They may have been discussing it, but the only thing we know for certain is that the author isn't quoting any devs in that part of the article. In other places it's quite clear when the author is quoting Johan.
The game mechanic does suggest they are using Finley as a source.
And as the paper you linked by Scheidel says, to a very large degree it's all guesstimates. There are plenty of scholars and contemporary sources who can be used to justify the abstraction the devs have chosen.
But that's what ancient history is about. It's about making guesstimate based on our available source.
That wasn't the case for Rome for a large part of the game's timeframe though. During the late republic, Roman citizens were pretty much untaxed. The newly conquered provinces took the majority of the tax burden, with most of the remaining taxes coming from ager publicus (mainly rented out to large land owners at this point), mines (mostly worked by slaves and criminals), custom duties and slave taxes (sales tax and manumission tax). With this in mind I see no reason to demand that free citizens (called freemen in dev diary 5) should take a majority of the tax burden in Imperator: Rome.
The thing is many of the provinces they get their taxes don't generate their most of their wealth from slave labour. The publicani don't collect taxes from slaves after all.
The riches of Egypt was in large part due to the grain production enabled by the regular flooding of the Nile. As Rome was relying on grain imports from Egypt, keeping the population happy, and avoiding rebellions was much more important than in other provinces. A large portion of slaves woul also mean increased revolt risk, both from slaves and people replaced by slaves. Therefor Egypt doesn't necessary serve as a good example.
But the land was worked on by free laborers as well. So it's not as simple as having more slaves = more wealth.
Having slaves generate tax income doesn't prevent the devs from letting slaves have other effects as well. It could be rebellions, more powerful aristocrats and more. Until we know more I don't really see this as a relevant argument to remove tax income from slaves.
My issue is with the devs designing the game based on the idea that slaves were the main source of wealth for ancient empires.
So you want 'freemen' to provide both the income and manpower? Having to choose between the two (as we will with tax income from slaves) sounds like much more interesting game play to me.
Why not? It's about choosing what you want to do with your "freeman". Do you want your freeman to work on lands or do you want them to provide the manpower for your armies? That's an interesting choice for the players. You can choose to supplement the "freeman" with slaves, but these decisions will have consequences.
Again, tax income from slaves is no reason to not have other interesting mechanics related to 'class struggles'.
My argument against slaves being represented as the main source of wealth is historical. You asked me to provide a role for slaves in the game. I've provided one based on historical arguments.
Yes, but this is also a game and they have to make interesting choices.
I'm saying there are other ways to go about making interesting choices that is better informed by current academic research. Paradox Interactive have a good record of doing historical research for their games. There's no reason why they can't do this for Rome.
It depends on the system. Rome during the republic was actually quite good at getting the large land holders invested in the state. And indeed eventually they got them so invested that the cleverest took over the state and shut most of the other ones out.
The Roman Republic was good at getting large landholders invested in the state. This does not mean slavery equates wealth. A lot of Roman wealth came from the various provinces under their control, with much of the lands being worked on by freeborn non-Romans provincials.
Roman Egypt is rather immaterial to the setting as Rome will have control of egypt for... a few decades historically, and Egypt is a rather unique province within the empire.
Roman Egypt was a special case, but it still suggests the ancient economy was not reliant on slavery to generate wealth. Instead, it's about having control of fertile lands and making sure there are sufficent farmers working on those lands.
An over abundance of slaves was a driving factor in the collapse of the Roman republic.
And this is why I think slaves should not be represented in the game as a main source of wealth. Because what it does is to create a game that rewards players for having more slaves while failing to punish players for having an overabundance of slaves.
They can do this in a less complicated manner than in the way you seem to want
All games are about making an abstraction from real life/history. The question is how are you going about implementing those ideas in an abstract fashion. As it stands, I am worried Paradox might end up overstating the importance of slavery in ancient economies and perpetuate certain historical misconceptions as we've seen in this very thread.
