I can't tell if you're trying to be serious here. It was in no way a good life to be a serf. Life was literally nasty, brutish, and short - even putting aside armed conflict and external dangers.
Lords would extract what they could. A huge part of life for serfs was figuring out how to survive without producing an easily-extractable surplus (because of it could be extracted, it usually would be extracted).
>It was in no way a good life to be a serf. Life was literally nasty, brutish, and short - even putting aside armed conflict and external dangers.
That's the "old wives tale" version.
Life wasn't particularly nasty or brutish, modern scholarship has re-evaluated the Middle Ages, and the "short" part was similar to 19th century levels due to infant mortality (and otherwise similar to 19-century standards), and has little to do with serfdom per se, and all to do with lack of 2-3 things we take for granted (running water, sewage systems, understanding of microbes, etc.).
For most of history, there was a certain standard. Lords didn't take "all they could", but closer to 10% or so. If they got too greedy the people could align with another lord, and that would mean trouble. Medieval history has lots of such examples.
>even putting aside armed conflict and external dangers.
Which I already covered:
"If it wasn't for the lack of technology and modern conveniences and frequent wars and dangers from outside, it would be a pretty good lifestyle..."
Yes, and in many case the 'civilians' were not affected, it was mostly professional armies and mercenaries.
The "popular/people's army" (armies of common folk) come later (though, of course, we have examples of it in the ancient world too, as well as examples where common folk to the short end of the stick during conflict. It was just not that common in feudal times).
Lords would extract what they could. A huge part of life for serfs was figuring out how to survive without producing an easily-extractable surplus (because of it could be extracted, it usually would be extracted).