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 Wednesday at 18:15 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 Wednesday at 22:14 by El Maker

[Nicolaus_von_Kues]

We must try to break the symmetry of the game.

There are the non-imperial civilizations, those of a tribal style. 

Celts, Germans, Iberians...

Then there are those whose destiny is to conquer nations and bring civilization to others.

There are others that seek to be in the middle, like certain Greek cities. 

Honestly, the game should change its gameplay according to the culture.

There are some who want to live in the land of their ancestors, the land of their gods, to be free, and others who will seek to enslave everyone and demonstrate that their tribe and nation was the one that would bring order  to others.

[Perzival12]

11 hours ago, Nicolaus_von_Kues said:

We must try to break the symmetry of the game.

This is my biggest (and ngl, only) complaint with the game atm. While I personally think that things like building styles and combat styles should be more varied, different forms of slavery (or just different uses) would honestly be a good step. (An example of varied gameplay is the recent addition German storehouse wagons)

[El Maker]

3 hours ago, Perzival12 said:

This is my biggest (and ngl, only) complaint with the game atm. While I personally think that things like building styles and combat styles should be more varied, different forms of slavery (or just different uses) would honestly be a good step. (An example of varied gameplay is the recent addition German storehouse wagons)

I totally agree ! There aren't really any major gameplay differences between two civilizations, apart from slightly different units and a few bonuses... I'm currently working on a mod that will (I hope) almost completely overhaul the civilizations, including the addition of slaves. I hope to release the first civilizations before November 1st.

Edited Thursday at 19:54 by El Maker

[Thalatta]

3 hours ago, Perzival12 said:

This is my biggest (and ngl, only) complaint with the game atm. While I personally think that things like building styles and combat styles should be more varied, different forms of slavery (or just different uses) would honestly be a good step. (An example of varied gameplay is the recent addition German storehouse wagons)

From less to more radical: I've proposed for not all to have basically the same Storehouse techs (just the names are different, I think), this would give more variation on how each civ would obtain and trade resources. I haven't carefully checked the other economic techs among civs, but all that is an opportunity to add variation. The same regarding religion, that being something that should be quite different among civs, and luckily many current temple techs lack decent names and icons, giving ample space for change and (needed) improvement. I've mentioned that all civs could have their very different special units, like the Ministers are for the Han. Also, the naval system I proposed is actually not that radical (after boarding is implemented) and gives more opportunities for strengths and weaknesses, thus each civ would have a more characteristic, interesting and historically accurate way to do things at sea (which right now it's something quite avoided, when it could be fun, as it has been in some Total War games).

[Thalatta]

On 14/10/2026 at 11:59 PM, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

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. 

Could you briefly explain how it works so it's included in this discussion? (Also, I'll play DE after I'm done going though all civs in vanilla, so won't know for a while :P).

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

6 hours ago, Thalatta said:

Could you briefly explain how it works so it's included in this discussion? (Also, I'll play DE after I'm done going though all civs in vanilla, so won't know for a while :P).

Building a Market unlocks training Slave class units at the Farmstead and Storehouse. 20 max, but +10 per Market (this is the limit I'd like to make global). The Slaves are capturable and die easily, but are 2x better gatherers than Citizens. Slaves are a gatherer unit only, while Citizens maintain the ability to build.

There are 2 technologies specific to Slaves: Slave Trade (-50% train time) and Slave Markets (remove training limit, but Slaves are double cost).

 

Citizens also have the "Slave Ownership" aura which boosts nearby Slave effectiveness. This basically replaced the old "Allure" aura of the old Female Citizen units.

 

[Eilat]

On 10/15/2026 at 11:37 AM, Nicolaus_von_Kues said:

We must try to break the symmetry of the game.

There are the non-imperial civilizations, those of a tribal style. 

I also find the game too symmetrical. What I believe needs to be changed and what I have experimented with changing is the behavior of the bots: small civilizations or vassal states should not act like great powers, and nomadic civilizations should not behave the same way as sedentary ones. The issue, however, is that such changes would make balancing the game difficult, and many players likely wouldn't appreciate it.

[El Maker]

6 hours ago, Eilat said:

Je trouve également le jeu trop symétrique. Ce qui, selon moi, doit être modifié, et que j'ai déjà expérimenté, c'est le comportement des bots : les petites civilisations ou les États vassaux ne devraient pas se comporter comme de grandes puissances, et les civilisations nomades ne devraient pas agir de la même manière que les civilisations sédentaires. Le problème, cependant, est que de tels changements compliqueraient l'équilibrage du jeu, et de nombreux joueurs risquent de ne pas les apprécier.

But the game's symmetry also depends on how players can play the civilisations. Directly modifying the civilisations to push them towards more distinct playstyles than they currently have would, in my opinion, be the first step. Today, by sticking to roughly the same playstyle and the same build orders or unit orders, all civilisations remain generally playable. If we play the Carthaginians with a more Gallic playstyle, the civilisation remains fairly competitive. The only real differences between the game's civilisations at the moment are different but rather abstract bonuses (especially for new players), different textures, and a few unique buildings and units that don't fundamentally change the playstyles...

In my opinion, we should (still) preserve 0 A.D.'s origins (AoE2) and draw inspiration from it. In AoE2 (or even AoE4), civilisations have things in common but still retain different playstyles! I haven't tried DE, so I can't say whether this mod adds differences between civilisations and meets my "criteria".

What could make a difference, and what I also feel is missing, is the diversity and depth of Petra's playstyles, and I completely agree with you on that! But yes, changing playstyles depending on the civilisation would make balancing more complex, and I don't think the developers would put in the time needed to do that at the moment. Is there a mod that has experimented with changing AI playstyles?

Anyway, we're starting to drift away from the original topic of the discussion 

Edited 8 hours ago by El Maker

[Nicolaus_von_Kues]

1 hour ago, El Maker said:

In my opinion, we should (still) preserve 0 A.D.'s origins (AoE2) and draw inspiration from it. In AoE2 (or even AoE4), civilisations have things in common but still retain different playstyles! I haven't tried DE, so I can't say whether this mod adds differences between civilisations and meets my "criteria"

It also has an AoM influence. The game was still in its conceptual stage in 2002 when Age of Mythology was released.

[Eilat]

2 hours ago, El Maker said:

Is there a mod that has experimented with changing AI playstyles?

I don’t have a standalone mod specifically for bots, though I did previously upload some tweaked bots to the forum, they’re quite outdated now, though still playable with a few minor fixes. They do have quite a few flaws, however. That said, in the mod I’m currently working on, I’m incorporating the successful features from those earlier bots into an entirely new one. It will include various behavioral modes, pre-loaded tactics along with a few "dirty tricks" if I come up with any, and a degree of randomness in its actions to ensure it doesn’t feel too predictable or formulaic.

2 hours ago, El Maker said:

Anyway, we're starting to drift away from the original topic of the discussion 

That’s right, I started a thread about AI quite a while ago, where I’ve been uploading those bots.

[Obelix]

5 hours ago, Eilat said:

I started a thread about AI quite a while ago, where I’ve been uploading those bots.

It would be great if you would be so nice to tell us the URL, please. The forums software can render it beautiful and nobody has to search for his/her/their own.

[Eilat]

5 minutes ago, Obelix said:

It would be great if you would be so nice to tell us the URL, please. The forums software can render it beautiful and nobody has to search for his/her/their own.

 However, I’ve found that they don’t perform well when playing against humans, and they were written for an older version of 0 A.D. (though this can be easily fixed in the `mod.json` file). That said, I might plan to upgrade Petra or create a new bot; if the bot in my mod proves successful, the features that are already working will be incorporated and improved upon.