VirusMonster
Quechua General
I almost never use this civic. Am I missing something?
Serfdom civic- anyone find it useful?
- Thread starter VirusMonster
- Start date
VirusMonster
Quechua General
it is the weakest civic imo.
Most useful when you have LOTS of jungle to clear, otherwise less so. But if you are not going to whip people staying in slavery in BTS is not a great idea and caste system does no good for cities without lots of food and workers are the means by which surplus food is generated.
Way_Traveler
Warlord
- Joined
- Dec 30, 2007
- Messages
- 149
The problem with serfdom isn't the civic itself, but when it becomes available.
You can achieve the same thing as serfdom by doubling the amount of workers. By the time you can switch, doubling the amount of workers you have will be a relatively trivial task. The price you pay to do so is dwarfed by the price of extra anarchy and losing the ability to whip. If I was trying to rebalance it, I'd rename it and make it available earlier.
I'm not sure what the enabling tech or name should be, but I'm thinking classical age.
You can achieve the same thing as serfdom by doubling the amount of workers. By the time you can switch, doubling the amount of workers you have will be a relatively trivial task. The price you pay to do so is dwarfed by the price of extra anarchy and losing the ability to whip. If I was trying to rebalance it, I'd rename it and make it available earlier.
I'm not sure what the enabling tech or name should be, but I'm thinking classical age.
Way_Traveler
Warlord
- Joined
- Dec 30, 2007
- Messages
- 149
Polobo-- Not a bad analysis. But non-spiritual leaders incur at least two turns of anarchy to get into serfdom and out of it. Is losing two turns of research, wealth, and culture less of a price to pay then simply building more workers? Heck, you can even whip them... 
.
.VirusMonster
Quechua General
I cannot think of a way to fix Serfdom... It requires a significant boost.
absimiliard
Warlord
Serfdom is fine for Spiritual civs playing in BtS.
Say you don't want to risk slave-revolts, and you're running a CE, switch into serfdom to boost your workers and keep your maintenance costs down.
For non-spiritual civs, and for non BtS players, serfdom's value becomes much more nominal than real.
-abs
Say you don't want to risk slave-revolts, and you're running a CE, switch into serfdom to boost your workers and keep your maintenance costs down.
For non-spiritual civs, and for non BtS players, serfdom's value becomes much more nominal than real.
-abs
Serfdom and Vassalage become available at the same time, if you are going into a war footing anyway you wouldn't want to be wasting those hammers on workers when you could be building swordsmen. Slavery is awesome but has downsides as well, and if the choice is between serfdom and no-labor (forget what it is called) then serfdom is a good short-term solution.
I generally do not use serfdom either although a recent Big-Small game my capital was on the eastern sea-board and to the immediate west was the jungle (huge map, marathon). My best two city locations were on a river going through the jungle and the couple of cities I built north of the jungle were not great AND had to produce military. I beelined to feudalism (also had not metals) for the longbows and serfdom so I could get my two best city locations up ASAP and didn't have to tie up my capital with workers. Even then, the additional workers I did generate helped to speed things up even more.
I generally do not use serfdom either although a recent Big-Small game my capital was on the eastern sea-board and to the immediate west was the jungle (huge map, marathon). My best two city locations were on a river going through the jungle and the couple of cities I built north of the jungle were not great AND had to produce military. I beelined to feudalism (also had not metals) for the longbows and serfdom so I could get my two best city locations up ASAP and didn't have to tie up my capital with workers. Even then, the additional workers I did generate helped to speed things up even more.
SnowlyWhite
Emperor
never used it; plain poor and on a tech that only the ai would prioritize...
I would think that war-mongers would prioritize feudalism for the longbows and vassalage, adding in serfdom if generally food is low and thus slavery is not worth-while or you want to improve the newly captured cities quickly with your existing crop of workers and keep your core cities producing units.
Builders have less need for serfdom but feudalism is even better for them since they probably have fewer great generals to use for getting up to 5XP with barracks and they would want to run OR instead of Theocracy for the building bonus. Longbows for them mean their cities won't fall as easily to swords and thus fewer defenders are necessary. So yes, serfdom itself it quite situational but better than nothing and an reasonable alternative to slavery around the time of feudalism, especially if you are delaying COL because you have a smallish empire that does not need courthouses.
Builders have less need for serfdom but feudalism is even better for them since they probably have fewer great generals to use for getting up to 5XP with barracks and they would want to run OR instead of Theocracy for the building bonus. Longbows for them mean their cities won't fall as easily to swords and thus fewer defenders are necessary. So yes, serfdom itself it quite situational but better than nothing and an reasonable alternative to slavery around the time of feudalism, especially if you are delaying COL because you have a smallish empire that does not need courthouses.
Feudalism is for defense, a warmonger wants offensive units, thats why I trade for this tech most of the time. Civil Service and the Machinery-Engineering line is much more important for a warmonger. (Crossbows are better than longbows too, at least in my games
)The AI is decent enough in improving it's cities so serfdom isn't needed for that. (you get loads of workers from the conquest anyway)
VirusMonster
Quechua General
with Sjaramei
I use serfdom quite often. Its a low cost civic so now that slavery is medium cost and has bad events associated with it using slavery is no longer a no loss situation. Caste system is also medium cost and of limited usefulness unless you're running a SE or a lot of workshops. Although the benefits from serfdom are minor theres no downside to it either.
Feudalism is somewhat more defensive but if you can use serfdom then the added advantage is that you also get longbows and vassalage. Defense can also be leveraged into offense quite effectively, especially for a protective and/or imperialistic leader and/or with the Great Wall (yes you get XP on defense but you are generally more likely to survive). With serfdom and an SE running any farms being pillaged can also be quickly rebuilt (this is less effective if the city or area under siege has lots of cottages).
If im playing a spiritual civ and im not playing a SE I will use this civic quite a bit , specially if I just killed /vassaliged one of my neighbours .
To bad it comes with feudalism , I doubt I have ever self researched that tech.
Without spiritual I have yet to use it .
To bad it comes with feudalism , I doubt I have ever self researched that tech.
Without spiritual I have yet to use it .
