Slaves?

[Leet Eriksson]

I'm talking about slaves NOT slavs.ok my question is,how about when we defeat an army we enslave them and sell them to another faction?BUT,the other faction does not use them as fighting warriors,but rather use them as a means to complete a structure they are building or something?

also i had another idea on my mind,when capturing a province,how about we produce the units of the provinces former owner?like capturing a province from the guals let you produce gualic units,unless you migrate your factions people into the province then you can start producing your own.just wondering,it might effect gameplay though..

[USMCNJ]

the slaves is a pretty good idea. Considering that slaves were a major part of the Roman time.
And the province ==>unit idea is nice. But it would never fly. Cause it would take a way the replay value from the game. Think about how often do you replay the same faction in the same time frame. The reason you play as different nations cause they get different units.

[Oberiko]

I think POW slaves should be used in almost the exact manner that soldiers returned into the populace would have.

The only difference would be that Rome could convert some of their slaves into a gain in population happiness through the gladiator games.

[Leet Eriksson]

hmm romans get gladiators in the game(seen a pic of it somewhere)i was thinking how about these units can only be trained when you have a sufficent number of slaves?

[Herodotus]

If slavery is included it should be excactly how it was. There should be different levels of slavery, for example there are many myths about slaves in the Roman era ie: that every slave was whipped in a trireme or worked to death in a mine. The reality was that naval slaves could seldom be whipped or mistreated because there were only so many of them and they could not be wasted as they did such a vital job.

Even if you were a slave you would usually earn a wage (minimum wage may aswell be called slavery in the West) and it was common place for people to sell themselves into slavery to pay off their debt. The only form of slavery that was truly dreaded was mining, because they were worked mercilessly to their deaths.

Greek slaves were an elite class of slave. After the initial conquest of Greece, Rome underwent a technological boom equivalent to the invention of the computer for us. The boom was fueled by Greek intellectual slaves. Later Greeks would sell themself to Romans with the ambitition of making a fortune. For example a Greek accountant would work for his new master for free, but he would charge others for the same services. Next he would save up to buy himself, and then he was set for life with a good business in Rome.

[Leet Eriksson]

i was'nt talking about roman slaves,just slaves in general.i don't know anything about roman slaves,but was suggesting some ideas for the game.i do know romans had more tolerance than most nations did at that time.if you looked at the egyptian slaves in the bronze age,now that was terrible.

[Longshanks]

You should get more money at least for captured soldiers than you did in MTW, since now they are sold into slavery. (except for generals, who would still be ransomed or executed)

[Hakonarson]

Some prisoners weer exeuted en masse, but most were sold to slavery - but not to foreigners To you own people - slave labour was not to be sold off to the competition

Actually the comment about provinces and troop types is the only way that RTW can be done with any degree of historical accuracy at all - anything else is fantasy.

However there should be a provision for "Romanising" conquered provinces so that after a while they stop producing the "native" type and start producing "regular" Roman units - this happened across the whole Roman empire.

The usual progression would be something like a province (kingdom) would be goverend by a client king, eventually the last king would die without an heir and teh kingdom would becoem a Roman province at which point the native troops would cease to be raised and the population instead drafted into Roman units, often with the title of teh province, such as Auxilia Maurii or Auxilia Belgae for auxilia raised among the Moors or Belgae.

[Herodotus]

Slaves were sold to foreigners for example when the Romans swept down the Phonecian coast conquering all before them they were being followed by a fleet of Parthians who were buying slaves. Technically the two factions were at war but no-one seemed to care. But for it to be the norm would be out of the question. However the ability to set the policy yourself with a wide range of options would be fantastic.

[Hakonarson]

That's intersting - do you have a source for the Parthians following the army?

Being "at war" was a different prospect then than it is now - essentially the war would only be where thearmies were, and commerce would continue normally everywhere else

[Herodotus]

Yeah I've got a source but I will have to find it.

[Herodotus]

I remember now, it was in one of 'The First Man of Rome' books. They are fictional books based around historical events. I'm pretty sure it was in the latest one.

[Morten viking]

I think the idea of selling prisoners as slaves as an option is a good idea. This could even lead to a bonus to accumen for example.

Slave raids in neighboring provinces could be a way of financing your campaigns, especially in provinces with low trade, farming value.