Javelin Thrower enslave too strong?

vmxa1 · November 9, 2003, 02:32

I have not play much with this civ, but so far it seems to always enslave defeated units. I am sure it won't stay that way, but it seems very strong to get slave after slave.
I forsee Fane7 using raging barbs and building massive armies of slaves.
Are they free of maint as the normal slaves? If they had some cost, it would act as a breaker.

Shogun Gunner · November 9, 2003, 03:10

I played the Mayans last night and had more workers than I knew what to do with. Maybe 1/3 of the time, a victory meant another slave worker. It definetly helped me wipe the competition away...booming cities of production!

Inverse Icarus · November 9, 2003, 03:31

yes, it's 1/3 odds, and yes, they're free.

in my first mayan game i actually farmed two barb camps, ended up with like 30 barb slaves.

vmxa1 · November 9, 2003, 03:47

So that sounds a bit too strong to me. Probably a canidate for a tweak.

notyoueither · November 9, 2003, 04:55

Reversing this advantage...

I sent obsolete units to die vs the jav chuckers. Then I would kill the jav chuckers to get my workers back.

statusperfect · November 9, 2003, 06:56

Quote:

Originally posted by notyoueither
Reversing this advantage...

I sent obsolete units to die vs the jav chuckers. Then I would kill the jav chuckers to get my workers back.

twisted!

MrWhereItsAt · November 9, 2003, 09:08

Did they become full-fledged card-holding members of your civ, or did they trade slavery under the Mayans for slavery under your mighty paw?

Provost Harrison · November 9, 2003, 10:36

Although I do not have the game yet, I was thinking about this idea of harvesting barbarian camps by sticking some Javelin Throwers around it and taking out barbarians when they come along. I am glad to see someone has put this into practice

Saint Marcus · November 9, 2003, 10:40

possible fixes to put in the next patch: no enslaving of barbarians, and javalin throwers only enslaving when attacking.

Provost Harrison · November 9, 2003, 10:50

But that would spoil the che...*ahem*...fun

Saint Marcus · November 9, 2003, 11:00

Fried-Psitalon · November 9, 2003, 11:14

You just had a good day with the RNG, fellas. It's only 1/3 - you'll notice it a lot more when you go 40 units without a single slave. Even money says in less than two weeks we see the mirror image of this thread going up, saying that it doesn't work often enough, and needs a tweak.

As for playing with raging barbs, that's like anything else - if you set the map to favor expansionists by making it a huge pangea with sedentary barbs, that's going to give some civs an advantage too.

Louis XXIV · November 9, 2003, 14:57

Also, the Maya have an expensive unit.

What would happen if you didn't have any resources? You would have to pay 30 shields for a 2 attack. You might get some workers, but it would be harder to win a war.

grappleman · November 9, 2003, 15:36

i have actually had trouble enslaving workers (not counting barbs), ive found for me its about 1/5 when it comes to enslaving units. just my observations though

MrWhereItsAt · November 10, 2003, 21:39

Quote:

Originally posted by MrWhereItsAt
Did they become full-fledged card-holding members of your civ, or did they trade slavery under the Mayans for slavery under your mighty paw?

So...any answer here?

Catt · November 11, 2003, 00:54

Quote:

Originally posted by MrWhereItsAt

Quote:

Originally posted by notyoueither
Reversing this advantage...

I sent obsolete units to die vs the jav chuckers. Then I would kill the jav chuckers to get my workers back.

Quote:

Originally posted by MrWhereItsAt
Did they become full-fledged card-holding members of your civ, or did they trade slavery under the Mayans for slavery under your mighty paw?

So...any answer here?

I'll let NYE answer definitively since he has direct experience . . . but I watched an enemy civ recapture some enslaved workers when I was playing the Mayans and the graphic changed from slave worker to native worker for them. Take that for what it's worth though, as NYE has also reported a bug with the slave vs. native worker graphics.

Catt

RobC · November 11, 2003, 01:06

For what it's worth, I think enslavement is not too strong. After all, most warmongers are going to end up with more slaves than they know what to do with anyway...enslaving them is just a more fun way to go about it.

vmxa1 · November 11, 2003, 02:56

You may be right. The shelve life the Jav is not all that long anyway and you pay a big price by going to GA so soon.

Backpack · November 11, 2003, 03:11

I've gone in and modded all the foot-soldier type units in the ancient age, up through Pikeman to have this same enslave / worker capability. - Frankly - I think it's a win-win mod all around (except for the slave of course). - The AI seems to finally have enough workers to get some serious attention to tile improvements all around. - I'll post again after this game ends - Time will tell - (I usually beat the AI's to full RR by 50-100 turns, even when I'm behind in tech - I'll use that as a comparison)

Later

Kevin

Inverse Icarus · November 11, 2003, 03:24

Quote:

Originally posted by MrWhereItsAt

So...any answer here?

they're yours. i've had it done to me by the AI, and they were their native workers.

when you take it, it says Worker (Inca), and when they take it back, it goes native.

Inverse Icarus · November 11, 2003, 03:25

the whole point behind the jav is that it's too expensive to archer rush with effectively, and too weak to fight a late war with. so, for the short time it's good for a real war, you're weaker than your enemy, but have the enslavement.

but since barbs don't advance, farm away.

Arrian · November 11, 2003, 09:44

I played as the Maya last night.

Those Jav guys cost 30 shields, first of all. Second, my Jav won 10-15 battles against barbs, and enslaved exactly ONE worker. If there had been more open land and I'd gotten some uprisings, I would have gotten a few more. But I was REXing like mad (mmm, Agricultural, mmm) and filled up the land before that happened.

-Arrian

Inverse Icarus · November 11, 2003, 10:24

Quote:

Originally posted by Arrian
I played as the Maya last night.

Those Jav guys cost 30 shields, first of all. Second, my Jav won 10-15 battles against barbs, and enslaved exactly ONE worker. If there had been more open land and I'd gotten some uprisings, I would have gotten a few more. But I was REXing like mad (mmm, Agricultural, mmm) and filled up the land before that happened.

-Arrian

you have to farm them to get the most out of them. find a camp near a jungle, and box it in.

Inverse Icarus · November 11, 2003, 10:27

oh, and agricultural + industrious + slaves + early GA = ancient powerhouse. you can rex like a bastard. i've often found myself sending slaves on a "road to" from battlefields to my cities. it helps the war effort, and allows me ot follow in with settlers.

Arrian · November 11, 2003, 10:29

Early GA = ugh, for me. I hate 'em.

I agree, farming is a must in order to max out the enslavement ability. Next time I'll try harder.

-Arrian

UnOrthOdOx · November 11, 2003, 10:53

Quote:

Originally posted by MrWhereItsAt

So...any answer here?

MrWIA.

I didn't go through the trouble of testing SPEEDS, but they were listed as REGULAR workers, and used the worker graphics.

My wife started up a new game and killed the autosave or I would go and join them to a city to see for you.

I just considered it a nice treat to have those 10 horse that died taking the capitol return as 5 workers.

UnOrthOdOx · November 11, 2003, 10:56

Quote:

Originally posted by Uber KruX
oh, and agricultural + industrious + slaves + early GA = ancient powerhouse. you can rex like a bastard. i've often found myself sending slaves on a "road to" from battlefields to my cities. it helps the war effort, and allows me ot follow in with settlers.

Oh sure, I can see Uber now:

Capture the defenders, raze the cities, a massive flow of slaves heading back to the core and a flow of settlers comming in behind.

Ethnic Cleansing...

doronron · November 11, 2003, 11:19

not quite...as far as I can tell, I can't sacrifice anyone in the epic game without modding the rules...can't be evil if your enemies aren't rushing to certain death to please your "gods". A tempting idea, though.

Shogun Gunner · November 11, 2003, 12:25

Quote:

Originally posted by vmxa1
You may be right. The shelve life the Jav is not all that long anyway and you pay a big price by going to GA so soon.

You hit the nail on the head, vmxa1!!!

I got a GA in 2500 BC -- and I got beat to the Pyramids anyway

Then before I knew, GA over. Ugh.

I don't know which is worse, GA at 2000 BC with Mayan or GA at 1950 with America. Neither is desireable.

Shogun Gunner · November 11, 2003, 12:30

Quote:

Originally posted by UnOrthOdOx
My wife started up a new game and killed the autosave or I would go and join them to a city to see for you.

Your wife plays Civ????

If only my wife did...I got the lecture again last night about playing too long. I tried to explain to her that my empire was on the brink of collapse and it required my full attention

, but my pathetic attempt at humor didn't cut it.

She also had no opinion about the enslave ability of the Mayan javelin chucker.