiance on the field adds a whole new aspect to the micro management side of combat, because part of the spoils( the new slaves) are killable and to reap the real benifts they need to be brought into safety. Such tasks I found often to distract me from the battle tactics at play and thus lessoning my enjoyment of the battle. Taking a note from the Total War series, slaves were meerly an after thought(it was a choice at the end given). I'm not suggesting that a choice is required but rather, make slaves feel like a reward and less like a choor when you get them. I would prefer that the slaves be sent back to the capital, where they can be put to work. In The Way of Kings a book by Brandon Sanderson, slaves that came from war were loaded up into carivans(more like wagons with a big people cage on it) and sent to where they would be used(i.e the capital). I'm not a hystery guru, but can you see what I'm getting at here? Certain civs were more favourable of slavery than others, so this benefit of war could vary between civs, rather than just simply being a stock standard feature to fascilitate more balancing. To make slaves more autimated to me makes sence also on a psychological level also because, in slavery being removed from your homeland in a sense is like having a great part of your identity removed. To players it would really only be a subconciouse thing but would give the game a more consistent and realistic tone. On that note having a converted slave individually controllable would be inconsistent with the whole identity having been removed thing. Perhaps employing a slave driver unit that controlls a groupe of slaves would be a better approach. So a unit from your civ - that you created could exhibit dominance and controll over a captured unit. In that context a slave would not fit into the citisen catagory and as such would not contribute to the pop count. However, I do suggest that some sort of slave population management system would need to be instigated where slave capacity is dictated by the number of slavedriver units you have. Lastly you guys have mentioned, what would happen if a slave did turn on you. I'd like to think that this would usually happen in the event that a slave groupes slave driver was killed, and as a result the group would then revolt. Though Im not suggesting that they return to their long lost home land, but rather they become wild hostile like in behaviour and simply attack anything they can see until they die. No one ever said slavery would be always fine and dandy. Perhaps the effect of such an event could be lessoned with tech upgrades. But could you imagine say if you had all your slave drivers working a forrest, and then an enemy cavalry archer killed one slave driver, it could cause a dominoe effect resulting in a multitude of slaves resulting and killing anything they can see. If the numbers were right you could just about whipe your self out. This could give slave keeping a bit more of a risk reward sort of feel . I mean if you could garuntee the safety of your slaves(e.g., with walls) then perhaps you would feel confident on having a 40: 60 slave to citisen ratio. I think slavery is a verry interesting concept that I have not really seen in a lot of games. But you should be thinking of ways to use its premise to explore new and interesting gameplay concepts, that give a more unique feel to the game experience. I mean slavery not only would increase the management tactics, but enemies could verry much incorporate this into their attack stratagies. Yep, those are just some of my thoughts. I'm just starting my second year of my bachelores of Software Engineering at uni, so I really don't have a lot of time for games anymore. But AoK was a classic. Anyway this would require a substantial overhaul to the game mechanics, but I think it would be totally worth it. PS: Building capturing doesn't really flow well with the whole territories thing. Just sayin'. PPS: These are just ideas, not gospel, feel free to fill in the blanks. PPPS: Sorry this is poor form. But yes the slave driver I was thinking of was the guy wearing the mask with the big whip.