Serfdom

[vranasm]

Yes. Need to finish my Joao II game first. But I'll be happy to post a no-Bronze start after that.

you should expect couple of players trying different strategy for comparision though...but surely should be interesting to compare what you think is best scenario for the no-BW until feud start and play it normally.

 

[krikav]

Rep and Vassage are different civic slots. I don't see what stop us to get Rep. The main problems are holding BW (Slavery and chops), then the tech (so-so tech bait).

Nothing stops us from running rep, what we can't do however, is to run scientists in every city after we build pyramids.
We need to wait a looong time to get that GEngineer out.

We could run scientists in different cities though, but we would have to stop before they spawn a GScientist.

All and all, one have to postpone reaping the benefits from representation, due to the necessery wait-time for the GEngineer from pyramids.

I don't like postponing benefits!

 

[skyclad]

Its useful for certain civs in rhyes and fall, like the russians... thats it I guess.

 

[rfcfanatic]

According to my knowledge, Serfdom is the only labor civic replaceable by a wonder (The Hagia Sophia).

 

[skyclad]

According to my knowledge, Serfdom is the only labor civic replaceable by a wonder (The Hagia Sophia).

The great lighthouse beats free market for a long period of time, on the right map

Also vassalage and the pentagon, if you let the high upkeep but free units of vassalage come out as a net zero (actually, the pentagon is better since the upkeep will most of the time be more than what you gain from the free units)

Statue of liberty and mercantilism (again, the wonder here is better than the civic considering its drawbacks). Again the right map is needed, for this pangea so all cities benefit.

 

[Culture Bomb]

AFAIK, these wonders don't replace the civics but work in addition to them.

 

[rfcfanatic]

AFAIK, these wonders don't replace the civics but work in addition to them.

True. They don't replace the civics in a technical sense, but it's more like a question of strategy. For example, you can use Pentagon to further increase the starting experience of your units that Vassalage provides or you can use it as a substitute for Vassalage and run Nationhood or Free Speech for other benefits instead.

 

[skyclad]

AFAIK, these wonders don't replace the civics but work in addition to them.

what is the difference? are you telling me the hagia sophia has no effect under serfdom?

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

what is the difference? are you telling me the hagia sophia has no effect under serfdom?

No, both Hagia Sophia and Serfdom provide +50% plot improvement speed for all one's workers. If one has both then worker improvements are completed twice as fast (+100%).

Sun Tzu Wu

 

[VSarius]

Terra map....that's about it.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Terra map....that's about it.

Even then it's questionable, since it's up against caste (immediate border pops), slavery (whips in the new cities speed up their builds and even out terrain requirements), and emancipation mad: everywhere). Also, by the time you can settle the new continent, your workers are likely done on the old one, meaning that you can ship workers for a head start along with 1st settling parties.

IMO the only truly viable usage of serfdom is later era starts, where spiritual especially can make it useful in the opening turns.

 

[VSarius]

It's questionable for sure and largely depends on the terrain, the New World being heavily jungled makes Serfdom slightly more desirable. It's still debatable of course, Serfdom is kind of crap. Never really played the later era starts, never appealed to me, so I can't comment on that.

 

[Manco Capac]

Serfdom is not just weak comparing to competing civics, but also on the most played speed, that is normal, that 50% is plain lie due to rounding effects! Don't tell me 50% of 5 turns farm is 4 turns. It's normally 2.5 turns, thus should be 3 turns, but it's not the case.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Serfdom is not just weak comparing to competing civics, but also on the most played speed, that is normal, that 50% is plain lie due to rounding effects! Don't tell me 50% of 5 turns farm is 4 turns. It's normally 2.5 turns, thus should be 3 turns, but it's not the case.

You can't round 1/2 of 5 to 4. It's lying outright if that actually happens and would be bad enough even if it worked properly.

 

[MarigoldRan]

Large or Huge maps.

More land = better serfdom.

 

[Mec AntiKythera]

Spoken like a true landowner.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Large or Huge maps.

More land = better serfdom.

Better, but not by enough to seriously consider using it. Slower speeds boost its relative value a bit too, due to this "rounding" Tachy mentions + improvement speed is a greater % of total worker turns (IE less movement turns).

However, on ancient era starts it still completely blows chunks even on huge/mara with jungle. Actually on mara since workers are cheaper you might lose any speed-based advantage you'd otherwise have gained on the movement tweaks. MAYBE with huge/mara AND spiritual you'd use it, because you can time whip cycles and still get some modest benefit, assuming you don't need caste.

There is no other civic in the game that is so much of a joke. Even merc is markedly better. They really really really needed to push serfdom soon enough in the tech tree to tempt one into running it + using fewer workers (too late by feudalism times; by then you'll have enough workers to improve w/o it) or give significantly more incentive to use it.

 

[elmurcis]

I have really used it only 1 time after Astro when had to settle multiple islands (to increase empire size from 15 to ~25 cities..) and I had Pyramids for US (well.. without US I still want slavery). Saved space in ships and sent only settler+defender, than in 2 turns finish workers and with serfdom it takes very short time to get land clear and improved..
But that was 1 situation without SPI trait (that makes it more useful...)
If it would give +100% not +50, than we could talk different strategy

 

[Seraiel]

Its occasionally worth it for Spiritual leaders when you intend to do a lot of land remodelling, apart from that its only worth it on advanced era starts.

This, hit's the nail. Anyhow, this:

All other civics have a time and a place, even if you personally avoid certain ones.
Personally, i'm no fan of Theocracy without Spiritual, I almost never touch Vassalage, and avoid Emancipation like the plague

Is interesting. I find Vassalage a superb Civic, especially for warmongering, and even more so, if the Capital is no typical Buro-Location. The free unit-support saves almost as much as a tech like Currency i. e. gives (via the additional TRs) so A LOT, and the 2 XP without the need for a specific Religion can be war-deciding in the beginning (Shock-Promo, Formation-Promo if AGG, basically very strong Promotions in general) .

Later, still speaking of warmonger games, Nationhood + Theocracy can be worthwhile imo, as the units get their 1st promotion even if being drafted.

Avoiding Emancipation is something I can fully understand. The benefits of slightly faster growing Cottages, in a time where Workshops, Watermills and Windmills are superb from the beginning, while the old Cottages are somewhere between Villages and Towns, are simply nothing compared to Food -> Hammer Conversion or Food -> Research Conversion, especially, as Food comes easily with Biology (and maybe even Sushi / Cereals) .

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

It does seem that spiritual leaders could switch between slavery and serfdom quite effectively. If one doesn't need to whip for 4t, switch to serfdom after whipping for the current turn is done and switch back to slavery for the next whipping session. I do agree with TheMeInTeam that it comes too late in the game to help early enough in Ancient Era starts to help in the early part of the game.

For non-spiritual leaders and Ancient Era start, switching to serfdom can never be worth the anarchy, thus switching to/from serfdom must be restricted golden age turns. One really wants caste system durring the golden age for the +100% GPP bonus, so one limit switches from serfdom to the first turn of a golden age and to serfdom to the last turn of a golden age. Plus one will want at least 4t between golden ages when serfdom will be used. Thus, effective use of serfdom by non-spiritual leaders and Ancient Era starts is practically nill.

EDIT: As mentioned before, effective use of serfdom is limited to Eras that start with Fuedalism and can thus quickly use the limited number of workers provided with such later starts to most quickly improve several plots to match the starting populations of the eras in question.

Sun Tzu Wu