Serfdom civic- anyone find it useful?

[DigitalBoy]

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)

As much as I like to warmonger, the obsessive compulsive part of me can't stand to leave my cities defended with few and/or obsolete units. I usually tech Feudalism first so I can train longbows while I wait to get Civil Service and Machinery.

For city defense, longbows are way better than crossbowmen (in my experience). They cost less hammers. They require no resources. They become available with a tech that also enables Vassalage, allowing level 3 units out the gate of any city. Their city defense bonus, while more modest than the crossbow's larger melee bonus, is effective against all types of enemy units. They also have a hill defense bonus that the crossbow lacks.

 

[Way_Traveler]

DigitalBoy-- What about cities that are in the middle of a big empire, far from any border, and inaccessible by sea? Because Civ doesn't let you use enemy roads (excluding those units with a commando promotion, which is almost never an issue), you'll be able to reinforce one of those cities long before an enemy can get there. It seems like holding any more than a token garrison there is a waste.

 

[popejubal]

Serfdom is an outstanding civic. The only reason I can think of to not use Serfdom during the period when it becomes available is that I want to use Slavery instead. Under a Spiritual leader, I'll usually switch to Serfdom, run that until I need to whip something and then switch to Slavery for 5 turns of whipping. After I get my on, I'll switch back to Serfdom until my needs for the return.

...of course, if I'm not Spiritual, then I'm probably never going to see even a single turn of Serfdom in the entire game.

 

[druidravi]

Playing SE and you want to convert it into CE post liberalism? . Switch to serfdom and cottage over all those farms . Of course works only with spiritual .

In slower speeds worker productivity is significantly boosted . Lets take chop a forest 3 turns at normal speed . Serfdom makes it to 2 turns 33% lesser time . However in marathon it is 15 turns serfdom reduces it to 8 turns almost halved .

 

[BalbanesBeoulve]

I used to use it when I played lower difficulties and hadn't yet realized how awesome slavery is.

 

[SnowlyWhite]

in marathon, chopping a forest is precisely 9 turns. All things are x3 and that's that(trust me, I've chopped enough to be shot on sight by any greenpeace activist...)

 

[TheMeInTeam]

It's not totally useless to me, but it's very situational. Usually I switch to this after taking a bunch of cities and trying to set up infrastructure. Depending on when I rushed, the computer usually leaves a lot of room for improvement. Some of my own cities are neglected too as I rush, so serfdom can help make up ground afterwards by quickly getting the cities improved. IMO the turn of anarchy is worth the dramatic increase in speed if you're talking about imrprove 8+ cities at once. You'll STILL need to build more workers, even with this civic, but you can concentrate on important cost reduction/finance buildings sooner instead of pumping more workers=cities bigger and lucrative faster...even with anarchy accounted for.

 

[vicawoo]

It's not that great.
I don't agree about jungles because since if you're trading for feudalism, it's too late to have an affect.
I use it when I'm starting my lumbermills, workshops, and watermills and maybe if I want to get railroads up quick. And I have to be spiritual and won't be too limited on my GP farm.

 

[mystyfly]

in marathon, chopping a forest is precisely 9 turns. All things are x3 and that's that(trust me, I've chopped enough to be shot on sight by any greenpeace activist...)

Thats wrong. Unit costs are only x2. Anarchy and GA length are x2. Barbarians appear x4 turns later.
(all data from the Reference Sheet)

 

[druidravi]

in marathon, chopping a forest is precisely 9 turns. All things are x3 and that's that(trust me, I've chopped enough to be shot on sight by any greenpeace activist...)

Yes it is 9 turns don't know why I wrote 15 turns.

 

[futurehermit]

I think serfdom is a great civic. I just think that it competes with two very good civics as well (slavery/CS) and that it comes with a tech that can be hard to get to or difficult to prioritize above other things.

I've used serfdom to outstanding effect in some of my games, but you have to have a plan for giving up slavery and cs. Giving up slavery is easier if you're in HR growing your cities and if you don't have a pile of conquered cities needing to whip away to get courthouses, etc. Giving up CS is easier if you aren't running a SE and if you have enough buildings in your gpfarm.

Also, getting into and out of serfdom for a non-spiritual civ is easier now that you can change anarchy-free during golden ages.

Doubling the effectiveness of your entire workforce is nothing to sneeze at imho. It's just sometimes difficult to plan for depending on the circumstances of the game. When I've been able to use it, I was really, really impressed with it.

And if you're a spiritual civ you'd be a fool imo to not plan to use it for significant chunks of time if the circumstances call for it.

 

[InFlux5]

It simply comes too late to be useful. Don't forget about later-era starts though.

 

[jonny41177]

man how do so many of you get by on monarch and up without this civic to me i think its a good civ to have unless: your on prince or below, dont have indias fast worker, have the hangia sophia, or dont have much forest and jungle left around by the time feudalism rolls around .... i usually have representation(pyramid), beuracracy, serfdom, mercantalism, and theocracy as civs at this point.... but this is me and i would say it serves its purpose til emancipation.

 

[Monkeyfinger]

Slavery sucks balls now because it causes your capital to shut down completely at random, uncontrollable intervals.

Caste system is for fags who like to run SEs.

That leaves tribalism and serfdom as the only viable options until really late when you can get democracy. If I have spiritual, or pseudo-spirituality from a GA, why not adopt serfdom? No drawback to doing it. I'll also switch if I have neither of those things, but do have lots of jungle. Need all the help I can get clearing that, it's worth losing a turn to revolt.

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[Elkad]

I tend to underuse the whip, so I might as well switch to serfdom when it becomes availible. About then i'm expanding again anyway, so it lets me skip building more workers. And now in BTS I find myself switching just to avoid my capital being in a revolt 20% of the time.

 

[CivMcNut]

I used to use it all the time when I first got the game. But then I got on here and started reading about how awesome it was I reconsidered.

I used to balk at the idea of lowering my population to get something done plus incurring unhappiness. But after trying it some, the pop grows back quick on small high food cities and the unhappiness eventually goes away.

I don't know about most of you, but most of the time my workers are looking around for stuff to do by the time feudalism is discovered and all the important tasks have already been done, speeding up how quick they chop a remote jungle that won't be used for 200 turns isn't gonna help me win a game. If something is crucial in the mid-game to be developed, like a new resource coming into the borders, I'll stick 2 or more workers on it to speed it up. On the other hand, getting a troop out in one turn from the whip that might save a barbarian or AI from razing a core city will help you win the game.

 

[Polobo]

Depending on the tech path you should be getting Math and Calendar around this time as well and Plantations and Forts are both high cost improvements that are and can be useful to build.

 

[VirusMonster]

I used to use it all the time when I first got the game. But then I got on here and started reading about how awesome it was I reconsidered.

I used to balk at the idea of lowering my population to get something done plus incurring unhappiness. But after trying it some, the pop grows back quick on small high food cities and the unhappiness eventually goes away.

I don't know about most of you, but most of the time my workers are looking around for stuff to do by the time feudalism is discovered and all the important tasks have already been done, speeding up how quick they chop a remote jungle that won't be used for 200 turns isn't gonna help me win a game. If something is crucial in the mid-game to be developed, like a new resource coming into the borders, I'll stick 2 or more workers on it to speed it up. On the other hand, getting a troop out in one turn from the whip that might save a barbarian or AI from razing a core city will help you win the game.

Entirely