I know this is controversial, but is it possible to maintain slavery until the end of the game, and 'succeed' as a nation?

[paulxiep]

My 3rd run. I wanted to try succeeding as an autocracy regime. I also wanted something really challenging, and I ended up choosing Burundi (after 2 maritime runs and the obvious solution of grabbing land in Indonesia).
Slavery was not what I planned to do, but then I found Burundi was a slave state at the start of the game.
And I'm thinking this should be even more challenging than an autocracy run. Even more so, a democratic slaver state.
I don't aim as far as to enslave the world, I just want to at least own all of sub-Saharan Africa, and stay on the continent I start for a change. I might even maintain isolationism until the end of the game if I can.

I even let the 'abolish slavery' movement to revolt, in order to pass a colonization law, since I'm already surrounded by decentralized nations, and I'm pretty sure that I can't 'hop' these lands to conquer the world outside like I can 'hop' across water, but I digress.

I'm sure they'll revolt again, and I'll have no choice but just let it happen then take them down with guns.

The question remains, is it possible to industrialize, maybe even liberalize, but not give too much clout to the more liberal interest groups, in order to maintain slavery until the end of the game? The minimal requirements will be to industrialize and really catch up in technologies, otherwise of course it's just playing an obsolete regime waiting to be conquered.

As a side question, heck, I'm already finding it impossible to beat the Europeans in the scramble for Africa game. My colonial growth is so low because I have only 1 million pop, and I'm so many techs away from upgrading colonial institution beyond level 2. Is it possible at all for an inner African nation to emerge as a power? There's just no other way to expand but colonizing, and it's taking forever. At this rate the Europeans will take everything before I even reach Oman's Zanzibar. Maybe it's a lost cause, even with slavery abolished?

 

[Fawr]

I've also been wondering about playing a slaving and autocratic country as my next challenge.

The normal way of getting immigrants is denied to you as you can't go multicultural while you have slaves. However slavery can give you extra pops (100 per week per slave trading province), you just need to be a slave trading country and have an interest in an area where you can buy slaves. It might also be an option once you have a decent SoL to join a larger market and get economic migration from that.

I'm not sure how much qualifications will slow things down. Slaves can't do many jobs, and with low numbers of accepted pops getting enough people qualifications for some jobs could be an issue. This would be worse later on once you automate the laborer jobs away with railways and suchlike.

I would be surprised if you could win the colonisation race.

 

[MfgLuckbot]

I tried around with it and the key is that any form of slavery law is only viable to countries with a huge population. I.E. you can't rely on any form of immigration.

The benefit is very high income for the owner pops of your slave employing businesses. If you are able to tax them or use their wealth in the investment pool that can push out a lot of money for the government to spend on expanding your economy.

Enacting those laws together is slightly wonky though, those IGs that like dividend tax hate slavery

 

[zmb]

I'm doing a game as Buganda right now, and enjoying it. I'm doing a conventional liberalizing game, though, so I can't really offer advice on slavery, but it seems plausible to keep the landowners and devout strong enough for a long time. It's certainly been troubling enough to get to the point where I have a reasonably legitimate government of the intelligentsia and industrialists. Like the above poster, I'd be mainly worried about population - I'm on the verge of getting multiculturalism and am expecting immigration to solve my not-yet-problem of enough workers for my industries. But maybe absorbing new population through colonization would be enough?

I haven't colonized that much yet - like you, it was a struggle to get colonization and quinine and my colonization institution is maxed out at 3. But so far in my game (in ~1870?) the only European that's showed up (beyond the initial Portuguese) has been some Russian colonies in the coast of the Congo. So I'm feeling reasonably confident that I'll be able to grab a bunch for myself.

 

[paulxiep]

I tried around with it and the key is that any form of slavery law is only viable to countries with a huge population. I.E. you can't rely on any form of immigration.

I'm doing a game as Buganda right now, and enjoying it. I'm doing a conventional liberalizing game, though, so I can't really offer advice on slavery, but it seems plausible to keep the landowners and devout strong enough for a long time. It's certainly been troubling enough to get to the point where I have a reasonably legitimate government of the intelligentsia and industrialists. Like the above poster, I'd be mainly worried about population - I'm on the verge of getting multiculturalism and am expecting immigration to solve my not-yet-problem of enough workers for my industries. But maybe absorbing new population through colonization would be enough?

I haven't colonized that much yet - like you, it was a struggle to get colonization and quinine and my colonization institution is maxed out at 3. But so far in my game (in ~1870?) the only European that's showed up (beyond the initial Portuguese) has been some Russian colonies in the coast of the Congo. So I'm feeling reasonably confident that I'll be able to grab a bunch for myself.

I'm not sure how malaria works, but if you can somehow colonize on your west around Central African (Congo Orientale, Equateur, Kasai) area, those have pretty big population and would solve your population problem, at least until automation comes along I'm sure.

Another thing I'm concerned about is resources. Coal and iron are of no concern, but I've been looking for lead and sulfer. Lead is pretty far on your west and will take a long time to reach. Before that you'll need tons of glass factories. I haven't seen sulfur anywhere. Oil is a question mark since you need to play further in time to see them, but oil ain't a strict necessity.

But you sound like you can already trade? Don't you need shared border or a sea route to trade?
And I thought to get any migration at all you need to share a market?

 

[Vernichtere]

It is inherently possible to industrialize without abolishing slavery. It's just harder to pass laws that landowners hate. But it's not impossible.

It's just pointless to play like that. If you keep slavery, you should keep the slave trade as a whole. Then slaves are improvised. It's just not worth the fun. Slaves don't work very well, causing trouble. And they slow down certain laws to a certain extent.

The industrialists and military are a much better reactionary class than the landowners.

 

[zmb]

I'm not sure how malaria works, but if you can somehow colonize on your west around Central African (Congo Orientale, Equateur, Kasai) area, those have pretty big population and would solve your population problem, at least until automation comes along I'm sure.

Another thing I'm concerned about is resources. Coal and iron are of no concern, but I've been looking for lead and sulfer. Lead is pretty far on your west and will take a long time to reach. Before that you'll need tons of glass factories. I haven't seen sulfur anywhere. Oil is a question mark since you need to play further in time to see them, but oil ain't a strict necessity.

But you sound like you can already trade? Don't you need shared border or a sea route to trade?
And I thought to get any migration at all you need to share a market?

I thought I'd be able to colonize sans quinine without malaria penalties, but I wasn't able to. The wiki seems to suggest you can only colonize penalty-free in your culture's homeland, and I guess Buganda doesn't have any in the nearby decentralized states.

I think there's lead to the south too - but I've also been without lead, sulfur (not sure if there are any nearby mines), and silk (definitely no silk plantations). I haven't been able to trade yet, but I'm going to start colonizing Kenya soon and I'll eventually have a port there. Also coming up on a land border with the east African states, too - Kaffa specifically, I think, but I doubt there's anything great to trade there.

I'm not sure how migration works, but when I was playing as Persia, I was getting migration from everywhere once I got multiculturalism and wasn't in anyone's market. The wiki says that this can only happen through mass migration targets, which require turmoil in the emigrating pops, so maybe it's just that the AI is so bad with legitimacy and keeping a high standard of living that a competent liberal player nation will be an attractive migration target.

 

[Oglesby]

I thought I'd be able to colonize sans quinine without malaria penalties, but I wasn't able to. The wiki seems to suggest you can only colonize penalty-free in your culture's homeland, and I guess Buganda doesn't have any in the nearby decentralized states.

I think there's lead to the south too - but I've also been without lead, sulfur (not sure if there are any nearby mines), and silk (definitely no silk plantations). I haven't been able to trade yet, but I'm going to start colonizing Kenya soon and I'll eventually have a port there. Also coming up on a land border with the east African states, too - Kaffa specifically, I think, but I doubt there's anything great to trade there.

I'm not sure how migration works, but when I was playing as Persia, I was getting migration from everywhere once I got multiculturalism and wasn't in anyone's market. The wiki says that this can only happen through mass migration targets, which require turmoil in the emigrating pops, so maybe it's just that the AI is so bad with legitimacy and keeping a high standard of living that a competent liberal player nation will be an attractive migration target.

There is lead in Sokoto and its surroundings. There is Sulfur west of Sokoto (Togo) and opium further west (eastern and western Mali)

There are two types of migration the inter-market migrations (external / mass migration targets) and intra-market migrations (internal). Both are affected by the Mirgation law.

 

[paulxiep]

I think I did it! A liberal slave state, where if you're rich, you get educated and health insurance, but if you're poor, you'll be sold into slavery.

Year is 1965. By allowing 2 revolts, I successfully marginalized landowners, rural folks (whose leader is monarchist), and devouts, allowing me to abolish landowner monarchy, and now I'm a dictatorship where ruler will be chosen from the highest clout when the previous ruler dies. I passed total separation in quick succession and now I'm passing private school to empower the intelligentsia, then next will be appointed bureaucrats. I'll make sure the intelligentsia always rules my Burundi. Sure, they advocate elections and abolition of slavery, but as long as they're in government and I don't pass something that alienate them so badly I'm sure they won't complain!



Quinine will be done researching in 2 years too. Railroad is also done so I'm not limited by infrastructure. I can now set my sights on the rest of East Africa, then after East Africa is near done I'll beeline malaria prevention so I can get Central Africa too. I think remaining liberal autocracy, isolationist, slave state while becoming GP ruling Africa will be the goal of this run now.

 

[Fawr]

There is lead in Sokoto and its surroundings. There is Sulfur west of Sokoto (Togo) and opium further west (eastern and western Mali)

There are two types of migration the inter-market migrations (external / mass migration targets) and intra-market migrations (internal). Both are affected by the Mirgation law.

There is a 3rd sort of migration in game, and that is the slave trade. To see it open up the slave trading state of Liberia and go forward a month or so. Each state with this effect gains 100 slaves per week. You need the slave trade law and an interest in a place where you can get slaves.

 

[Oglesby]

I can now set my sights on the rest of East Africa, then after East Africa is near done I'll beeline malaria prevention so I can get Central Africa too.

There is a few decentralized nations north of the Victoria lake nations that do not have strong malaria so you can start your swing into South Sudan and Chad and over to the Saharan and sub-Saharan states before Malaria prevention.

There is a 3rd sort of migration in game, and that is the slave trade.

Ah, yes. My mistake, I overlooked that. This is not affected by the migration law either.

 

[Enska]

I think the single biggest issue here is that slave economies are almost inevitably more agrarian than otherwise. Of course, this is how it historically worked as well, so no wonder.

Biggest issue being agrarian is the counter party risk: AI is not too good at producing certain manufactured goods in sufficient quantities, case in point ironclads and radios. Of course, those could be some of the industries you have despite being agrarian nation. Ignoring that, AI might not have enough demand for agricultural goods. Especially fabric and fertilizer are grossly overproduced in the current meta. Eventually, also grain is grossly overproduced.

Moreover, game does not really balance the slave pops between states, which means you may end up with unemployed slaves in a state which simply does not have more jobs that could be filled with slaves. There is also no pressure valve for liberating yourself from extra slaves in case the whole economy is oversaturated with slaves.

 

[Marirosa]

It's not hard to be a Great Power with slavery, autocracy, segregation and state religion.

I just colonized four territories to get rubber supply and own only 17 states. The goal is that each state have one single kind of factories that is different from the other 16 states. Also all have one construction, one university and max soldier and naval bases.

 

[paulxiep]

There is lead in Sokoto and its surroundings. There is Sulfur west of Sokoto (Togo) and opium further west (eastern and western Mali)

There are two types of migration the inter-market migrations (external / mass migration targets) and intra-market migrations (internal). Both are affected by the Mirgation law.

Yes, I looked and the only place where there is sulfur and only lightly defended (decentralized, in fact) in Africa is in the Sahara.
Sulfur is an absolute necessity since without it, you can't upgrade army beyond line infantry + mobile artillery.
I have to get it and I have to get it early, while my line inf + mobile arti army can still go toe-to-toe with the world.

So I've colonized my immediate north until I reached Darfur, took it, took Chad from Wadai, and now I'm already bordering the Sahara in Niger (Air) with sulfur.

 

[TheFlemishDuck]

I tried it myself, and came to the conclusion that slavery hardly ever benifits the state.

My primary goal was to have a slavery run construction industry, slaves can in principle work in the construction industry and in mining operations that provide resources to it but the problem is that it's too much of a hassle to be able to force it off, so even if you have slaves they will seldomly do this kind of work so to be able to do it cheap for the state, rather slaves benifit landowners and there is few inherit advantage to that going forward. What you loose as the state with slaves is a pop that receives an income and hence pays taxes when they get employed.

 

[grommile]

modern slavery.

Modern slavery is telling people from poor countries that you're taking them to the land of milk and honey... then sticking them with (tens of) thousands of dollars in debt and taking their passport as security for the debt while paying them a pittance that won't cover the interest once the cost of living is deducted.

 

[Atey]

Modern slavery is telling people from poor countries that you're taking them to the land of milk and honey... then sticking them with (tens of) thousands of dollars in debt and taking their passport as security for the debt while paying them a pittance that won't cover the interest once the cost of living is deducted.

that or wage slavery