Slavery system

[wackyserious]

What about a killed vs. incapacitated status? (Where incapacitated units can be captured as slaves by your enemies, or nourished back to health with healers also via capture system)

- % chance that a killed unit will spawn/switch to an immobile/incapacitated entity, and revert back if recaptured or nourished back to health

- units set to aggressive stance or lower ignores wounded units, while units set to violent will kill wounded enemies.

- teach AI to kill or capture wounded units

Although this suggestion also requires a little micro management. But you have the choice to ignore wounded ones while fighting and mind them later on, or kill them instantly by setting stance to violent. It also adds an extra use for the healer class, thus adding more flavor to the game.

[Perzival12]

@Grautvornix @Thalatta
Since this is the largest dedicated Slavery thread, lemme just list the options presented here (at least that are viable, if there are ones I missed lemme know)

1: Train Slave Units at Market/Dock/Storehouse - This would mean a custom slave unit, who would probably just cost metal, be easy to train, but might have some other problem (such as a limited amount that can be trained/limited lifespan)

2: Convert % of Slain Units to Slaves - This is viable, it adds little micro, though there might be problems with phenotypes (turning a male soldier into a female slave), OP usecases (snowballing is increased, since winning battles helps your eco), and actual usefulness (slain units would transform on the spot, meaning they would be slain by formerly allied soldiers quickly).

3: Unique "Slavemaster" Unit - This idea is that a unique unit would be trained at the Market/Dock who can capture other units, turning them into slaves. The micro required for this might balance it's relative bonuses of free workers.

4: Capturing Units - Similar to 3, this feature would have any soldier have the option to "enslave" an enemy unit below 20% health. This is probably OP (could result in capture rushes, where captured slaves are used to weaken uncaptured units) and is A LOT of micro.

Edited 4 hours ago by Perzival12

[Thalatta]

Indeed one has to be careful with mainly two things: micro and snowballing. To avoid the first, one should get slaves through capture, trade, or bondage as automatically as possible. To avoid the second, besides the problems mentioned (limited amount/lifespan), risk of fleeing/rebellion should be up there. Issues like phenotypes or "immediate" conversion have to guide the actual mechanism for things not to be weird.

There are basically two ways to introduce slavery: with just a number, or units. A number could be another icon besides population showing slave population, that could be increased by fighting (like Loot), either with a "slavemaster" present or not (that could be an andrapodistēs for the Greek factions, although I have to check if there's something more "legal"), by buying at the market, or by "converting" own workers into slaves (it should be better than just deleting what one doesn't need anymore). The number of slaves (which would also slowly decrease because of runaway slaves) would provide some economic bonus, but if it goes too high there's risk of rebellion (Gaia units could spawn somewhere in the territory, decreasing the number of slaves). This could happen if an army is obliterated and the free/slave ratio suddenly decreases too much (how this ratio should exactly relate to rebellions is up for discussion). Maybe they could be set free and transformed into workers to deal with that ratio (but at a food price, and maybe an "adaptation" cooldown or a count on how many are freeable at a given time). With units, everything would work quite similarly, just that instead of a bonus, one would use them for any task wanted (I'd keep using a different population icon for them). I guess what would need more explanation in this case is the capture mechanism, but this also depends if there will be a morale/loyalty system.

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

See Delenda Est for the simplest way possible to implement a slavery system. One complexity I'd like to add is to make the available slave pool be a global limit rather than per player. But that's about as much complexity as I'd add. 

[El Maker]

One concern I have with the proposed slavery system is historical consistency. While most of the civilizations in 0 A.D. practised some form of slavery, the way slaves were used varied considerably from one civilization to another. For example, the Britons did not necessarily have the same system of slavery as the Romans or the Mauryas. From what I’ve started reading (I’m by no means an expert on the subject), slaves seem to have been used extensively in agriculture in many of these societies, rather than for mining stone or gold or gathering wood. Perhaps agricultural bonuses would make more historical sense for some civilizations, while others could have different bonuses depending on their historical practices. I also think we should consider how different civilizations acquired slaves, since capture in warfare, slave markets and other forms of enslavement did not play the same role everywhere. I think some historical research would be necessary before settling on a single system for all civilizations. It could help us find a balance between historical accuracy and gameplay without making the mechanics unnecessarily complicated.

Edited 57 minutes ago by El Maker