Yeah that makes sense. It’s why I say the serfdom is nuts on paper, but context is everything for it.
I’ve been thinking about this because I’m not happy with my wording. I think a better way to put it would be this:
Serfdom is good on low food maps; hammers are not important. It’s main strength is not turning food into hammers (e.g. higher production mills), but turning hammers into food (by not whipping, and working windmills instead of mines). It’s basically the opposite of slavery in this respect. This map has a lot of food, so I don’t like Serfdom here. I would rather turn my food into hammers, than turn my hammers into food.
This is in contrast to low food maps like PB58, in which I think Serfdom was stronger.
(June 24th, 2021, 23:40)Charriu Wrote: I'm curious. How much would your opinion about serfdom change if it doesn't have the mills bonus?
Watermills, Windmills, or both? If you remove the watermill bonus, Serfdom is much worse, but possibly usable. If you remove the windmill bonus, Serfdom is worthless (same applies to 'both'). The windmills are the biggest reason to run the civic. But I definitely don't think Serfdom needs a nerf; I just decided not to use it here!
Honestly, 'Serfdom vs. Slavery' is in a pretty good spot right now. Like I said, Tarkeel and I in PB58 are not a good 'normal' example of Serfdom (PB56 is closer to that). Right now, the player must ask a few interesting questions, and weigh a few factors, to decide which is more appealing:
- How much food is on the map? This is the most important; low food = Serfdom, high food = Slavery.
- How many of my cities are, or will be, fishing villages and islands? The more coast you have, the better slavery is and the worse Serfdom is. You want to whip off coast tiles, and work as many land-tiles as possible. The low amount of coast in PB56 was a big reason Serfdom was good for us there.
- How many river-side cottages can I afford not to build? Serfdom is obviously better the more watermills you can make. I might convert a hamlet into a Serfdom watermill, but not a village. This incentivizes long-term planning.
- What are my traits? Serfdom is considerably worse with FIN, and better with SPI.
This leaves situations in which Serfdom is clearly better, and situations in which Slavery is. But most importantly it presents each player an interesting macro decision, giving variation within each game, and rewards planning ahead. Games where you run Serfdom feel totally different to games with Slavery. I think this dynamic is one of the best overall changes from BtS->CtH, and do not think Serfdom should be changed.
(June 25th, 2021, 00:29)Charriu Wrote: Like I said I was just curious and am watching how those two civics will compare towards Caste System and Emancipation in the future.
Sorry if I was being combative, I didn’t get much sleep last night. One of the worst parts of playing is missing your big 50-turn reports, so I’m looking forward to the stats.
(June 25th, 2021, 00:29)Charriu Wrote: Like I said I was just curious and am watching how those two civics will compare towards Caste System and Emancipation in the future.
Sorry if I was being combative, I didn’t get much sleep last night. One of the worst parts of playing is missing your big 50-turn reports, so I’m looking forward to the stats.
You have to work on your combative arguing. That was not enough to qualify as combative.
I asked only because the serfdom change is on my radar and I am glad I get some more input from people, who are trying the civic.
We came out of anarchy this turn, which means it time for
Three!
New!
Cities!
So we're the first to 10! Wasn't expecting that at the start of the game. Here's a new overview:
Salmon is building a temple to get a priest ASAP for our shrine. We might need to delay Moai in Tuna slightly, so that it doesn't overtake Salmon in GPP (d'oh). Our population is very low right now, but we'll be regrowing our cities for a little while, so hopefully that's not a sign of long-term issues. That and our low soldier count are probably our biggest problems right now. We'll be building a defensive army now, finally. Here's the new demos, after settling:
And here's the old ones, that Vanrober kindly took a picture of:
Thanks to Protective island-routes, we make 14 more gold at 0% than we did before settling. Definitely wasn't expecting that; PRO is really impressing me this game. We're researching Writing at 30% instead of binary, because at 100% our GNP spikes to 160 because of huge prereq bonuses. I don't want to freak the others out with it, especially since we're the lowest on power right now.
- - -
Fish
Swordfish are wild, man. Apparently they use the nose like a sword, slashing, rather than like a spear. Either way it's cool.
Blue Whiting look ridiculous. That's all I can say about that - they're not even blue!
Trout are a fish that lots of people eat, but I never have. I'll put it on my list! I also bought some short grain rice today, so I can finally try congee.
I wanted to update a bit some thoughts about SD, we have been trying to make OB since we have some units scouting him out of culture in case of any early agression but he is refusing and asking Clams-Clams, which in our sense he wants us feel safe so that he can Backstabb
ejem PB59
.
We asked back clams-clams and then OB-OB and then he answered for OB-OB but asking us stone for free? wtf... men we are giving you gold of trade routes since we get not profit out of security. You even ask us not to build walls? You are crazy xD. In addition he has been for the last 15 turns or so putting all EPS into us so right now we need to follow up or he will get tech visivility and thats something we dont want. I feel its already too late and i think he will still get it but lets try to make it more difficult for him.
Our vision of our possition is really good, we are top gnp and the one with most amount of cities, its true they are kind of low pop, but almost all have granaries and the mayority of the left ones are done in about 5 turns. We are spreading crzy our religion for happy, production and culture. Next cities will need a bit of time, since we want to develop a bit more this new round we just did.
Right now the plan is keep the expansion and get Feudalism to defend with PRO longbows. Our tech lead is huge and we think we should safely get it before any atack comes out. At least for now that s our thinking. Someone got IW and we fear its GKC he agreed on OB so we will scout him in case any spike of Praets come to us.
Also We think SD did Archery to get AH and ride someone. We are making spears to deal with it.
We plan to get our shrine in about 30 turns to give us a bit more boost of gold since we are making the effort of spreading the religion. Tuna is gonna be huge city with moai and the shrine. I thought maybe getting Artemise would be crazy good on that city too, plus the cothons afterwards... Crazy city. But thats really long term thinking.
Wasn't expecting that at the start of the game. Here's a new overview:
