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Tinto Talks #34 - 23rd of October 2024

Hello and Welcome to another Tinto Talk, where we spill information about our entirely secret unannounced game with the codename Project Caesar.

This week we will talk about how slavery works in this game.

Slave Pops
One of the six types of pops we have are the slaves. These lack pretty much every right in all countries, and are simply exploited. They are not allowed to move around on their own, they have harsh enough lives that they are basically only keeping the current population levels at best of times, and they have absolutely no income nor any political power. If they get any sort of literacy they are very likely to be rather upset. At the start of the game the usage of slaves is mostly gone from Europe, but it's more prevalent in other parts of the world.


slaves_cairo.png

Part of the slaves in Cairo at the start..

Usage of Slaves
Slaves are primarily used in resource gathering operations, but they can also be used in various buildings. These types of buildings can be categorized into two types of buildings.

First we have the slave-soldier buildings that require slaves to function, and produce manpower or sailors. These include buildings like mamluk or janissary barracks that provide a part of the armies of the Mamluks and Ottomans.

The second category of buildings are the plantations. These are buildings that you can unlock from Age of Discovery advances. There are three types of plantations, for sugar, tobacco and cotton. These are far more productive than the RGO for the same goods, but require slaves to function.

galley_barracks.png

One unique building to get you a lot of sailors.

Of course there are other uses for Slaves. In some religions you need a steady stream of them to sacrifice daily to make the Sun go up the next day.


Acquiring Slaves
There are multiple ways to get slaves.

First of all you have the classic way of conquering nearby territories and enslaving part of the population as you sack their cities. This is something that as diverse cultures as amongst others, the Haudenosaunee, Aztec and the Kanem Empire can do from the start. They also get easy access to casus belli to go on slave raiding wars. As you sack a city, a percentage of the population will become slaves and appear in the closest slave market you have, and if none is near enough, then to the closest slave market nearby.

Secondly, we have the Berber States, who engaged in slave raiding from the sea. In Eu4, this was a button you clicked on your ships when they were near a coast that had no slave-raiding-cooldown active. In Project Caesar this ability is a part of the privateering mechanic, in that if you have access to this ability, then your privateers will raid a random coastal location in the area they are in, and take some of the pops as slaves for the closest slave market. This is stopped by having a truce, above 100 opinion, or a good old coastal fortress.

slave_raiding.png

Morocco is one of the countries that can do this from day 1.

Thirdly, you have the Slave Market Building. While it acts as a hub for slave trades, it will also try to enslave pops of non accepted cultures, and different religious groups. This is to simulate how the Delhi Sultanate and others enslaved people in their conquered lands over time.

slave_market.png

It all adds up over time..

Fourthly, you have the possibility to build slave centers in foreign locations that have less power projection than you. This is to simulate part of how the Europeans got their slaves from West Africa to the New World. While a significant part of slaves were bought from other African Kingdoms that were willing to sell slaves taken from their enemies, they were also locally captured by the slavers themselves near their slaving centers. If you wish to fight this in your territories, you need to go to war and forcefully expel them.

Finally, you can trade for slaves. In Project Caesar, slaves exist both as a type of goods and as a type of pop, and they are slightly linked. Buildings can produce slave goods and require slave goods as input. When a slave goods is traded between markets, the game will also move pops in relative sizes to locations that have a demand for slaves.

Thus, if you have buildings or resource gathering operations that can use slaves, they will create a demand for slaves in the market, and if you trade from a market that both produces slave goods and has enough slaves present, the game will move about 200 pops from the slave market each month for each good you trade.

At the start of the game there is the Trans-Saharan trade, where northern african countries import slaves from West Africa, many sold by the Kanem Empire.

Later on, during the Age of Discovery, you will see the triangular trade between Europe, West Africa & Americas, which will reduce the Trans Saharan trade volumes.

There is also another market system, as the Mongol States have access to taking slaves when conquering land, and they created the greatest slave trading network the world has ever seen. Since Muslim states could not keep muslim slaves, and christians did not want christian slaves, the Mongols traded the muslims to the christians and the christians to the muslim countries. The trade links from India goes to central asia as well, as Delhi trades their slaves to other markets, while they get the slaves they require for their mamluk-style armies.



Stay tuned as next week we’ll talk about Great Powers and Hegemonies..
 
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Are you joking here, or do we have religions that need to kill at least one slave per day (or, say, 365 slaves per year)? First thought that came to mind was the Aztecs and Mayans, but I thought their sacrifices were more ceremonial and sporadic than actually needing a "stream of slaves".

Also, regarding that art for Slave pops, they seem kinda... y'know... yassified. Surely they should be a bit more dirty/emaciated?
https://www.historyonthenet.com/aztec-culture-how-many-were-killed-as-human-sacrifices

Should be a few thousand per year, at the bare minimum.
 
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Yes. There is a reason so many the other states in Mexico went "oh lets ally with these weird spanish invaders, no matter what"
...except human sacrifice was widespread and integrated into religion/government in all of Mesoamerica (and the Andes and Mississippians for that matter), not just the Mexica. Revenge for years of Mexica pressure/domination and initial battles against the Spanish were probably just as important reasons behind those alliances.
 
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Not sure how a nation with only slaves would work.
Will there be nations like modern Gulf States like certain antiquity civilizations or some fantasy nations (i.e. Ghiscari in ASOIAF), where there are very few peasants, and the population is >90% slaves with some Nobles and Burghers on the top?
 
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You said you can’t create slaves from your primary culture or religion, but could you pass a law that makes it legal? It would piss off the estates and pops obviously.
 
Thank you for addressing this important historical reality in a more thorough manner than what had been the case in other games. I wonder if there will also be a serf pop and how that would be reflected in game compared to slaves. I am particularly interested in how forms of unpaid labor that would not be considered outright slavery be tackled; such as the case of the encomienda system in the Spanish Empire, indentured servitude in the English colonies or Russian serfdom. Legally these people were not counted as property but there were systemic mechanisms to keep them working for little or no financial gain like forced debt and customs like corvee labor. I'm not sure if representing them as farmers or commoners would be quite accurate.
 
Perhaps "Accepted Culture" would be a better criteria for slaves to return? I know that it might be tempting, but I doubt a Swedish military expedition to free slaves in North Africa would just leave the Danish slaves to be.
I don't think "expeditions to free slaves" would/should be a thing. I could be wrong, but I don't think any wars were ever fought for that, to end slave raids in general? Yes, but not like "Oh, we got raided so now we are going to declare a war to free our countrymen" I could be wrong but I don't think that was ever a thing. Freeing slaves of your culture/group might be best represented as just a treaty you can add as part of an unrelated wargoal, rather than being a cassus belli in and of itself.
 
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Janissaries were unique to Ottoman Empire

maybe add ghulam for others, but stop giving away stuff which makes up the Ottoman Empire
not really , even moroccans had janissarie model infantry since the mid 1500s and they used them in their many wars against the ottomans in alger beylik region.
saying they were exclusive to ottomans is like saying hoplites are exclusive to the greeks thus carthage should not be using them
 
This has probably been brought up before, but I hope that making slavery illegal won't automatically make slavery disappear in the entire country like it did in Vic 3. I'd much rather have something like the EU4 institutions system or the old westernization system where it's not implemented straight away. I hope there will be illegal slavery in the country, especially in regions with weak control and if slavery has existed in the country for centuries. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, it took Belgium several decades to end the tyranny of their own king in the Congo. I can't imagine that, for example, the day after a player outlawed slavery in the Mamluk sultanate in the 14th century, the local slave traders in the Saharan oasis would give up their slaves. I hope that some mechanics will be introduced, e.g. slavery decrease by x% of the province's population per month times the province's control level times additional modifiers (e.g. decision to send an army to counteract illegal slavery (decrease slavery, increase spending and increase unrest)). I'm just giving a loose proposal that I've just made up, but if you think that the gradual disappearance of slavery is not a stupid idea, then if you want, please write if you have an idea for a better system than the one I proposed
 
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So I'm wondering if for example, France (or any other European colonial power) refuses slavery.

How does that affect their colonies compared to other European powers that would use slaves ? Are they much less profitable ? Do they grow a lot slower ?

Is it possible to ban slavery based on colonial areas ? For example, the French crown was petitioned several times to allow African slaves in Canada, but never allowed it. French authorities only allowed African slaves in its Carribbeans possessions, and Louisiana. The only slaves that trickled into Canada were allowed to have were those that were given/purchased to Allied Natives or taken from raiding English colonies, so very very few indeed.
 
with all the idiotic nonsense that is going on in our world today, i actually thought slaves would be replaced with "unwilling workers" or something like to protect the feelings of certain people, im glad i was wrong.
 
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We are making a game simulating history. Its part of it.
Will there be any late game mechanics allowing a country to abolish the practice, and also more significantly to enforce abolition internationally, if they are powerful enough? Britain passed the law abolishing slavery in 1807, and the West Africa Squadron was created, and began anti-slavery patrols in 1808, although the first captures of slaver vessels did not happen until 1810. But these dates are all well inside the apparent time window for the game...
 
As you sack a city, a percentage of the population will become slaves and appear in the closest slave market you have, and if none is near enough, then to the closest slave market nearby.

Not a fan of this automated city sacking stuff. In Imperator or EU5. What happens to a city (buildings and population and treasury) after a successful siege/assault should be up to the player like in the old Total War games for example. It could maybe be also influenced by the discipline of the army, personality of the commander, personality of the ruler/nation etc. It should not be automated.
 
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The devshirme did not make a significant number of christian boys, and later to a large number if not mostly muslims, to slaves but to (forced and converted) conscripts. Janissaries should simply be tied to the population itself, not any slave pops and they should be an estate by themselves.
I do not believe that taking Christian boys against their will can be accurately classified as conscription. I did not suggest that the Janissaries should be considered part of a slave population; rather, I argued that the devshirme system aligns more closely with slavery, which you yourself acknowledged by using the term "forced." It is important to recognize that the devshirme system encompassed more than just the Janissaries, as it involved a broader and more complex process. I hope that the developers take the time to explore these nuances and consider abstractions like these, which could deepen the system's representation.
 
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In the US the vast majority of slaves were born into slavery, not imported, so it will be pretty odd for the black population to stagnate or decline once importation of slaves ends.

That's because after the US ended the import of slaves (and in the run-up to it happening, since everyone knew the date it would be implemented ever since the Constitution added a time limit) , raising the birthrate among current slaves was encouraged (i.e. cohabitation between the sexes became the norm instead of being physically separated) instead of discouraged as it had been previously to counter the drop after importation ended.
 
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