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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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Enlightenment primarily.
What about slave revolts? It was ultimately several huge slave revolts that put enough pressure on Britain and France to end slavery (ofc not in a vacuum, given the industrial revolution was another main impetus to end slavery)? Slave revolts should be relatively frequent in the New world and in colonies given the more overt level of cruelty and inhumane treatment of people in bondage.
 
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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.

Rulers IRL didn't necessarily have a lot of control over that though.
 
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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.

I'm kinda surprised to read this. Recent scholarship has shown that there was a thriving European slave trade in Italy and Iberia in the 1200s through 1500s. Hannah Barker's That Most Precious Merchandise: The Mediterranean Trade in Black Sea Slaves, 1260-1500 is an excellent documentation on how Genoa, Venice, and other Italian city-states not only kept Muslim slaves, but trafficked in Orthodox slaves illegally seized from Greece, Albania, and Ukraine. The Mamluk slave trade was certainly entangled with that of Italy, with merchants moving slaves between Egypt and Italian colonial outposts. Slavery of Muslim women in Christian Valencia ("cativas") was also common enough to shape public rhetoric.
 
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I think it's a very easy modifier to introduce and would historically complement the slavery issue a bit. All you need to do is probably create different multipliers for the monthly natural growth of slaves and set them depending on whether slavery is hereditary or not.
Interesting diversity to simulate the ways slaves were obtained. Will there be a distinction between societies where slavery was hereditary and where slavery wasn't? Slaves in the Aztec Empire did not inherit their status, for example.
 
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I'm saying that the massive influx of veteran soldiers were there to fight regardless of whether there was a formal declaration of war or not.
They specifically joined the cause of the Ottomans, because the Ottomans fought the Romans. They wouldnt have done so, if an Ottoman neighbour had done it and the Ottomans were busy fighting other Beyliks. Your reasoning makes no sense. These Gazi warriors were not raiders, but warriors. It is like saying that the crusaders would have went to the holy lands to raid and that fighting to conquer the holy lands was just some kind of side-mission.
 
It doesnt matter whether they were independent or not they borrowed janissary institution from Ottomans, one beylik cant made up janissaries himself,

Levant had already Mamluks left even after the Ottoman conquered, as they already have slave institution they may feel it is not worth bringing the janissaries, doesnt matter as janissaries are unique troops available only to Ottomans, not anybody else (maybe some of its subjects may use to)



What you want is like adding SS troops to Switzerland in hoi4 just because they are German lol
As I have stated previously, as long as a Beylik takes out the ottomans, I dont see why they wouldnt adopt Janissaries. If Switerzland takes out Germany in HOI4 they should be able to get SS troops as well.
 
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They specifically joined the cause of the Ottomans, because the Ottomans fought the Romans. They wouldnt have done so, if an Ottoman neighbour had done it and the Ottomans were busy fighting other Beyliks. Your reasoning makes no sense. These Gazi warriors were not raiders, but warriors. It is like saying that the crusaders would have went to the holy lands to raid and that fighting to conquer the holy lands was just some kind of side-mission.
Honestly I think at this point we're just arguing over the difference of "raiding", but that we agree on the broader point. I created a post here with my reflections on this TT in a bit more consolidated a fashion.
 
As I have stated previously, as long as a Beylik takes out the ottomans, I dont see why they wouldnt adopt Janissaries. If Switerzland takes out Germany in HOI4 they should be able to get SS troops as well.
It is even lower possibility if they try to adopt after fighting them :), their military system would not accept bektashi order they were fighting against. Janissaries arent simple troops, they are alevi-bektashi order,

What you want is like make Ottomans adopt qizilbashs just because they take out Safavids lol.
In reality, every last qizilbash would be hunted because being enemy shia order
 
It is even lower possibility if they try to adopt after fighting them :), their military system would not accept bektashi order they were fighting against. Janissaries arent simple troops, they are alevi-bektashi order,

What you want is like make Ottomans adopt qizilbashs just because they take out Safavids lol.
In reality, every last qizilbash would be hunted because being enemy shia order
The shias were spread across anatolia. You make it sound like they were only present in the Ottoman lands. The Bektashi order also only became prominent sometime in the 15th century, not from the very begining.

So the Janissary religion doesnt matter (since they were initially sunni).
We know that turks adopted janissaries in de facto independent nations far away from Ottoman control.
We also know that the Janissaries were a very potent and competent military order.

But for some strange reasons only specific turks should have them. I dont see your argument.
 
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The shias were spread across anatolia. You make it sound like they were only present in the Ottoman lands
They were mostly Alevi not Shia,
Also remaining Shia keft and joined Qizilbash when hostilities between Ottomans and Safavids began, so it supports my argumemt :)
. The Bektashi order also only became prominent sometime in the 15th century, not from the very begining.
Bruh, janissaries wasnt founded yet in 1337, they only become noticable during 1400s

Before 1400, they didnt catch the attention of any beyliks



So the Janissary religion doesnt matter (since they were initially sunni).
We know that turks adopted janissaries in de facto independent nations far away from Ottoman control.
We also know that the Janissaries were a very potent and competent military order.
As I said being an Ottoman subject and getting janissaries is different,
Ottomans sent janissaries to Central Asian khanates to for some diplomatic mission
But for some strange reasons only specific turks should have them. I dont see your argument.

who was holding them if they were to found janissaries themselves :D
If for centuries, there werent any janissaries other than founded by Ottomans, it is reasonable to assume Ottomans is the only one who uses them lol
 
1- Will the game represent how certain kingdoms didn't allow the enslavement of certain ethnicities? For example, in Spanish Empire it was forbidden to enslave America native population, but it was allowed to have African slaves.

2- Will all countries have the same rights for their slaves? Certain countries had higher liberties for their slaves than others, like manumission right, where the slave could buy his own liberty or get it by reporting his owner to be too cruel.
 
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They were mostly Alevi not Shia,
Also remaining Shia keft and joined Qizilbash when hostilities between Ottomans and Safavids began, so it supports my argumemt :)

Bruh, janissaries wasnt founded yet in 1337, they only become noticable during 1400s

Before 1400, they didnt catch the attention of any beyliks




As I said being an Ottoman subject and getting janissaries is different,
Ottomans sent janissaries to Central Asian khanates to for some diplomatic mission


who was holding them if they were to found janissaries themselves :D
If for centuries, there werent any janissaries other than founded by Ottomans, it is reasonable to assume Ottomans is the only one who uses them lol
The Qizilbash topic is about 200 years after the formation of the Janissary. You are nitpicking historic events to push the idea that Janissaries could only be shia (alevism is a branch of shia islam). That is factually wrong, since the Janissaries did not start off with a preferential and dominant religious order. And whether they were "noticable" during the 1400s, doesnt change the fact that they were founded in the late 14th century. You are bending facts to fit your narrative. You even deny the existence of Janissaries in the maghreb region entirely founded and payrolled by de facto independent countries, only to fuel your very specific narrative.
 
What is the status of peasants in Russian empire? I understand that slavery was banned in some point but in all but name peasant population of Russian empire was slaves.

Formal conversion to serf status and the later ban on the sale of serfs without land did not stop the trade in household slaves; this trade merely changed its name. The private owners of the serfs regarded the law as a mere formality. Instead of "sale of a peasant" the papers would advertise "servant for hire" or similar.

By the eighteenth century, the practice of selling serfs without land had become commonplace. Owners had absolute control over their serfs' lives, and could buy, sell and trade them at will, giving them as much power over serfs as Americans had over chattel slaves, though owners did not always choose to exercise their powers over serfs to the fullest extent.



 
I’d strongly argue that you reconsider the dynamic of slave pops not growing. After all slave populations growing is part of the reason the Americas are such diverse places today
 
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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.
tbh it probably should be culture + religion dependant. On the one hand I doubt that a french expedition in the barbaresque would have left spanish slaves let be (while spanish culture should not be an accepted french culture), and on the other hand, central american cultures would probably just recapture the various slaves of other cultures for themselves.
 
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We had a mechanic similar to it, but it was not good and very micro
Maybe if you make it that the army can raid an entire province or area

Or even better let the player and AI choose how specific they want to raid, bigger raids take longer and cause less devastating per location but bring a lot of cash and people.
Smaller raids bring total collapse to a location if it's not defended a sizable portion of the population and the money in the location gets take, but the enemy knows exactly where you are and maybe can respond by killing your raiding party.
 
We are making a game simulating history. Its part of it.
in that case the Italian countries should employ convicts for galleys, not slaves :p

is there a practical difference? Well yes. For if you outlaw slavery you don't cut your own sailor supply... and also military the victory at Lepanto among other things was attributed to the fact that when boarded, the Italian galleymen had a reason to fight back... given that their eventual freedom was at stake

for the Ottoman galleymen? Heck they were mostly christians, why would they help their enslavers to fight off other christians?

sooo uh yeah. You could make that a small buff / debuff to galleys and give Italian countries a special building for sailor generetion that doesn't use slaves
 
No, not really.

We are not simulating the societies where slaves were castrated either.
Maybe you can make it a law
Where depending on the law you limit the reproduction of slaves. Since the population stays constant=1 just give it values from [0;1] depending on the law, where 0 would be castration and 1 be hereditary slavery.