Slave farms v regular farms

[salty mud]

This is a totally new concept introduced in this mod and I'm not sure I fully understand it. At the base level, slave and regular farms seem to be identical, in that they provide +1 food to a tile. Running the slavery civic makes slave farms more productive however, whereas regular farms benefit from Serfdom? When one decides to move on from slavery, do all of the farms have to be torn down and replaced?

What are the strategies relating to these improvements?

 

[onefinneday]

Yes, you have to replace your slave farms with regular farms. Slave Farms actually produce +2 due to the Slave Market, so they're competitive with the farms you would have with Irrigation Systems in the late Classical period.

I prefer running Slavery over Caste most of the time, because the food improvements are a ways off and the only way to make use of happy cap is to have the food to reach desired populations. Bigger pop is pretty much a requirement for competing with and surpassing the AI. The slave revolts are also good XP and can give you the first great general and melee tradition. With the extra food and hammers, you can get the workers you need to convert back to regular farms - since farms reach +3 food at Irrigation Systems, there is usually ample time to make the switch before Peasant Servitude. You usually want Peasant Servitude to be delayed until you can maintain a better force for putting down rebellions than the Levy units you get at that tech.

 

[jafink]

Slavery is really strong. +1 Hammer from mines is great, and in the beginning of the game a slave farm under slavery is better than a normal farm, so you are getting 2 really good bonuses. Slave rebellions are always melee irregular units. So you want a couple of units with a bonus attack vs. melee to put down the rebellions. Skirmishers are great, and so are most types of cavalry.

Serfdom is pretty good, but in my experience it is not as essential as slavery. I probably take Slavery in 95% of my games, and Serfdom in about 60%. If I have a lot of cottage improvements I will skip Serfdom and use Free Commoners instead.
But either way you need to change your slave farms into regular farms at some point. Having a lot of workers is pretty important throughout the game. You need to change slave farms to regular farms to mechanized farms. roads to paved roads, and usually you will want to change many of your mines to windmills.

 

[Snowygerry]

Yes, you have to replace your slave farms with regular farms.

And later with mechanical farms, mines with precious mines, roads into paved roads etc.

in this mod it pays to continiously have workers roam your lands to see if improvements can be improved somewhere

This is only my second game in RI - I was still so shocked by not being able to whip stuff into existence in the early game the benefits of the new slavery system escaped me a bit tbh. and I went into serfdom.

(...) Having a lot of workers is pretty important throughout the game. You need to change slave farms to regular farms to mechanized farms. roads to paved roads, and usually you will want to change many of your mines to windmills.

Indeed.

This ties into the "super specialists" of the late game, often it is better to work city squares for food and let the specialists let do the actual work.

 

[onefinneday]

Yeah, the whip was gone, devs said the AI kept sacrificing its population unnecessarily and that would set it back. Food is still crucial though as epidemics will act as a check on population growth, and you need 3 food per citizen which means getting those yields is important.

My preference is to go with mostly farms and maybe a couple of cottages per city. Some city sites can specialize and build more cottages, but one bad thing about cottages is the epidemic rate increases, in addition to the lack of food. Cottages perform fairly well late game, as the preferred endgame labor civic offers +1 hammer and the cottage is a little better than a late game specialist that isn't in a specialized city (no national university). Your science city definitely has to be food-centric though, as great scientists are going to be the most valuable GP type outside of culture victory.

 

[Snowygerry]

[...] Some city sites can specialize and build more cottages, but one bad thing about cottages is the epidemic rate increases, in addition to the lack of food. Cottages perform fairly well late game, as the preferred endgame labor civic offers +1 hammer and the cottage is a little better than a late game specialist that isn't in a specialized city (no national university).

Craft Guilds + Guild Hall does the same, and much earlier then Labour Union - did not notice that the first time around, and went straight for Merchant Families...

clearly a lot of thought has been put in this Mod

 

[Hafenguy]

Does anyone use Pastoral nomadism and slavery?

 

[Timothyy]

Does anyone use Pastoral nomadism and slavery?

Why? they don't relate
Unless you are mongol, which conquer alot and build very little

 

[Hafenguy]

They have a relationship to each other in that the pastoral nomadism of the slave farm draws the food away again.
I think it makes little sense to use both at the same time.

 

[RamblinWreck]

Looking at the Pedia entries, an irrigated slave farm under Slavery and Pastoral Nomadism would still give one extra food in a city with a Slave Market. But one extra food really isn't worth it on any non-food resource tile. I think if you're running Pastoral Nomadism long-term (which I wouldn't unless I'm playing as one of the civs with a unique Pasture variant), there's no point in trying to make farms work with it.

I think it makes little sense to use both at the same time.

Agreed, which is why I'm confused that you brought up doing so. I thought one of the earlier posts must have mentioned it but no, you're the first one in this thread.

 

[Hafenguy]

It was just for seeing the things clear

But I still dont really get the benefit for slavery.
With irrigating and iron working gets a normal farm + 2 food.
So, with Slaver and slave marked you get + 1 food more than with regular farm and + 1 hammer and 10% money.
That's all right?
I dont know whether tust is worth the efforts.

 

[Timothyy]

It was just for seeing the things clear

But I still dont really get the benefit for slavery.
With irrigating and iron working gets a normal farm + 2 food.
So, with Slaver and slave marked you get + 1 food more than with regular farm and + 1 hammer and 10% money.
That's all right?
I dont know whether tust is worth the efforts.

slavery is for early game.
you have +2 food early while farm only get that bonus much later.
and for capture slave, capture some slave then sacrifice them for some building in new city, or even wonder if you can capture like 10 slave.

 

[Noyyau]

Slavery is great in the Ancient and Classical eras, especially if you, like I do, play on large maps, with few starting AIs (more will spawn later from settling barbarian cities), and Raging Barbarians. You will fight uncountable barbarians and get so many slaves that most of your new cities will get built up by sacrificing slaves.
And that's before you get into a few wars against AI doomstacks.

 

[Logoncal]

You do have to be extremely aware that both Slavery AND Serfdom spawns rebel barbarians tho. Sometimes they can create real threatening doomstacks.
On the flipside, they can be used as experience and GG farm because R:I has NO BARBARIAN XP CAP.

 

[Walter Hawkwood]

That's not quite true - the cap is still there, but it can be raised rather high with appropriate promos.

 

[Logoncal]

That's not quite true - the cap is still there, but it can be raised rather high with appropriate promos.

Either way, Slavery/Serfdom is useful to train unit stacks, especially on a mod like R:I where every bonus counts.
Thanks for correcting me.