First thing I thought of here as this: what kind of game play does being a captive or a slave present to the player? Is it fun game play? Is it meaningfully distinct from non-captive game play? What is the purpose of it? To escape? To be a mindless drone? Is it a fail state? These are just some of the questions I'd want to see answered were the decision mine.

In many games I've seen this kind of thing in, being a captive serves only as a narrative branch kick-off: the immediately clear objective is to escape in an exciting way (either by straight up combat or stealth, typically both). It's a stop-gap, something to jazz up the experience. It sounds like you want it to be a dynamic element in your game, so you need to consider how frequently it may happen and how repetitive that experience may be. Is it going to be fun to be repeatedly captured if your game state otherwise makes it very hard to NOT be captured; e.g. your resources are all very near a powerful enemy tribe and all they want to do is capture you.

There's another thing that needs be considered here: slavery as a topic can be a sensitive one so it needs to be handled in the game with respect; there's a LOT of background research to do here and not just on the historicity of slavery in the world. How will the slavery be presented? It may result in being a social commentary whether you intend for it to or not, so think very carefully on that before you incorporate it into your game.

++ EDIT. make sit = makes it t++

I think you could probably make captivity for a player interesting enough to encourage him to keep playing

probably so. but it would probably be a lot of work for what is a relatively rare case scenario. at this point, the hatchet of reality known as time, manpower, and budget limitations would come into play, and dictate that other things like the quest generator are more important. its that old story of "what to leave in, what to leave out". perhaps in v3.1 ? <g>.

I think where it becomes difficult is when the player's band captures someone, how do you establish an AI to respond to the circumstances and take risks as the player would?

that parts not so hard. there are over a dozen different types of AI in the game, including, follower, captive, pet, and flee ai. so AI for making them fight animals etc isn't hard. and you just do a check like:

if (closest_captor()) > some_distance ) make_a_break_for_it().

this would switch the captive's ai from "im captured waiting for my chance" mode to "i'm escaping" mode. "i'm escaping" mode would use AI's like fight, and flee, as opposed to things like follow, stand, goto location, and return to owner.

I think the various means of escape would be interesting, e.g. kidnappers get attacked and you run, natural disaster and you run, stealthy escape, steal stuff and escape, fight them and escape, talk around a captor and escape, etc. Or potentially stay with them. It could also be valuable if your captors have better resources than you, a safer environment than yours, an opportunity to travel, future allies maybe.

yes, the scenario, while rare, CAN make for interesting gameplay. i wish i had the time to do it all in the first release. the problem with big simulation games ( or any game for that matter) is you can always do more and / or better. but periodically, it helps to release! <g>.

There's another thing that needs be considered here: slavery as a topic can be a sensitive one so it needs to be handled in the game with respect; there's a LOT of background research to do here and not just on the historicity of slavery in the world. How will the slavery be presented? It may result in being a social commentary whether you intend for it to or not, so think very carefully on that before you incorporate it into your game.

ah yes, the old "captured caveman" actions menu....

caputred caveman....

torture

kill

maim

tickle to death

disembowel

sexually assault/rape

eat

cook, then eat

make live with mother-in-law

release

etc

etc

...

cancel

i handled that political correctness hot potato by simply having subdued hostiles flee. you can run them down and kill them, or let them go, but you can't take them captive (then eat them, rape them, torture them, etc).

that will need to be reworked some for raiding and inter-band rivalry. but there, its about the prestige of the capture, and the captive must not be harmed for fear of starting a real war.

From the perspective of the enemy tribe, why capture anybody? Is the goal to subvert the captive to their own culture? Ransom them?

Their gods demand sacrifices.

From the perspective of the enemy tribe, why capture anybody? Is the goal to subvert the captive to their own culture? Ransom them?

Their gods demand sacrifices.

oh yeah!

forgot that one!

toss prisoner into volcano! <g>.

From the perspective of the enemy tribe, why capture anybody? Is the goal to subvert the captive to their own culture? Ransom them?

torture of prisoners was another one.

again from north america, in later hunter gatherer societies (semi - sedentary). some bands were know to always strive to take prisoners on purpose, just so they could torture them to death, in order to instill fear in the hearts of surrounding rival bands.