Serfdom vs Slavery

[DigitalBoy]

UncleJJ, sounds like you're implying you have 3 workers per city in your empire? That seems like a lot to me.

I always build 1 worker/city, but for a new city later on in the game, I might send some workers from my more developed cities to help out.

 

[mrt144]

well, im at work on my pda so im not in the position to form a better scenerio.

when i get home we can lay out a more full scenerio with 3-5 cities. or you can start and ill catch up later.

i definitely think that the parameters sould span from just founded to fairly mature cities in terms of terraforming and buildings and test high production potential to high growth potential and a balance inbetween. so 5 cities maturities with 5 different terrain types, 25 results.

ill work on some of this tonight.

 

[Wodan]

But to make farms produce hammers you need Slavery and Serfdom will make a jungle city without lots of hills nearly useless for production. You could use food from farms to run specialists or you could cottage over the grasslands but that might not be what you want to do. Unless I have a spiritual leader Serfdom restricts the city development options too much for me... but I am a confirmed Slavery advocate

If you have several cities like you describe, I agree Slavery is probably a better choice. Same answer for island cities... Slavery is better than serfdom. This seems obvious to me.

Your example, however, is not a typical one in my experience. Most jungle does have some hills. Even if I had one city which didn't, I wouldn't force my whole empire to run a specific civic just to benefit that one city. Same is true of any civic. We have to look at the cumulative benefits to the whole empire before making a decision as to which is better.

Wodan

 

[mrt144]

well, im at work on my pda so im not in the position to form a better scenerio.

when i get home we can lay out a more full scenerio with 3-5 cities. or you can start and ill catch up later.

i definitely think that the parameters sould span from just founded to fairly mature cities in terms of terraforming and buildings and test high production potential to high growth potential and a balance inbetween. so 5 cities maturities with 5 different terrain types, 25 results.

ill work on some of this tonight.

furthermore we can measure total science output, hammer output, and gold output as a metric for 150 turns or so.

 

[bardolph]

After Civil Service chain irrigated grassland farms are the best way to make hammers using Slavery in most jungle cities unless they have a surfeit of special food tiles. As a rule of thumb at a pop size of 10 a mined grassland hill is equivalent to grassland farm in terms of hammers per turn with both giving a rate of 1.5 hammers per food and hence a net gain of 1.5 hammers per turn a farm or mine is worked. For smaller city sizes farms are more productive and over size 10 grassland farms gradually become worse than mined grassland hills at hammer production as the food cost of re-growing population rises. These food to hammer convertion rates do depend on the details of how and when the whipping is done but the rule of thumb is sufficient for estimating the productivity of a city driven by farms. Early in the game city sizes are often limited to about 10 until happiness resources and techs become available later so farms are strong then.

Good analysis, but there are additional considerations:

• If both tiles are next to a river, then whipping will cost you commerce while you regrow.
• Hereditary rule can raise your happiness caps up to your health cap.
• If your cities are growing faster than your ability to improve tiles, this will cost you in the long run.
• If you are below your population cap and whipping population that would otherwise be working farms, the cost of whipping is higher than this "rule of thumb" would suggest.

But to make farms produce hammers you need Slavery and Serfdom will make a jungle city without lots of hills nearly useless for production. You could use food from farms to run specialists or you could cottage over the grasslands but that might not be what you want to do. Unless I have a spiritual leader Serfdom restricts the city development options too much for me... but I am a confirmed Slavery advocate

True. If you're seriously lacking for hills, Serfdom is a poor choice. If only a couple of cities are "flat," then building workshops is a viable alternative to using the whip. Workshops before chemistry aren't terribly efficient, but they'll do in a pinch if you need hammers.

 

[Wodan]

One other nitpick: for your nice post-jungle grassland city, Univ Suffrage is almost certainly better than all other options to get hammers. I believe the discussion is focused upon pre-Democracy so far, but we should keep this other option in mind. It is not a Labor civic but it impacts the equation for sure.

Wodan

 

[mrt144]

i guess one of the problems im running in to is having a sense of when to whip and what to terraform. to be fair we should strive for optimal uses of both. i dont tjhink i play well enough to do that. so it might be a good idea to form some rules as to what i whip for and what i terraform.

a thought i just had though was that the amount of workable tiles in your bfc will remain relatively static if youre whipping and will thus require less terraforming on the whole. in effect sub optimal terrain reduces the impact terraforming has in a mature cityscape or game. there is no point in improving hills if there is never enough food to make em work.