Is slavery worth it?

[Legostyle03]

Is it useful or just for rp?

[Astasia]

If you focus on it and use it right it's very strong.

[Legostyle03]

Originally posted by Astasia:

If you focus on it and use it right it's very strong.

Can you elaborate?

[Space Dad]

Certain empire ethics give bonuses to slave's output, and knowing that slaves can only do worker jobs (also entertainers if they are domestic servitude status) you can aim for genetically engineering races to suit your needs. You might consider starting with syncretic evolution so you have a ready made slave race at the start.

[Nightmyre]

Slavery is pretty much *always* better than not using it.

The only reason not to use slavery, is because your empire ethics don't permit it. Otherwise, the penalties from it are far outweighed by the benefits. Especially if you put the slaves on basic subsistence.

[HomoScorpio]

You can create massive amounts of raw recourses

[Abbittibbi]

The only good xeno are dead. I proscripts slaves as undisirable and send them to death camps. NO SLAVES. Purity of the race is the number one factor. Closed borders for all xeno and war if they dare disturb me during galaxy conquest.

[Lady Crimson (RIP)]

Originally posted by Qμel:

Is it useful or just for rp?

Well, slavery of a species is debatable.

It can be useful in the beginning if you have a sub species, but generally micro management is a huge hassle.

Slavery of a species is largely only a good option if you go Livestock (which you should always do because it is amazing). (no job needed, 0.25 housing.. can stick on a city world for just ridiculous food)

Generally the civic of slavery is a much better route, as it just makes it a percentage of pops throughout your planets and is good till much later.

Largely it provides the boost to energy/mins/food (in the civic's case being +20% to all of said jobs) at the cost of happiness with the potential to get a building to remove the happiness impact on stability.

It also reduces amenities and housing needs by -25%, which is nice, but not necesarilly as a critical.

Later on once you have researched a lot of boosts to that mineral, energy, or food.. the benefits aren't quite as great. (as I believe they no longer have the repeatable tech for slavery economics.. but if they still have it great).

It's also useful for building up an egalitarian faction, so your fanatic materialist authoritarians, become fanatic materialist egalitarians once you jump ship.. for the more useful end game utopian abundance civic + synths).

Generally I tick the civic off once I start having around 5 or so city planets.

[Nightmyre]

No offence or anything Crimson, but ... that's like completely wrong.

The Slaver Guilds civic is nice, sure, but the forcing of 40% of your pops to be slaves only really works if you're running Syncretic Evolution as well. And even if you are, you'll end up with some of your species pops being slaves too, which makes it a huge hassle to go with the optimal path you're trying to achieve.

Conversely, starting with Syncretic Evolution without using Slaver Guilds, or just enslaving another species when you get the chance (from the slave market, or from conquering another pop), it's perfectly easy to micromanage it, because your slaves will always take the worker jobs, and your non-slaves will always take the specialist jobs.

And lastly, as for livestock, they're nice, sure, but food is so rarely ever an issue, that it just becomes a hassle to have your planet not spawning the food pops when you don't need them. The only time I ever use livestock is when I get the Baol precursor, and only because I get four of them for free every ten years - I put population controls on them and enslave them as a food source, and the four every ten years usually is enough to feed all of my pops.

[Lady Crimson (RIP)]

Originally posted by Nightmyre:

No offence or anything Crimson, but ... that's like completely wrong.

The Slaver Guilds civic is nice, sure, but the forcing of 40% of your pops to be slaves only really works if you're running Syncretic Evolution as well. And even if you are, you'll end up with some of your species pops being slaves too, which makes it a huge hassle to go with the optimal path you're trying to achieve.

Conversely, starting with Syncretic Evolution without using Slaver Guilds, or just enslaving another species when you get the chance (from the slave market, or from conquering another pop), it's perfectly easy to micromanage it, because your slaves will always take the worker jobs, and your non-slaves will always take the specialist jobs.

And lastly, as for livestock, they're nice, sure, but food is so rarely ever an issue, that it just becomes a hassle to have your planet not spawning the food pops when you don't need them. The only time I ever use livestock is when I get the Baol precursor, and only because I get four of them for free every ten years - I put population controls on them and enslave them as a food source, and the four every ten years usually is enough to feed all of my pops.

1) No offense, but that's why I said it's great in the beginning.. bad later on.

2) Also going syncretic species with the Slavers Guild.. is just a really bad idea. Honestly it's a waste of a perfectly good civic slot since Syncretic lets you do it anyways (and a reason to go xenophobe at the start being able to use slavery.. whereas otherwise you'd have to find a species).

Authoritarian is ideal in that consumer goods are already reduced.. so syncretic is just not worth the value with it since you get the same benefits being a xenophobe and syncretic. However the slavery boost requires no micro management till it becomes a problem.. which is when you switch the civic out.

3) Using a species requires heavy micro management that just isn't possible in multi player, or at worse it prevents them from working specialist jobs that are available.

I know I can micro it just fine in single player.. but being a xenophobe using slavery is a nightmare in fast speed games with other players (unless it's only livestock). Talk about wasted job potential.

Once you start having planets that are heavily specialist to the point where it prevents jobs from being taken.. then you switch the civic out.

4) My point on livestock isn't that you need the food. My point is that you don't need to build farms. Period. You can delete all of those farm districts and instead have livestock.

This will save you both in districts, housing, and in administration costs.

If you're a xenophobe and you -don't- use livestock. Really no good reason to be a xenophobe unless you're an isolationist or want to rush starbases early.

[HugsAndSnuggles]

Originally posted by ;2564160288793564857:

The Slaver Guilds civic is nice, sure, but the forcing of 40% of your pops to be slaves only really works if you're running Syncretic Evolution as well. And even if you are, you'll end up with some of your species pops being slaves too, which makes it a huge hassle to go with the optimal path you're trying to achieve.

Ypu're using it wrong. Slaver guilds is for when you give out pops (relatively) equal rights. Think on it: when you grab another planet full of xenos, did you get enough surplus of your main species to, at least, match its population? Even if you did (which I doubt, since whole point of conquest is getting more pops than you can ever hope to grow in a given time preiod), it's still a 50/50 ratio. By giving out (relatively) equal rights, you can have the similar produictivity for every newly acquired planet, minus resettlment hassle.

Same as agragian idyl civic, it's good early on, when you're mostly held back by lack of basic resources. You can even swap guilds out for something else - will still keep the slaves, sine 2.3 "optimized" pops to never update their slavery status >.>

[Storm]

Having ~700 pops enslaved for food/mineral production as they die out is very useful. Can focus on using your main species for specialists/energy. If you you ever get short on minerals/food just conquer a few more planets. And you don't need any special civics to make it worth it.

By far the best way to massively produce alloys/civs/and fleets.

[corisai]

Originally posted by Lady Crimson:

I know I can micro it just fine in single player.. but being a xenophobe using slavery is a nightmare in fast speed games with other players (unless it's only livestock). Talk about wasted job potential.

Once you start having planets that are heavily specialist to the point where it prevents jobs from being taken.. then you switch the civic out.

Maybe you should at first mention that you're speaking about multiplayer games? As they give us completely different experience.

In SP slavery+bio is only way to be competitive with synts at least a bit.

They really, really should force synths to execute other species, forcing player to drop "natural" growth and playing as real machine civilization. Currently it's too powerful.

Originally posted by Lady Crimson:

If you're a xenophobe and you -don't- use livestock. Really no good reason to be a xenophobe unless you're an isolationist or want to rush starbases early.

Actually in SP no reason to NOT be xenophobic. Games aren't short like MP so you will suffer endgame lags a lot if not purge tons and tons of ugly aliens.

[happyscrub]

I think the problem with slavery is the problem with resources in general. Minerals use to be god. Now you need to turn minerals into alloys and consumer goods and amenities. Add the fact it takes forever to get the tech, and how building slots unlocks work, to be able to make use of those base mineral stockpiles.

I have the problem with hivemind to some extent. Always have massive amounts of base resources with little to do with them.