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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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Because it is closer to home. Death is abstract. Slavery and racism is real in the modern day and relevant to modern politics in a way death is not. There's a difference of current-day political relevance and while you can debate whether warfare "should be" treated more/less negatively than slavery, the reality is that it is popularly considered more sensitively.
War is definitely more real than slavery in the modern world. True slavery is marginal, although many workers around the world, specially migrants are treated like slaves, but that's a different thing.
 
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If you are not bothered by being incentivised to conquer and "convert" cultures, what's different about slavery?

If anything, war hits closer to home, as most of as are far more likely to experience war than to be taken into slavery. For most of us playing these games, slavery is a thing of the past, while war is still pretty much a thing.
Also much like Vic3, it will also simulate the negatives of slavery, since it will hinder development.

Because slaves can't participate in the economy, because well they are the product. Thus literally being a weight that weighs down economic development.
 
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I do think this would be the proper representation of this system btw
Labelling people that were not slaves as slaves because reasons is a proper representation of historic facts?

Imagen I mod the game. I make an extended timeline mod. Now all people from the working class are slaves. No reasons given. No facts considered.

Mamluks are arguably tied to the slave pool, since they became free once they finished their military education. But janissaries and the entire class of governors that were run by the devshirme are in no form or shape tied to slavery.
 
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Slave Nation?
Thats bad idea. When they rule nation then aint slaves anymore right
Or you mean all slaves are equal but some slaves are more equal than others
Politically it would have hard times getting any relations with other TAGS

I dont know how you even play this. Like revolition and liberation CB against all slave owners? And you still are slaves not Free People Republic for example?
Totally unnecessary IMHO
Might be bad idea but even from those, can come better ideas (like brainstorming).
Probably can't be all equal but I guess they could have similar system like Pirates have (or some better alternative, that I can't think of).
That's true and would also give even more challenge. Especially around nations that do slavery. (It's like revolutionary nations around monarchy nations)
But yeah, just throwing ideas. :)
 
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Will there be debt slavery like in VIC3? In VIC3 this is the only way to turn other pops into slaves, and even pops with primary culture and state religion can also be enslaved.
 
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It looks like slavery in Korea will be there throughout the campaign. Map of the years slavery was abolished:
View attachment 1205893


There is slavery in the Early Modern Period in German states
 
Labelling people that were not slaves as slaves because reasons is a proper representation of historic facts?

Imagen I mod the game. I make an extended timeline mod. Now all people from the working class are slaves. No reasons given. No facts considered.

Mamluks are arguably tied to the slave pool, since they became free once they finished their military education. But janissaries and the entire class of governors that were run by the devshirme are in no form or shape tied to slavery.
The way the game is designed (given this TT and a reply that Johan made on a previous one) doesn't really allow manpower-providing buildings to be built in non-cores. Hence the elaborate one-two where you first need to build a building to convert Christian pops to slaves, and then turn those slaves into soldiers.

Also worth noting that we still know nothing about buildings actually being able to limit employment based on, say, faith, so with this system you end up with any slave pop being able to be turned into a janissary.

It also makes me think, given the way that slave markets work, that buildings really can't limit employment based on religion. Meaning you can't even change this model to be something else that employs Christian pops directly, because you can't make a building that only employs Christian pops.
 
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Might be bad idea but even from those, can come better ideas (like brainstorming).
Probably can't be all equal but I guess they could have similar system like Pirates have (or some better alternative, that I can't think of).
That's true and would also give even more challenge. Especially around nations that do slavery. (It's like revolutionary nations around monarchy nations)
But yeah, just throwing ideas. :)
lol so a Slave working collective, every individula give out his work for free, but ownes the % profits from labor he ownes over his fellow Slaves.... so some kind of collectivelly selling yourself into Indentured servitude to each other.... hahaha
 
@Johan could we get an achievement if we reach the end date of the game being #1 great power and never allowing the use of slaves ?
I mean I like how you designed this mechanic and I want to play the game as intended, but I think this alternate "liberator" playthough could be nice for a 3rd or 4th run
 
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10. It's kinda werid that the African slaves are represented by an icon of two white people - but having the slaves be the only POPs that are black would be ever worse - did you think about having the POP icons be different depending on their ethnicity (similiar to EU4 advisor portraits)?
10 - we talked about this, and one day we will have ethnic differences on poptype icons.
This is one of the various reasons why I feel that Pop icons shouldn't be meeples but actual 'Icons'. It is hard enough playing the "guess the poptype by what hat it is wearing" game. But eventually we will get the expansion to the guessing game 'now with more color options'.

Please go back to a recognizable icon over two person image.
 
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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.
So will there be slaves in Europe? In VIC3 Romania still have slavery even in 1836.
 
I'm "hoping" slave trade from Africa to Asia will also be incentivized. The Dutch East India Company (VOC) held 75000 slaves in 1750 vs only 64000 held by the Dutch West India Company. Many older dutch history books put all the blame for slave trade on the western company (which was very much involved in the trade), but whitewash the keeping/trade of slaves by the VOC.

Slaves were instrumental in the building of fortresses, harbours and working in shipwrights/docks and the associated industries in Batavia and other trade posts. At least a quarter of the population of Batavia consisted of slaves. Slaves were also used as supplementary security forces and later on "freed" to become soldier in the KNIL (royal dutch indian army). Slaves were transported by the VOC from South/East Africa/Madagascar and other Indonesian islands.

So I hope the military/naval/naval production use of slaves won't be too restricted to Mameluks/Ottomans or just galleys.
 
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where the buildings have a demand
Trying to understand how slave pops tie with slave goods. Suppose I have a nation that doesn't produce its own slaves, but it wants to operate mines with slaves. It needs 5 Slave Goods per tick (day? month?). Gets those goods from a foreign market. Now the locations where those mines are have a total of 1000 Slave Pops distributed across them.

Do we need to keep buying slaves from that foreign market now that there are slave pops living where the mines are? As in, are the slaves "consumable goods" that need to keep being purchased? If yes, does that mean slave producers must constantly find new pops to enslave to meet this market demand?

Suppose those mines get destroyed but slavery hasn't been banned. Our example nation has no demand for slave goods anymore but still has slave pops in its borders. Are they automatically put up for sale on that foreign market? Do the slave pops get moved out of the nation when a buyer is found? Or do they get moved when they're put up for sale?