Does anybody use Serfdom?

[Fistleaf]

It seems to be a useless civic to pick as by the time you get to choose it, most of the improvements in your main cities have already been completed (you have to, otherwise how are you going to keep up with the AI?).
Building roads only costs 2 turns, chopping forests 4 turns, important cottages and mines are probably already built, there is really not much gain in getting Serfdom. Especially when Slavery is so much more useful. If you don't like Slavery, Caste System is also more useful.

[Modo44]

I don't use it very often, but mainly because my usual beeline goes around feudalism, and the AI is reluctant to share it. But playing on large maps, with slow game settings (usually epic), I do use serfdom. It's good for making lumber mills, and later, planting rails quickly.

[Fleme]

Yeah, it's a weak Civic, just like the Hagia Sofia is a weak wonder. On Marathon though, cutting the time it takes to improve terrain in half could possibly be nice, but I still never use it. I mostly use Caste System, I like my Workshops even if I don't always make use of the unlimited specialists (I mean, it's not that often you even get the chance)

[Swiss Pauli]

Yeah. I don't use it much, except during Golden Ages when you don't want to be whipping, or running mass specialists.

[johnmcd]

If I've had a bad war where someone has done a lot of pillaging or there is a lot of late land to be exploited (terra for example) then it can make sense.

Also, I'm not always good at building enough workers, and I'm not a big fan of early war for capturing them (feels like an exploit to me) so sometimes I use it sort out my earlier laziness. You don't need to have every tile of every city improved that quickly in any event - most cities only need five or six working tiles at that stage, your big few will want more, but if you have no improving left at that stage it sounds to me like you are building too many workers.

[CerberusIV]

I tend to use it but I only research the tech after civil service and engineering, at which point I'm usually done with whipping in most of my cities. I'll go back to slavery if I expand through war at that stage to whip in the captured cities.

I'm not a big fan of caste system as I'm a hammers junkie and want engineers and usually have libraries and markets up in my main cities so can accommodate the other specialists I want anyway.

As mentioned serfdom does help in getting the lumbermills done but that's about it.

[LzPrst]

occasionally. it's nice when you have a big jungle to clear. not sure if it affects chopping time, but it is at least marginally faster than not...

there is one situation when it is very useful. retooling. when you decide you want watermills and workshops and windmills instead of mines and farms (even towns cottages sometimes ) then an army of workers and serfdom will get the job done in a jiffy. I occasionally do this if I go State Property. get those hammers flowing!

[Krill]

Serfdom is mainly useful to spi civs (5 turns in slavery to slave out some workers and then change to serfdom so that you complete stuff faster), and if you beeline straight for it. Because you would have gotton Hed rule you will suddenly have exploding populations and unless you've built too many early worker you should have difficulty keeping up in tile improvements which serfdom helps you overcome (and if someone comes in and says that you should have loads of early workers from slavery, it is usually more productive to slave something else if you are keeping ahead of tile improvements. Like an army so you can kill someone and use serfdom to improve your new land ).

[wodan11]

All the rage these days is doing a SE->CE conversion. Serfdom is incredibly helpful on those strategies.

Wodan

[Lancer]

I use it more often then not. If there was ever a good reason not to use it, that should do the job.

[Hauptman]

it does not double the speed of workers... in marathon it's increase is 6 turns for a road down to 4. still helpfull but not half.

I only use it after railroads with spiritual IF i have a limited supply of workers. otherwise, its right up there with nationalism and police state (wich ive used maybe once each)

[panther553212]

It improves workers building improvements by 50%. 100% would be doubling the speed of the worker. 50% means if it is an 8 turn improvement it will now only take 6.

[Crossfire]

I often beeline for Monarchy and build the Oracle and take Feudalism as my freebie. This seems to be the best bang for the Oracle on BtS and I can often achieve it on Monarch. This lets me run Serfdom for most of my city building era. On Emperor, which I recently started playing, I can never build the Oracle late enough to get Monarchy so I get Feudalism much later and don't use Serfdom.

[Supr49er]

Originally posted by Crossfire
I often beeline for Monarchy and build the Oracle and take Feudalism as my freebie...

I usually take Metal Casting.

[Jvstin]

Originally posted by Supr49er


I usually take Metal Casting.

I'm a big fan of Metal Casting and getting forges up, too.