Serfdom vs Slavery

[DigitalBoy]

I very rarely use Serfdom. If I don't want to pop rush (i.e. I want my cities to grow), I switch to Caste System instead. Lets me assign a bunch of scientists in my great people farm(s) for more beakers, and I always try to have at least one great person farm, usually two, in any game.

 

[Ecofarm]

I must have had the wonder that increases worker efficiency. I play at normal speed. This resulted in a single worker making a railroad in 1 turn (flat, non-tundra/ice). Since railroads provide 10 moves and I could create 1 tile of rail, per worker, per turn - A stack of 10 could create 10 tiles of rail in 1 turn (even starting from the same tile), as long as I didn't move the next one until the previous one had made an additional tile of rail, repeat.

 

[cabert]

I must have had the wonder that increases worker efficiency. I play at normal speed. This resulted in a single worker making a railroad in 1 turn (flat, non-tundra/ice). Since railroads provide 10 moves, I could create 1 tile of rail, per worker, per turn. A stack of them could create a long rail in 1 turn, as long as I didn't move the second one until the 1st one had made an additional tile of rail, repeat.

the hagia sophia is obsoleted by steam power, so you can't use it to railroad anything.

Let's go back to numbers.
Steam power does increase worker efficiency by 50%.
So with serfdom, that makes it +100%.
OK, if you're spiritual that is interesting.
If you aren't, it's not worth the price.

 

[bardolph]

Regarding the "anarchy cost" of switching civics:

1) At Normal game speed, switching 2 civics costs the same amount of anarchy as switching 1 civic, so the 2nd civic is "free." The switch to serfdom can come at the same time as the switch to Vassalage/Bureaucracy.

2) At Epic game speed, the 2nd civic costs 1 turn extra, not 2. Again, timing the switch to coincide with your Legal switch can reduce the cost.

3) By the time I reach the Medieval era, I've usually completed an expansion phase, either through settling or war. My civ upkeep is usually quite high at this point (20-30% on the research slider), and since anarchy also halts maintenance costs, the opportunity cost isn't as high as many make it out to be. Also, due to the huge influx of from Calendar/Monarchy/Currency, my cities are growing faster than my workers can keep up. Serfdom can be quite attractive at this time.

4) If I make the decision to switch to Serfdom, I'm not planning to come back to Slavery -- I'm sticking with Serfdom all the way to Emancipation. So the cost of "switching back to slavery" doesn't apply.

5) I don't think it's wise to leave slavery without at least a moderate-sized standing army (which will probably already exist if you've waged any Classical-era war). If I'm watching my borders and keeping the initiative against my neighbors, I won't necessarily need "emergency wartime whipping" until I reach Nationalism in the Renaissance era, and in that scenario I will have the draft.

 

[bardolph]

I very rarely use Serfdom. If I don't want to pop rush (i.e. I want my cities to grow), I switch to Caste System instead. Lets me assign a bunch of scientists in my great people farm(s) for more beakers, and I always try to have at least one great person farm, usually two, in any game.

Caste system is great if you have lots of farms and food resources. In a cottage-based economy, I can't afford to pull citizens off of cottage tiles, so caste system doesn't help. Especially when I'm playing a Financial leader, where river/cottage tiles already provide 3 commerce, in addition to food!

And if I have a 1-GP-Farm-plus-cottage-economy setup, my GP farm will have the necessary buildings for me to run specialists anyway, so again, caste system wouldn't help me.

 

[Elrohir]

I rarely use serfdom, as I'm not addicted to slavery. (Turn those angry people into Axemen instantly!) The idea of switching to serfdom to railroad your empire when you're spiritual is an interesting one, though, thanks.

 

[DigitalBoy]

And if I have a 1-GP-Farm-plus-cottage-economy setup, my GP farm will have the necessary buildings for me to run specialists anyway, so again, caste system wouldn't help me.

Getting specialist slots is easy, but I would rather run 6 scientists than 2 scientists and 4 artists.

 

[DaviddesJ]

1) At Normal game speed, switching 2 civics costs the same amount of anarchy as switching 1 civic, so the 2nd civic is "free."

This is not generally true. The turns of anarchy depend on how big your civilization is.

 

[Jorunkun]

Wow. I can't think of any game where I didn't have too many workers. Eventually, when I stop expanding, I always end up with a bunch of workers and nothing useful to do with them.

Well, after railroads, I too have idle workers. But for three quarters of the game I usually wish I'd have more. What's your workers/city ratio?

 

[slowrider]

The AI seems to use serfdom fairly frequently. I wonder if there's some calculation its uses to make a decision. Kind of like mercantilism ... I wish there was some way I could painlessly calculate if that's a better option as I suspect it is sometimes.

I agree with the comments ... pretty useless unless you have spiritual and suddenly need a lot of work done and you're over the unit cost limit, etc. I'm pretty hooked on slavery early and caste for GP later though.

 

[DaviddesJ]

The AI seems to use serfdom fairly frequently. I wonder if there's some calculation its uses to make a decision

I don't think the AI does any calculations in choosing civics. I think it may have some simple heuristics (switch into certain civics in war mode, other civics in peace mode, etc.).

 

[slowrider]

One other potential application, really not that important though. Serfdom could be helpful if after Biology and in a con/dom end game you're farming everything out to increase population. Your not GP farming anymore and you can buy buildings so slavery isn't that important. I'm usually swimming in workers by then though.

 

[bardolph]

Actually, I went back reloaded my most recent serfdom game right before the switch, and here's what I found (all numbers are at Epic/Monarch):

1) 14 cities
2) 18 workers
3) Total beaker output: 155 beakers (actually, 162 at -7gpt)
4) Total hammer output (all cities): 95
5) Hammer cost per worker: 90

If we assume that serfdom gives 18 workers the working capacity of 24 workers (that's a 33% increase, reduced from 50% to take travel time into consideration), then the switch to serfdom instantly gives me the equivalent of 540 hammers worth of workers, and saves me 4 gold per turn for the duration of my stay in serfdom (compared to building the extra workers). This is assuming that I don't build any more workers.

Is that worth the anarchy cost? Easily. Is it worth the cost of giving up slavery? Only if I wasn't planning to whip much anyway.

 

[DaviddesJ]

Is that worth the anarchy cost? Easily.

How do you figure that? It's not worth anything, if you don't have any useful worker tasks beyond what you can do with your existing workers. I guess it's worth a few gpt because you can disband some workers. But that's not enough to outweigh the anarchy cost.

 

[bardolph]

How do you figure that? It's not worth anything, if you don't have any useful worker tasks beyond what you can do with your existing workers. I guess it's worth a few gpt because you can disband some workers. But that's not enough to outweigh the anarchy cost.

I figure it because many of my cities were already working unimproved (or forested) tiles as it was, and I had plenty of jungle to clear. In that game, I was easily in serfdom for over 4 centuries, and I never had idle workers, even though I had 18 working at a 50% increase.

That's how I figure it.

Part of the reason for that may be because I tend to pillage quite a lot when I go to war. And when I pillage everything in sight, it's nice to have a strong worker force to rebuild the landscape afterwards. Maybe your playstyle is different.

 

[DaviddesJ]

Part of the reason for that may be because I tend to pillage quite a lot when I go to war.

Yes, that would explain it.

 

[Kietharr]

I only use serfdom in 3 cases:
1) I am spiritual and I can switch to slavery every couple turns to whip stuff out at my leisure, no point in not having serfdom up inbetween whips.
2) I just conqured an AI and I need to fix his idiotic improvement placement.
3) I just conqured or settled an area full of jungle that needs to be clear cut, mostly if I am about to go to war with someone around the jungle, I don't intend to let them have that cover.

 

[sylvanllewelyn]

I always have things for my workers to do. If nothing else, multiple roads on every hex of your empire. It really speeds up unit deployment to the front lines.

 

[Tonifranz]

Well, if you want to get the +50% worker speed, its better to build Hagia Sophia. With that, you get the benefits of Serfdom without having to switch out of slavery. You can even use slavery to speed up the construction of that particular wonder.

 

[gettingfat]

Serfdom is useful when you play a spiritual leader. After a war I frequently switch from slavery to serfdom for 10-20 turns after I've whipped the courts and libraries etc so I can repair the war damages ASAP. Another period I use them is after railroad discovery (if I am not in a war). Other than that it's not worth the anarchy.