Do we HAVE to brainwash raiders to build up a population?

[Reno Story]

Currently, I have a somewhat modern village with a population of 6 (it woulda been 7, if the wimp who was watching camp while the others were on a trip didn't get kidnapped without a fight). Every single one of them either migrated to the settlement, or joined out of gratitude for saving their life in one way or another. I have, however, not really bothered to capture and mentally beat them down into joining me.

I just feel like it would be weird to be this friendly little village who captures people and slowly brainwashes them into joining my faction. Yes, it is a part of the game, but in a game with so many options, I'd like to be that place that people hear about and go "hey, this place is neato, room for one more?" and migrate in, rather than that place that seems friendly, but has a morbid side to it.

Course, I'd like to hear your thoughts on this. I haven't even TRIED this part of the game yet in all honesty.

Also, if anyone mentions it... When you buy a slave, is that like, buying them to free them from bondage? Because I might get to doin that if no more pods crash into my little part of town or migration starts to slow down.

[Azrak]

I absolutely recommend the Hospitality mod. With it you can recruit guests after socializing with them enough (Entertain in the work tab) at the cost of a sizeable amount of goodwill (about 40 usually). I had the same issue you did, patching up raiders and making them part of my new utopia felt wrong ;)

Edit: Yes, you technically save that slave from the slaver. However, from an economic point of view, as long as people buy slaves, said slaver will go on procuring slaves, so either way there is no obvious right or wrong choice.

[Winterbloom]

As for the buying slaves, it gives them a moodlet "Freed from slavery". at least in my experiance. (granted i also use the psychology mod which may cause this IDK it but someone may be able to tell you unmodded does the same)

[Astasia]

You can get up to about 11 colonists without recruiting raiders, the closer you get to 11 the less likely you will have an opportunity to get a "free" colonist. Randy somewhat follows the same the scaling, but has a very low chance to trigger free colonist events anyway, forever.

When you buy a slave you are freeing them. They get a +15 "Freed from Slavery" mood buff for 20 days. You wont have the option to buy slaves at higher populations though.

Realistically you probably wont get above 8-10 colonists if you refuse to recruit, if you are lucky with Randy you might be able to get up to 12-13 during an extended game. That's "fine." There's no pressure to make a very high population colony, you don't "have" to go above 10-12 pop, around 8 or so I find is enough to do whatever I want especially once they have bionics.

If you want to hit 20+ reasonably, yes you will have to recruit, or find a mod that allows you to get colonists some other way.

You say "brainwash," but it's not, it's recruitment. You are convincing people that what your colony offers them is better than the alternative. You can actually check the log to see what your colonists discuss with them. If you want to paint it as something evil or immoral like brainwashing, you can RP that, it's your choice, but that's not what it's meant to be. You have people born into or drawn into the raider life style, they don't know any better, and you are educating them on principles they might be unfamiliar with and explaining what safety and stability is, instead of shooting them in head while they lie on the ground bleeding out.

[Wiawyr]

Brainwashing is such an ugly word for it. When you've got a few blokes locked up in your prison cells with a couple hundred colonists wandering around outside of it, them joining is simply prudent.

[grapplehoeker]

Originally posted by Astasia:

You say "brainwash," but it's not, it's recruitment. You are convincing people that what your colony offers them is better than the alternative. You can actually check the log to see what your colonists discuss with them. If you want to paint it as something evil or immoral like brainwashing, you can RP that, it's your choice, but that's not what it's meant to be. You have people born into or drawn into the raider life style, they don't know any better, and you are educating them on principles they might be unfamiliar with and explaining what safety and stability is, instead of shooting them in head while they lie on the ground bleeding out.

Heh, you may roleplay it that way, but that's not how it has to be ;)
I see it as simple common sense.
I make them an offer they cannot refuse... be one with us or be worn by us ;)

[Astasia]

Originally posted by grapplehoeker:

Heh, you may roleplay it that way, but that's not how it has to be ;)

Well that's literally what your colonists are saying to prisoners while attempting to recruit them. They discuss things like friendship, comraderie, stability, safety, etc.

You can of course ignore the logs and pretend they are saying whatever you want.

[Jigsawjohn]

Outside of mods, yes. Past a dozen or so pawns it will be very difficult to find ways to increase your max at once. There are however many mods tailored to gaining colonists in various flavors out there.

Rimworld of magic lets you gain people through magical means, ie some as golem servants or legions on undead.

Questionable ethics lets you clone existing colonists

A number of robotic mods let you build androids.

Hospitality as mentioned above is prob the most vanilla friendly. As its essentially just convincing visitors to join, like prisoners, but without the jail part.

[Lem]

Questionable ethics are part of the game. On my first colony (still playing it) I had three labrador retrieves join in the first summer. I thought that was fun at first. Yay dogs and I could even eventually train them to carry stuff... but as time wore on I realized they were eating a lot of food and winter was coming. It was going to be a struggle to stock up the 180+ meals I was going to need to survive winter even without feeding 3 dogs. With the dogs, it was clear I was losing food, not saving it. Hard choices were made and those dogs ended up as part of the food supply... 8 years later in the colony and I still look back on that moment where principles were sidelined for survival as a defining moment for the colony.

I didn't have much problem with the idea of recruiting prisoners acquired by saving survivors when tribals or pirates raided me. What are the choices here...

1) Leave them to die on the battlefield slowly. No cost. No supplies or time spent.

2) Offer a quicker merciful death.

3) Save them and release them later. Mildly costly. If they're raiders, they'll likely keep raiding, so releasing them is just hurting someone else... but it's also a path to peace for some factions.

4) Save them and keep them imprisoned for their crimes of attempted genocide. Extremely costly.

5) Save them and recruit them. Moderately costly. Possibly a huge benefit to them and the colony.

I've mostly taken the principled stance of #3 and #5, refusing to just let someone die when I have the means to save them. I feel better doing that than the other options. Exceptions have been made in large raids where there were so many wounded laying around from the other side that I just didn't have the capacity to save them. The 'mercy squad' that's been dispatched to handle the problem a few times is quite a terrifying thing to behold. And the game does this thing where wounded people seem to take 1/10th damage or something... so mercy squad is just hitting, hitting, hitting over again. Nightmare fuel that. The way the game is setup, you really can't go with #4 sustainably. The raids are endless and there will be a lot of wounded survivors at times.

Option #5 seems the most ethically sound to me. The game basically allows you to run the ideal prison where you can reform any criminal with enough time invested. It's too bad there is no 'reform' option similar to recruit, but at the end of it the person is freed to join whichever faction will have then, giving you a small rep boost. Most of the time now, I just release my prisoners because I don't want to grow the colony too fast. It would be nice to have a middle ground option between recruit and release, where you put in some extra work to get the prisoner to give up their genocidal faction and join more civilized society.