catch enemies and tranform into slaves

[idanwin]

I always imagined that at the end of a battle (thanks to the battle detection system), when the morale of the enemy units hits rock bottom the remaining soldiers would surrender and become slaves.

[Nolanjoker]

The slaves can have more gathering stats than a regular citizen and low HP. Now there are many ways to generate free slaves. The RTW captured units a little group of fallen units can be slaves. For example if kill 30 soldiers only 3 can be slaves. And automatically appear in your market. Other method is Conversion like priest. And finally is when are Gaia after defeats a enemy.

[DevynCJohnson]

The slaves can have more gathering stats than a regular citizen and low HP. Now there are many ways to generate free slaves. The RTW captured units a little group of fallen units can be slaves. For example if kill 30 soldiers only 3 can be slaves. And automatically appear in your market. Other method is Conversion like priest. And finally is when are Gaia after defeats a enemy.

That is a good idea. With your idea, slavery is implemented in a simple fashion which may make your idea appealing to the developers.

[Nolanjoker]

That is a good idea. With your idea, slavery is implemented in a simple fashion which may make your idea appealing to the developers.

you are programmer or Im doing a mistake?

[DevynCJohnson]

you are programmer or Im doing a mistake?

I am a programmer, but not for WildFire/0AD. None of the languages I know would benefit 0AD.

[Rodmar]

If I recollect (and complement a bit):

• Destroying an enemy building adds a new bought-able unit at your marketplace based on the type of building was destroyed. Call it "slave". This slave is cheaper than a citizen both to produce and to sustain.

• Killing an enemy unit has a very small chance to generate a slave at your market place. Killing a chariot or a war elephant or multi-manned siege units doesn't bring more slaves than a normal unit does (does it?). (However, how many low-morale people per catapult?).

• For slavery purpose, a warship is equivalent to some building as far as your warship takes time to collect men at see (this wasn't quite expected by this time). This could mean that a warship is immobilized as long as the wreck animation and remain is still visible. This requires a special button or a manual switch to stand-ground in the few first seconds the enemy ship is vanquished.

• The slave is a worker (whose gender is determined by his origin) without any attack who can specialize like citizens in some gathering techniques (does he?). He doesn't benefit from a citizen female nearby but from a male citizen-soldier nearby. Its gather value is less than a citizen's.

• The slave is also a fifth economic resource that can be exchange at the market place (but not with traders ?). That's mean that you can buy some without having captured any yet. This is a City phase feature.

• The number of slaves you can afford (as a unit or in whole, marketplace pool included ?) is capped according not only your maximum population cap but to the number of non citizen units as well. It is thought that the militaristic Sparta (say champion Spartan, even if Spartan citizen soldiers were Spartan military too) was partly caused by the need to control the number of hilotes. Champion mercenaries are counted, as well as elite citizen-soldiers (often akin to champions). I'm not sure about the ratio slaves/(champions+elites).

• Capturing an enemy formation automatically convert some of its units as slaves. The surrender/capture follows some rules as:

- must be granted/ordered by a hero unit or a formation commander (if implemented) by: selecting the hero, clicking on the capture button, and clicking on the nearby enemy formation.

- the formation must be surrounded and locally outnumbered 4:3 at least (see below in the spoiler).

- if a morale system is implemented, it should interface with the surrendering feature.

- this can't occur near fortifications or defended building: they keep shooting at the enemy.

- this can't occur while the formation is sustaining casualties.

- this feature is automatic (should really the enemy player be asked to accept this local surrender?) but maybe, the enemy player could prevent the capture either by ordering a stand your ground stanza, or "sacrifice" his unit by attacking and trying and break the surrounding. This could change should a morale system be implemented (to allow for a "stand your ground and fight to the death" and "surrender" at the same time).

A quite simple system:

I figure that a 6x6 basic infantry section could accept to surrender when surrounded on each side by a 6x2 champion hoplitic or swordsman formation, because they would know that they would soon shrink to a 4x4 (not so soon for the front side maybe) and this leads to a ratio of 4:3. Ideally, this should be pondered by unit types (swordsmen vs hoplites?). A formation level could be quickly computed as a mean (or pondered mean) of its units' level. You'd end with a level of 1,2,3 or 4 (champion).

So, level 4 vs 1 needs a 4:3 ratio. For better balanced situations, multiply the former ratio by 4:3.

So, level 4 vs 2 or level 3 vs 1 needs a (4:3)(4:3) or 8:6 or circa 2:1 ratio.

Level 4 vs 3, 3 vs 2, 2 vs 1 needs a 8:3 or circa 5:2

To capture a formation of the same level would require a 3:1 ratio.

Beyond that, it would prove nearly impossible in the scope of this tactical game:

Level 1 vs 2, 2 vs 3, 3 vs 4 needs a 4:1 ratio

Level 1 vs 3, 2 vs 4 needs a 5/6:1 ratio.

Level 1 vs 4 needs a 15:2 or 8:1 ratio.

While this system doesn't seem to lead to some historical stunning surrenders, it could do what it can without a morale system.

Other ideas related to capture/slavery:

• Captured citizen units (from captured formations, see above) are degraded:

Firstly, they loose one level of experience from shame! Secondly, they could be automatically change to skirmishers (of their own culture), a bit like Spartans would use light/medium infantry from subjugated states at their left wing to purposely absorb the much powerful enemy pressure there. This degradation could be seen as a preventive measure in case of revolt.

• Captured champions (from captured formations) are not degraded and are more akin to mercenaries, although more prone to be captured back by their former culture soldiers. Whereas this doesn't sound good regarding Spartans, let's consider Xenophon's Anabase.

• Killing a cavalry unit has a very small chance to act like a horse capture (decreasing cavalry cost as you gain horses).

• Raiding was normal warfare:

- Destroying a field earn you food directly to your pool. Destroying a mill/other resource deposit earn you an amount of resources.

- Soldiers (only citizen soldiers?) can ravage/spoil an area. In a enemy controlled area, you may lay waste of animals (bred, wild) and plants (fruit, lumber). It could be an option when only the town center is heavily defended and most of the economical zone is poorly defended. Retreating your workers to safety in buildings wouldn't be enough to save you from economical doom. This "ravage" could be ordered by selection a group of units or a formation and click on a button, to a visual immediate scattering to resources (except mines).

- Conversely, you could order your own troops to apply a scorched earth strategy in your own territory, destroying plants and animals all around them (without collecting them). Whereas 0 A.D. is not really a strategical game, this could still impede enemy advancement even before having to oppose his troops.

- Currently, like in AoE or American Conquest, you have to send forward gatherers near the enemy town to deny the enemy those resources. I'd barely call it a scorched earth strategy.

- Maybe you could still earn some resource while ravaging/spoiling.

• Ransoming instead of capturing a formation:

Should you accept to pay say one third of the surrendered units value (to be discussed), the whole formation would walk back to your first or main civilization center, managed by the AI until it reaches its destination. Although it is seen as neutral (no AI attacks), an enemy human player could still change his mind and manually order an attack on the ransomed formation on its way back to home. The formation would immediately revert to a controlled status but the treacherous human player would never be allowed to ransom anymore (plus huge diplomatic penalties). Remember the way the Spartan granted free return to home to the "Thousand", the Argian elite phalanx still intact and surrounded at Mantinee. Remember some Gaulish or Germanic commanders granting free return to Romans after a brave resistance (that was before the Roman's reputation would be tarnished).

• Ransacking/Spoiling convoys:

When your units perform one of the actions previously described (capturing, enslaving, spoiling, destroying, ransoming), instead the earnings go directly into your economy spool, they generates trader-like units who delay the use of those earnings until they reach a marketplace or a dock of yours. Call them slave traders, "baggage" units, treasury ships, .... Until reaching un-crossable water, they change to merchant ship and revert back to caravan when landing. Either they have to be managed or they are A.I. controlled. They are vulnerable to capture by skirmishing and raiding civilizations.

This doesn't apply to captured units, only to slaves of course.

As a conclusion, I know well that such ideas are more adapted to a greater scale strategy game, but who knows? One day the map and the unit cap could grow larger!

[Prodigal Son]

Well thought Rodmar:)

If I may add one thing, maybe champions don't grant slaves, simulating elite troops fighting to death which was quite often. Then again the opposite was quite often too, with nobles fleeing or surrendering at times even without a fight. So not sure, maybe what serves gameplay the best.

[DevynCJohnson]

If I recollect (and complement a bit):

A LOT OF GOOD IDEAS HERE.

Wow! A lot of great ideas. Are you just a player of the game or are you a developer?

[Lion.Kanzen]

Wow! A lot of great ideas. Are you just a player of the game or are you a developer?

The developers uses one of this

[Rodmar]

DevynCJohnson, I'm not even a good RTS player, never played multi-player, etc., although I'm interested in tactical and strategy historical/fantastic simulation/recreation video games.

I figure that different civilizations would have different sensitivity towards enslaving and capturing/being captured; I lack references but as a first shot:

Roman: hard to capture, great enslavers.

Carthaginian: great at capturing.

Persian: easy to capture/enslave and great capturer/enslavers (diplomats).

Greek: hard to enslave but not so hard to capture, medium enslavers.

Celt: hard to capture, easy to enslave, poor enslavers.

I may be wrong here; it just to show that we could differentiate the civilizations and that some players would have to "escort" their citizen-soldiers and mercenaries by champions and mercenaries (!), while other could send their basic citizen alone to death without much fear to fuel their enemies' economy. These differences would play at the "very small chance to get a slave" level and to compute the actual ratio between surrounding/surrounded units.

I feel like those cultural differences (accepting to surrender or to be enslaved) come from the acceptance that a whole group of warriors could stop fight and surrender to greater opposition, or that a free man with no option to flee would better choose to survive instead of to die.

On the other side (proneness to capture or to enslave other units/people), some cultures had slaves on a large scale while other wouldn't have thought about enslaving free men (although a decimated enemy tribe, with barely any warrior spared, could well be just used as "free" laborers).

Note that late northern German used slaves (or were they only worker class attached to a warrior?).

[DevynCJohnson]

DevynCJohnson, I'm not even a good RTS player, never played multi-player, etc., although I'm interested in tactical and strategy historical/fantastic simulation/recreation video games.

I figure that different civilizations would have different sensitivity towards enslaving and capturing/being captured; I lack references but as a first shot:

Roman: hard to capture, great enslavers.

Carthaginian: great at capturing.

Persian: easy to capture/enslave and great capturer/enslavers (diplomats).

Greek: hard to enslave but not so hard to capture, medium enslavers.

Celt: hard to capture, easy to enslave, poor enslavers.

I may be wrong here; it just to show that we could differentiate the civilizations and that some players would have to "escort" their citizen-soldiers and mercenaries by champions and mercenaries (!), while other could send their basic citizen alone to death without much fear to fuel their enemies' economy. These differences would play at the "very small chance to get a slave" level and to compute the actual ratio between surrounding/surrounded units.

I feel like those cultural differences (accepting to surrender or to be enslaved) come from the acceptance that a whole group of warriors could stop fight and surrender to greater opposition, or that a free man with no option to flee would better choose to survive instead of to die.

On the other side (proneness to capture or to enslave other units/people), some cultures had slaves on a large scale while other wouldn't have thought about enslaving free men (although a decimated enemy tribe, with barely any warrior spared, could well be just used as "free" laborers).

Note that late northern German used slaves (or were they only worker class attached to a warrior?).

I like your ideas. The fact that you come up with great ideas without being a big player is awesome.

[Rodmar]

Then, I guess it is the privilege of the age.

As I finished the campaigns in AoE2, AoM, Age of Legends, Spellforce, all the same, I won't present myself as a beginner in RTS, however (still no Iron Man mode for me!).