Is Abolitionists worth it?

[Kasa]

Mathematically speaking slaves are better then workers and the only way to put workers on par with slaves is through the use of a combination of tools, equipment, and rare to find on companion skills and even then that only puts them in par with with basic slaves.

So with that said are the Abolitionists modifiers worth it? Do they make up for the increased incurred cost of workers among all the extra resources needed to make workers effective?

[Wlerin]

Abolitionists also allow you to plop extra stacks of supplies in any towns of your choosing (well, any imperial towns at least), and pepper your preferred trading route with additional trade and mercenary tasks (if you contact the right cells). They've also got a few quests that I haven't taken the time to pursue yet, not sure what those reward.

The biggest disadvantage of Workers imho is the Crowded Camps debuff, but you will eventually get that anyway once you started building up your fighting crew to take on late game quests and mercenary tasks. Food consumption is somewhat mitigated by Awnings (if you can afford the slot, which you can with Yrgs), you'll never have enough workers for their wages to be relevant (unless you're trying to maximise mining output I guess), and their workforce output is roughly equal. It's true that Intimidation is more common on companions than Engineering, but you can also just do what I did and spend those points on something more significant.

And, Abolitionist not only give +20% workforce but also +20% combat strength at their highest tier. That's a lot.

[Kasa]

Problem with that is that bonus is only at max level which is apparently hard to get / maintain.

There is a very good write up on salve / worker ratio on this forum and the math shows that slaves are inherently better in just about every way to workers with workers only catching up to basic slave levels AFTER you max our you're rep with Abolitionists, using tools, skills, and awnings.

Not sure if the extra supplies and quests make up the difference.

Here's the write up from that thread I mentioned.

Originally posted by Abbychorus:

Hi, I was just thinking about potential changes when it comes to worker-slave differences. I've noticed (imo) that slaves are superior to workers and here is why; 1 slave cost about 1c per day (1 supply for the optimum price), where as workers cost 3c per day (2 supply and 1 upkeep).

This means that a worker is 3x more expensive per day to keep compared to a slave which in itself is not really an issue as long as you get value for your currency, This is where workers become inferior to slaves;
1 slave has the cargo capacity of 2 and a workforce of 1.18 (at full obedience), 1 worker has the cargo capacity of 1 and the workforce of 1.09. (at full morale). This means you need fewer slaves then workers which in turn means fewer fighters (which means lower c per day ratio again) to guard you caravan and fewer slaves to man all your crew and beasts, (going to remind you that you also get 2x the cargo capacity of workers which means fewer slaves are required to add extra cargo).

Workers however are better at foraging then slaves, but slaves can be sold, workers can only be let go. Workers are cheap to recruit but get more expensive then slaves over a short time due to the 3c per day ratio compared to 1c per day of the slaves.

You can increase the worker-workforce with the Good Quality Work Tools but require you to purchase and equip it. Slaves can be awarded after winning a battle against most enemies, which means you get them for free and can be sold later on for profit.

By now I'm sure we can all agree that slaves are better then workers and I would kindly ask to have them justified, (value for your currency).
To do this I would suggest that worker-workforce (per worker) should be switched with slave-workforce, this means 1.18 per worker and 1.09 per slave, (at optimum morale/ obedience).
Also to lower the supply consumption of workers from 2 per day to 1, this would mean that workers would be at 2c per day which is 2x the slaves cpd (Changer Per Day) down from 3x.
A way to justify this is to argue that in a world like the Riven Realms a worker has to compete against slaves and there for can not expect to demand more food out of their employer who is already paying them salary (and payed upfront just to get eager workers to join) for a lower work output.
The cargo capacity of 1 per worker compared to 2 of the slaves make sense and should remain.

Should these changes be made I would also recommend to change the Awnings harness item/ equipment to instead lower worker consumption by 10% and slave consumption by 20%. (Reversing them).
The reason for this is because you need more slaves then workers now and there is only one Harness slot, due to the shortage of Harness slots and the value of most other Harness items Awnings is usually eschewed since you usually have a lot of slaves and no workers. (Awnings is only truly effective when you have a small army of workers or a large combination of workers and slaves).

Making the changes to the workforce-ratio mentioned and the Awnings item would mean more value for your currency and also help justify both workers and the Awnings item.

Thank you for reading and a huge thanks to the developers of this game, I really love everything about it and that is why I'm so passionate about posting this suggestion.
This might also help with certain builds and thus increase replay-ability of the game.

[Cisco2950]

Originally posted by Kasa:

Problem with that is that bonus is only at max level which is apparently hard to get / maintain.

There is a very good write up on salve / worker ratio on this forum and the math shows that slaves are inherently better in just about every way to workers with workers only catching up to basic slave levels AFTER you max our you're rep with Abolitionists, using tools, skills, and awnings.

Not sure if the extra supplies and quests make up the difference. END quote]

So The Bottom Line come down to personal choice. Just like in everything in life and gaming. Play your style and your conscience and see if it works. Just because mathematically something seems superior does not always mean it is. What do you enjoy and feel like doing. I did a couple runs already. One with slaves and lizards, One with slaves and horses fully mounted. Now I trying one with horses and BoB and workers. At each town I buy and sell everything I do or don't need for my next Leg. I go mostly cross country, not really fast but by stopping soon enough and 150% feeding just keep moving along. up to almost 800 Bross so far and exploring everywhere I want.

If you starve, or go broke you learned a way not to do business.
:-)

[Wlerin]

Originally posted by Kasa:

Problem with that is that bonus is only at max level which is apparently hard to get / maintain.

The +10% workforce and the +20% combat strength bonuses are available before max level and are quite strong. As long as your consumption isn't too high the bonus supplies can be a lifesaver.

Originally posted by Kasa:

There is a very good write up on salve / worker ratio on this forum and the math shows that ...

The math in that post is wrong. Not sure if it's wrong enough to change the conclusion, but the base workforce for both workers and slaves is identical. It also fails to account for numerous other gameplay mechanics, like what happens when slaves get to low obedience vs. workers to low morale, the fact obedience only matters for slaves while morale affects everything (and you thus have more reason to keep it high), how often slaves/workers get nommed by certain enemies and thus how cheap workers are to replace vs. slaves, etc.

Nevertheless it is true that from a purely mechanical standpoint slaves are probably better. As I said in that thread though, if they weren't, the empire wouldn't keep using them.

[Kasa]

It was fixed later but even after the fix it was proven that slaves were still better by a large margin.

Me personally? After I got a event were some guards were gonna r@pe one and everyone was more or less cool with it because it was a slave, well that just cemented me on the Abolitionists playthrough.

Ya it's a personal preference and I can ignore something in a video game for a mathematical benefit but even I have standards even if it's only a fantasy game.

[Wlerin]

Not having slaves also means you can't sacrifice them or give them to the Wraiths in Velarias.

[Kasa]

Originally posted by Wlerin:

The math in that post is wrong. Not sure if it's wrong enough to change the conclusion, but the base workforce for both workers and slaves is identical. It also fails to account for numerous other gameplay mechanics, like what happens when slaves get to low obedience vs. workers to low morale, the fact obedience only matters for slaves while morale affects everything (and you thus have more reason to keep it high), how often slaves/workers get nommed by certain enemies and thus how cheap workers are to replace vs. slaves, etc.

Nevertheless it is true that from a purely mechanical standpoint slaves are probably better. As I said in that thread though, if they weren't, the empire wouldn't keep using them.

You can whip slaves and feed them extra to raise their obedience as well as placing full guards, it's Moral and obedience is actually pretty easy to maintain.

As for that, it's been proven historically that that civilizations used slaves many more reasons other then it was "better" and more often then naught it was not in fact better.

In this case the empire is dying and in shambles and everyone one is miserable, so the use of slaves is pollical. Everyone is miserable but at least your not a slave so life is not so bad ya? That kind of thing.

[Wlerin]

Depends what you're doing. Obedience seems to fall much faster than morale when the caravan is under stress, and the bad events you get at low obedience will worsen things even more.

[Kasa]

Originally posted by Wlerin:

Depends what you're doing. Obedience seems to fall much faster than morale when the caravan is under stress, and the bad events you get at low obedience will worsen things even more.

fair but in reverse you can always choose then to convert your slaves into freemen on the spot if things look bad and you can't keep them under control.

[Nordil(Hun)]

Just as an added sidenote, slaves are better as workforce than workers.
By about 0.2-3 points. You can check the Slave/Worker ratio thread for it.
There is around 20-22/3 points of intimitadation available vs the 10 or so engineering for Workers. This is what gives such a huge difference. (Also that they do not require anything basicly to increase their workforce tool wise.)

[Wlerin]

Originally posted by Nordil(Hun):

Just as an added sidenote, slaves are better as workforce than workers.
By about 0.2-3 points. You can check the Slave/Worker ratio thread for it.
There is around 20-22/3 points of intimitadation available vs the 10 or so engineering for Workers. This is what gives such a huge difference. (Also that they do not require anything basicly to increase their workforce tool wise.)

Intimidation isn't free. Slaves need Engineering + Intimidation, Workers just need Engineering. That is potentially a lot of Insight/Proficiency points you can spend elsewhere.

[Jean-Maurice Nya]

Yes, abolitionist are worth it for RP purposes.
A RPG is not about mathematical optimization, but about RP, so it's definitively worth the journey. I didn't do it yet as I'm currently on the exact opposite run, but I know from what I've seen and played so far, that's worse it.

[Kasa]

@Jean-Maurice Nya

I tend to agree except when the game explicitly says that it's hard and you are bound to die a lot. Because then it very much becomes about numbers.

People don't Role Play in DD often on normal + higher difficulty games because it's a very math driven experience.

Dark souls can get away with it because that's a mostly skilled based game, but I think you can understand my point.

[Jean-Maurice Nya]

I understand, but once you got the mechanics Vagrus is fairly average on difficulty. It has no "iron man/roguelike" characteristics on top of that.
I don't use awnings because I can cope with high supplies consumption for example. And this is the mechanic you need to understand quite quickly: how to have no supplies problems. Then all the rest is pretty ok to deal with.

[Kasa]

That's fair, I've played it a fair bit now and it's as you say.

TO be honest I don't think I would actually say this game is hard but more abstruse with a lot of mechanics not really well explained or explained at all.

Correct me if I'm wrong but I don't think it even explains anywhere in game that you can march up 1/2 (rounded up) your march movement without incurring any penalties to vigour.

And so the only way to master those mechanics is ether buy reading the forum or having an especially keen mind and eye.