The spiral trade

[Jacovich]

So as i was jealousy looking at my neiboor and his very strong slaves as i loathed my weak ones (i had no one else to conquer), when i thought of something.

How about an option to buy slaves from another empire? Its a common scifi trope and i think it would definitely add a little flavor to the Galaxy where there would be a pop that was literly the wipping boy who you come acroos very often.

Could also be a cool story too of a primitive nation that gets conquered and enslaved, only for them to one day break free from several different nations and form there own empire!

Obviously to prevent exploitive measures there would have to be some rules so for example: When you buy a slave, they are permanently a slave.

What do you guys think?

 

[BlackUmbrellas]

IIRC there was dummied-out content for a slave-trader Enclave. I wouldn't be surprised to see some sort of slave trade mechanic implemented eventually.

 

[Secret Master]

Buying slaves would either be easily abused (just buy slaves to fill up entire planets) or so expensive as to not be worth it.

At least robots/droids carry disadvantages. But what stops someone from just buying up entire planets worth of POPs and using them to fuel expansion? Heck, if you don't actually need slaves, you could buy 20 slave POPs, free them, and put them on energy within a day.

Keep in mind that when I am measuring my empire against others, one of the metrics I use is number of POPs. It doesn't apply to FEs and AEs, but with normal empires, I keep an eye on who has more POPs. It's not the only way to measure power, but it does tell me a lot about an empire's relative ability to generate minerals, energy, and research.

 

[Crissa]

I don't use slavery, but I think it sounds like a good idea.

Probably along the speed of how refugees work.

 

[f98alda]

Buying slaves would either be easily abused (just buy slaves to fill up entire planets) or so expensive as to not be worth it.

Depends on if you have to buy actual existing pops. If you can't just magically create new slave pops, but have to buy existing pops, it will not be so easy to simply fill up a planet, at least not until quite late in the game, and then it doesn't matter so much anyway.

As for the question of who would actually sell pops: if you have full planets, selling one pop off a full planet is not so bad. Basically you would just have one tile that's producing pops for sale instead of minerals/food (not energy, since you are growing slave pops).

 

[Jacovich]

Ya that was what I was thinking of, sorry if i wasnt clear. Also secret master i said that there would be rules applied to them to prevent exploits, in the original post i said that you wouldnt be able to free them, another rule could be that they are unable to be bred (as a slaver this would make sense, i dont want to sell one slave to an empire and then never sell one again becouse he breeds them)

 

[Secret Master]

n the original post i said that you wouldnt be able to free them

Of course, how would such a rule work given that you can be forced to liberate slaves based on a war goal? Would ending slavery via war goal still leave bought slaves in slavery? Would they be repatriated to their home?

If not handled properly, you'd end up with slaving empires buying up POPs and periodically eating a Stop Atrocities war goal just to free the slave POPs they aren't allowed to free, only to reinstitute slavery again and start the cycle anew.

 

[Jacovich]

I highly doubt the ai will "settle" for just a stop attrocities, so i doubt it will happen often in single player, and in Multi-player there is no doubt a player will do more than just that, so i feel its a redundet question.

In the end, ill just ask you. What do YOU think can be done to make this work?

 

[faljen_isus]

there was a thread about a similar topic yesterday

and to say the same thing, buy a colony ship worth of slaves and then let them grow on you planet for a price

or buy an entire pop for a massive amount of resources

 

[Crissa]

As for the question of who would actually sell pops: if you have full planets, selling one pop off a full planet is not so bad. Basically you would just have one tile that's producing pops for sale instead of minerals/food (not energy, since you are growing slave pops).

Or it could work like refugees or migration works now, just that you'd 'buy' the right to a number of migration or growth points. So you wouldn't really need to grow a pop on your planet, you could have full planets and sell a certain amount of 'growth'.

 

[PAnZuRiEL]

But what stops someone from just buying up entire planets worth of POPs and using them to fuel expansion?

Probably, the requirement to find another empire willing to sell you entire planetary populations' worth of slaves.

 

[corny.1234]

Buying slaves would either be easily abused (just buy slaves to fill up entire planets) or so expensive as to not be worth it.

At least robots/droids carry disadvantages. But what stops someone from just buying up entire planets worth of POPs and using them to fuel expansion? Heck, if you don't actually need slaves, you could buy 20 slave POPs, free them, and put them on energy within a day.

Keep in mind that when I am measuring my empire against others, one of the metrics I use is number of POPs. It doesn't apply to FEs and AEs, but with normal empires, I keep an eye on who has more POPs. It's not the only way to measure power, but it does tell me a lot about an empire's relative ability to generate minerals, energy, and research.

Let them only buy 1 slave pop at once but not a full grown pop

 

[Secret Master]

Probably, the requirement to find another empire willing to sell you entire planetary populations' worth of slaves.

Let them only buy 1 slave pop at once but not a full grown pop

If the galaxy contains 20 empires that have slavery, I can buy 1 slave POP from each slaving empire and fill up a nice gaia world.

Even if there are only 10 slaving empires, that's a helluva head start on filling planets if they are all willing to just sell me one slave POP at a time. After all, they may not even know I'm buying slaves from other empires....

 

[Jacovich]

If the galaxy contains 20 empires that have slavery, I can buy 1 slave POP from each slaving empire and fill up a nice gaia world.

Even if there are only 10 slaving empires, that's a helluva head start on filling planets if they are all willing to just sell me one slave POP at a time. After all, they may not even know I'm buying slaves from other empires....

But then your slaves wont be of the highest quality.
Then therrs the expenses
Then you have a gai planet filled with just slaves, and if you buy to many slaves you could face a powerful rebellion.

And once again I ask, do you have a solution that could work?

(Edit: and i doubt youll have a galaxy with that many slavers in it)

 

[corny.1234]

If the galaxy contains 20 empires that have slavery, I can buy 1 slave POP from each slaving empire and fill up a nice gaia world.

Even if there are only 10 slaving empires, that's a helluva head start on filling planets if they are all willing to just sell me one slave POP at a time. After all, they may not even know I'm buying slaves from other empires....

Sorry it was late, I thought we would talk about slave trader enclaves

 

[mighij]

Would be cool, you should also be able to buy slaves their freedom then if your nation is against slavery.

 

[Secret Master]

Sorry it was late, I thought we would talk about slave trader enclaves

If the enclave limited itself to small purchases with cooldowns, it could work.

Right now, I can buy as many minerals or energy as I have resources to trade. The only limit is the cap. (And I think they will trade with you well past your cap, if you are an idiot and press the button a few times.)

 

[Lothmar]

Hmm, yeah I imagine you could do face to face requests for pops as its own tab under trade-able resources and you get a list of pops, their ethics, traits, etc and you can decide if you want to make an offer. However I imagine certain empires might take offense to this or be reluctant dependent on govt type etc and -1000 it regardless. *chuckle*

Or you could go through a slaver based enclave and click a list of traits you're looking for and they get back to you on whats available and then they send out varying requests to currently existing empires for pops that meet these requirements and the civ decides their price and after quoting the player with a slight mark up to cover the expense the trade is finalized and neither party knows each other cause of the middle man (unless you do species research and look for where they come from etc and limit your options but shooosh).