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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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I am not sure what your implications are, but the Ottomans had an elaborate tax system, run up by loyal and efficent governors. They also had a huge trade income, especially after the conquest of the Mamluks, but even centuries before that. Bursa was on the silk road and cut on the silk trade in Constantinople. Later on pilgrimage roads were also secured by the Ottomans, which surely brought additional tax. The maghreb region was de facto independent and has little to do with the rise of the Ottomans or the power they maintained for centuries.
I'm referring to the Ottomans literally right at the start and how they managed to get a leg up on the other Anatolian beyliks. A significant factor was their proximity to the Balkans, which gave them an external source of revenue (raiding) which the other beyliks could not exploit for themselves (due to simple geography).
 
I'm referring to the Ottomans literally right at the start and how they managed to get a leg up on the other Anatolian beyliks. A significant factor was their proximity to the Balkans, which gave them an external source of revenue (raiding) which the other beyliks could not exploit for themselves (due to simple geography).
which is not the reason why they rose and which was not their main source of revenue.

I am not sure why you want to tie the economy of the Ottomans to raiding. Cross-border raiding was also fairly common in medieval age and centuries beyond that. It is not an exclusive Ottoman endevour.
 
For protecting against Barbary raids nothing was said about the presence of your own fleet, surely if I position my fleet in a sea zone it should protect all the coastal locations and if they attempt to raid it anyway it would start a naval battle. Also for raiding it would be cool if you could both just say go raid this sea or take more control and decide the specific locations to raid.
 
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For protecting against Barbary raids nothing was said about the presence of your own fleet, surely if I position my fleet in a sea zone it should protect all the coastal locations and if they attempt to raid it anyway it would start a naval battle. Also for raiding it would be cool if you could both just say go raid this sea or take more control and decide the specific locations to raid.
Didnt really work out irl either, until the US blasted Algeria in the 19th century.
 
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Do Slaves remember their former pop type like peasant or tribesman?

What decides which type slaves will convert when slavery is abolished I mean?

For example, as a exploit can someone enslave tribesman pops then abolish slavery to make them productive peasants?
Here is possible the answer.

In fact, it is logical that if you are a slave and slavery is abolished, you will automatically start at the bottom of the social scale, which is a peasant. Maybe only if the mother country rescued you from slavery in some shorter time interval that your status would be restored, otherwise the status of the ancestors would have to be forgotten with the next generation of slaves.
 
which is not the reason why they rose and which was not their main source of revenue.

I am not sure why you want to tie the economy of the Ottomans to raiding. Cross-border raiding was also fairly common in medieval age and centuries beyond that. It is not an exclusive Ottoman endevour.
Ottoman raiding into the Balkans is what gave them a leg up over all the other Anatolian beyliks, whether through economic gains, prestige gains, or simply by virtue of "softening up" an area of later conquest which then, after conquest, provided economic gains.

This is something that they very much did, which benefited them greatly in ways that the other beyliks could not due to a literal lack of proximity to areas that they could properly raid.
 
1-Will other Turkish beyliks or muslim states be able to create janissary barracks if they conquer europe?
2-Will slaves be expensive to buy from market?
3-Will winner get some slaves after battle(both land and naval)?
4-WIll you or your estates be able to pay ransom for slaves?
5-Will your pops get upset if their fellow countrymen enslaved?
6-Will coastal raiding have any effect on development and prosperity?
 
Just make a janissary special building that can for a period of time only be built in non-state religion provinces that give let's say +100 janissaries. I dont see the issue with coring and what not. The representation of janissaries is factually wrong. We might as well pretend european peasents to be slaves and make them all slaves. They had by far less education, political power and wealth than any given janissary.
I don't disagree, for what it's worth. Though the game doesn't really have "non-state-religion provinces"; it'd have to be based on pops, and buildings can't be specific in the pops that they employ (and as far as I can tell don't really "employ" anyone in particular). So, you'd probably have to set some baseline "there's X many non-state-religion pops in the location" per level of building, or something like that.

Could even throw in a small base conversion rate, to represent the fact that this process also involved conversion.

Also, at least with the base game's approach, you'd probably have to do something from stopping said buildings from being spammed to hell and back. Though in all honestly I'm not sure that's even especially unrealistic.
 
Didnt really work out irl either, until the US blasted Algeria in the 19th century.
the expedition against the barbaresque country which basically created Algeria was made by France though. But to stay in the game topic, the raids were basically interrupted only by a territorial presence, indeed.
 
Ottoman raiding into the Balkans is what gave them a leg up over all the other Anatolian beyliks, whether through economic gains, prestige gains, or simply by virtue of "softening up" an area of later conquest which then, after conquest, provided economic gains.

This is something that they very much did, which benefited them greatly in ways that the other beyliks could not due to a literal lack of proximity to areas that they could properly raid.
The advantage they had was their proximity to the Romans and their willingness to fight them. Veteran Gazi warriors joined the cause of the Ottomans, which naturally didnt happen with other Beyliks. I made a post about exactly that here:


It has nothing to do with raiding. Everyone pretty much raided. And unlike other Beyliks, the Ottomans faced much tougher opponents. Eretna didnt face a strong Bulgaria or a strong Serbia or magnificant leaders in Albania, Wallachia or Moldova. They didnt face the regional powerhouse of Hungary or defeated a crusade in Varna. And I am not saying that you shouldnt be able to do the same if you were to take a similar path as any given anatolian beylik, but this is really not a "they raided so they won" topic.
 
EU4, Imperator, & Vic3 (just to name the modern generation) all depict slavery
The difference is that we are all far removed from Roman times, in Victoria games slavery was on its way out and in EU4 slavery is barely represented compared to what we see here.

It feels different because in this time period slavery was just getting started, and it seems to be an integral part of the game, while also having some perks. I imagine that's what makes it icky to many people.

Personally I am fine with it as it's realistic. I think the tough pill to swallow is that slavery didn't exist because people were less moral than us at the time, it existed because it made sense for it to exist in that context.
 
Here is possible the answer.

In fact, it is logical that if you are a slave and slavery is abolished, you will automatically start at the bottom of the social scale, which is a peasant. Maybe only if the mother country rescued you from slavery in some shorter time interval that your status would be restored, otherwise the status of the ancestors would have to be forgotten with the next generation of slaves.
both tribesman and peasant are lower class

You cant determine one over the other
 
oh, and regarding all the people saying there was active slave use in late middle ages and in some part long into modren era. This is somewhat correct but misses the nuances that makes a huge difference.
The difference is in the fact that those slaves were prisoners of war put used as forced labor. But after several years those 'slaves' were freed at which point they either intergrated in the local community, get offred to become colonist peasent in the hinterlands or they fall outside of feudal system, at which point they moved to the city as a freeman. Other important points why those people were not slaves was the fact you couldn't not sell them inside the domestic market. Also harvesting slaves was never the goal of wars and raids. Nor an integral part of economic framework.
 
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You can replace peasants with slaves on RGOs.

You can't for "farm" buildings because the game is evidently designed to only let you employ exactly one pop type per building. So a building that employs peasants, can't employ slaves, and vice versa.
But that doesn't mean that a certain PM could require less Peasants, while now requiring the Slaves trade good as input. If that was indeed a limitation.

And regarding the "you can replace peasants with slaves on RGOs", Johan specifically said that slaves only work in two categories of buildings. Military buildings and plantations of which there are three types. Sugar, cotton and tobacco.
 
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