Serfdom

[Tall German Joe]

i wonder how much earlier serfdom needs in order to be really worth it. at CoL? at monarchy? at priesthood? at agriculture ??

 

[plastiqe]

i wonder how much earlier serfdom needs in order to be really worth it. at CoL? at monarchy? at priesthood? at agriculture ??

Even if it was on Agriculture you'd only use it till you needed to start whipping. Serfdom needs a significant buff to be worthwhile outside of niche situations.

In K-Mod Serfdom gives +1 to farms and plantations and -1 to towns which is an ok change but not perfect. Even with commerce bonuses and low upkeep it still pales in comparison to the competing labor civics.

Also:


Link to video.

 

[Tall German Joe]

hmmm, I wonder if that's really as underpowered as you say. Fall From Heaven 2 doesn't have slavery as a widely available civic, but it did have a pair of civics that, together, produced a very similar effect as the K-Mod Serfdom: +2 and -1 on every farm tile. the combo is so overpowered that it's the defacto economy for at least 90% of all civs and leaders, with the other 10% being niche cases that have some kind of special civic or expansion strategy available only to them. (i.e. elves with ancient forest cottages, banner crusader towns, and lanun coastal REX). for financial civs, this would be the same thing! can see this kind of serfdom being completely insane for someone like Mansa Musa, who could use slavery just as well as ordinary.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Even if it was on Agriculture you'd only use it till you needed to start whipping. Serfdom needs a significant buff to be worthwhile outside of niche situations.

If it were on agriculture it'd see considerably use, especially for spiritual leaders who would basically just whip cycle + get boosted workers. Also, there are times where output is sufficient and the tile improvement speed boost would be welcome. Unfortunately, the trash rounding means that it would be more viable primarily on slower speeds.

But yes, its utility is so far behind the other labor civics that it's a joke. I don't know why they left it that way from vanilla through BTS 3.19; literally every other civic has more situational use, even somewhat rare things like Police State, Mercantilism, and Vassalage all have their niche that makes them potentially viable as your strongest option with reasonable frequency. Serfdom? Nope, it's very rare that it does anything but hurt you.

 

[Tall German Joe]

so, i downloaded K-Mod and gave my feudalism rush idea a try.

so the idea here is to oracle feudalism, which gives you a.) HR, b.) longbows, c.) serfdom for fast workers and super river farms, and d.) vassalage, which supports extra military units (which I guess is nice for K-Mod which requires a larger standing army) and lower city maintenance costs for a bigger REX. essentially, the goal to get a huge empire covered in 3F3C and 2F1H3C farms. so, started a game as Mansa Musa of the Mali (so that I could switch back to slavery if I needed to), pangaea low sea level (to give this strategy a bit more of a chance to do well), and Emperor difficulty. (due to everybody scaring me about the K-Mod AIs )

my start was kinda weak; only food was a dry rice and a grassland cow; had a grassland gems but only 3 total river tiles in the BFC. oracled feudalism @ 1400 BC, and then proceeded to REX. status at 1 AD is that I have 10 cities, with room for at least 5 or 6 more. I have a tech lead (about tied with Zara, but the two of us are 3-4 techs above everyone else) but am only gaining about ~125 BPT, yuck. only 2 cities have libraries, and only have 7 or 8 workers total - wish I had at least 4 more. no academy, as I slow-built the ToA and that popped a great merchant instead of a scientist. (was originally building for failgold, but started panicking when Zara's culture started clobbering me). not sure how necessary an academy is anyways, as vassalage is actually pretty good for this strategy.

so, overall the strategy feels kinda weak. part of the problem is the food-weak capital led to slow rexing, and also most of the land I'm expanding into is covered in jungle leads to slow rampup in the new cities. serfdom has actually been pretty helpful for that. i've also built quite a bit more military than I ordinarily would, I guess because I was scared of the K-Mod AIs. LOTS of early declarations of war, although luckily none on me. I only switched back into slavery twice, during which I tried to whip each city twice. I think, if I were someone like vicky, I might be able to avoid slavery completely. building the ToA was a mistake, even with Marble, because even though its nice to have, I'd trade it back for 2 workers and a settler certainly if I could.

at any rate, ~125 BPT, even with the prospect of that turning into ~300 or ~400 BPT in another few dozen turns I think is pretty weak. however, that's not to say that this new serfdom is all bad or even that my execution was most efficient. my core cities were nice and fat overall and I did certainly develop a lot of tiles, especially considering how many were jungle.

most likely, this serfdom I think has applications for financial civs early and late; early for transition towards a specialist economy, producing serious beakers in the BC years while maintaining a low GPP profile, for a later transition to caste (so this would be particularly good for Liz) and then later still to whip-heaven. willem (fin/cre) might also do well because of cheap libraries. I think, if I try this again, I'll pick one of the english queens, and regenerate the map until I find a capital with at least 2 good food and lots of river, and also to make sure I set up a heavily-hilled city early to make sure I can slow build lots of military without needing to switch into slavery too often. a continents map might also do better, as low AI contact means that the overall tech rate will slow, giving a chance to develop more tiles. will report how it goes!

 

[bestsss]

Serfdom is useful in OCC, esp to lay all those forest preserves. needed for the national park.
Baring that it's an useless civic.

 

[Mec AntiKythera]

That's an interesting experiment, TG Joe. Thanks for the report. Throw in some screenies if you get a chance, I would like to see how it all looks w/o installing K-Mod myself.

It does sound like a nice river landscape would be ideal for that strategy. Do any of your neighbors have river-rich land? Too bad Serfdom competes with Slavery, a farm-centric empire with bonus commerce would match up well with some serious whipping. The solution of going Spiritual so that you can utilize both is indeed an apt one.

Please do post further updates.

 

[Orion Pax]

What if K-mod serfdom was moved up earlier but only in part?

1. Serfdom civic at Monarchy or maybe Agriculture, but only:
improved worker & -1 on towns

2. Feudalism:
+1 on farms & plantations

That way the main feature is more relevant early, and there is a low upkeep labor civic option early on? The town penalty is less relevant early on. Also makes historical sense since serfdom has been around as long as slavery. The Feudalism tech could represent a refined serfdom of the Middle Ages?

 

[MAvL]

Sorry if it has already been suggested, but forest are incredibly fast and worthwhile to chop. Making them harder to chop would effectively enable strategies like delayed chopping with mathematic and serfdom. Especially for large poorly developped empires (from REX or rush) where maintenance and unit cost are issues.

Also, many scenario have a civic where you build military units with food. I would not like it too much on serfdom but that is an other option.