The civics system is one the most elegantly designed parts of Civilization IV. They force the player to adapt and evolve their strategy, changing their government form as History advances, just like real-world societies do. Some are better suited for big empires; others for a handful of cities. There are interesting synergies (run Representation and Mercantilism at the same time for a Merchant Republic with extra science, or a Pacifist State religion with caste system to see great people flooding your empire). Even those civics that are not usually discussed a lot, like Police State or Environmentalism, become a viable and even a desirable choice at higher difficulty levels, where happiness and health are scarce.

However, there is a civic for which I have never found a good situation to make use of: Serfdom. Serfdom, in the Labor civics column, makes workers build improvements 50% faster. It doesn’t sound that bad on paper. Worker management is an important skill to master the game, working unimproved tiles is pretty inefficient, and it is generally agreed that building too few workers is a common bad habit in beginner and intermediate players. Serfdom’s effect would be game-breaking in the beginning of the game, but this civic only becomes available in the Middle Ages (with the Feudalism technology). By then, you should already have a handful or workers ready to improve your city tiles, and the effect of working an additional improved or unimproved tile is not as crucial.

Also, the exact same bonus can be obtained with the Hagia Sophia wonder, considered one of the weakest in the game… But at least it produces sweet Great Engineer points.

To make matters worse, Serfdom competes in the Labor column with three very strong alternate civics: Slavery (considered by many as the most important civic in the game), Caste System and Emancipation (the latter, if only to avoid the unhappiness penalty during the late game). If you decide to use Serfdom, you must take into account the benefit from other civics that you are not getting.

The only situation where I’ve found myself actively using Serfdom is, as a Spiritual leader, to run in the turns where I’m not whipping. If you can time your whips, with the Spiritual trait it’s more beneficial to run another civic until you are ready to sacrifice population; Slavery has only active benefits (you need to click the whip button) and passive disadvantages (risk of slave revolts and medium maintenance cost, as opposed to low). Even then, just one high-food city could be enough to make Caste system more beneficial.

I guess a second strategy involving Serfdom would be for a boost in worker speed if you are mass turning your farms or towns into workshops under State Property (+1 food). But in that case, you will probably want to have super-workshops with Caste System (+1 hammer), or will already be affected by Emancipation unhappiness. Other situations where an extra effort by workers is needed (lots of jungle to clear, turning roads into railroads) don’t seem as urgent to justify losing one of the other civics.

A third one that I came up with involves pleasing an AI to make them vote for you in the United Nations. I’ve won diplomatic victories by switching to the other leaders’ favorite civics and thus gaining their favor (especially if vassals are disabled, so Diplomation is off the table). However, there’s a “small” problem here… No AI leader has Serfdom as a favorite civic! (Perhaps so they don’t get stuck with an inferior choice). So this strategy would require a mod that adds another leader with Serfdom as favorite civic.

Do you use Serfdom? What changes do you think could be made to this civic to make it more attractive, without damaging the game’s balance?