Opening Honour?

Is this a recommended thing? I never thought to do it, but I saw it mentioned in another thread.

How does it fit in with a Tradition opening? Should you open Honour first up, or after Legalism? Does it definitely pay for itself with Culture?

I always open Honour if I'm near a desert/jungle/snow because Barbs spawn there out of the line of sight. I had a recent Sweden game where I was essentially in Russia's spot IRL and mowing down Barbs with my Haake's was a main source of culture, but I never thought to do it right from the beginning.....

Open Honor just for the sake of knowing where barbs spawn, it allows you to send caravans, workers and settlers without the need for an escort and you can make a fair amount of gold by knowing immediately where barbs are. Don't know if it pays for itself in terms of culture but it's certainly useful.

I really like the honor tree, but it's not for every situation. while tradition and liberty are in many respects passive trees, honor requires you be a little more deliberate in taking advantage of what it has to offer. If you're the type of person to just sit back, build your empire and react to things, it's probably not ideal for you.

I think a big reason it's often overlooked is because many of its bonuses are not guaranteed, or are difficult to really quantify; money and culture for killing units, money saved from upgrading units, money/production saved from needing fewer units, border control with frequent great generals...

Don't take the tree and expect good things to happen, rather, taking the tree will often expedite great things you're trying to make happen (or compound your failure, but, well, it happens)

As for culture specifically, it may very well generate more than the other two trees. +2 per city +7-ish for every unit killed is a lot of culture, especially if you're roaming a snowy region or have a fleet paroling an archipelago type area. Also, you could probably threaten city states all day, and kill all their units when they don't comply. Though I've never tried it, I'm not sure you'd get that much of a penalty diplomatic against other civs for doing it.

I often do this for the combat boost against Barbarians and to know where and when they spawn. I've tried counting up the Culture it gave me over the course of a game and found it to be a bit of a wash, in terms of total policies adopted.

It did tend to move my adoption of policies forward though, meaning I could race through early ones faster.

That said, I do tend to play on big maps with a couple civs removed, and with Raging Barbarians. On standard settings, I doubt the culture ever pays for itself totally (but how many openers would?), and the value of a bonus against barbarians is reduced of course.

One of the neat things about civ is that you can try (and are even encouraged to try) different strategies yourself simply for the fun of it.

I'd set up a game as Pangaea using Germany or the Aztecs, and give it a shot. Then, do it a 2nd time, so you can apply what you learned.

I once did a test and found that I was getting approximately 3 culture per turn for quite awhile, but this was on a large map with lots of land ( don't remember the specifics). Would not work so well on standard and smaller maps were the AI fills up the land mass so quickly.
Also with barb horseman prone to pillage so much, one spawning near you will ruin your day. So its nice to get the notice.

I usually open Honor just to know where barb camps is\will spawn, plus that little extra damage against barb is very useful when you have nothing more then one archer and one warrior.

Would consider picking up other policies there if aggro AI is next to you (like Shaka), and little culture\happiness from other policy is not bad for small tall empires.

Useful with Aztecs since culture per kill seems to stack, and very useful for new Germany, since... well you need all the money to upgrade those free barbs you're getting.

Evie94 said:

Is this a recommended thing? I never thought to do it, but I saw it mentioned in another thread.

How does it fit in with a Tradition opening? Should you open Honour first up, or after Legalism? Does it definitely pay for itself with Culture?

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Nope, opening Honor, especially in early game not really recommended.

No, doesn't fit well at all with tradition. Nope, in the long run doesn't pay for itself in culture policies. (If you game the settings "raging barbs" and then farm barbs then in early game it can speed up policies but as the policy costs go up it becomes net loss)

Honor opener shouldn't pay for itself. Unlike Tradition and Liberty, which get nothing but a small culture boost, Honor also has +dmg to barbs and showing where barbs spawn. It would be overpowered compared to the other two openers if it did better. The fact that it performs worse is intended.

That being said, the Honor tree is able to actually beat Liberty for expanding up to 6 cities in the beginning of the game (through the first ~10 non-free policies), the less the better. These are real cities only, puppets don't count. But, Liberty's culture savings eventually catches up, and far outpaces Honor's culture by mid-endgame, even on 4 real cities. So, Honor is benefited by a good mix of puppeting and annexing.

Ultimately, Liberty's happiness bonus and hammer bonus usually win out over Honor in considerations for a wide-military empire. Honor needs more happiness and more gold.

There's plenty of times and many civs that can make use of Honor. It should be the first or second policy taken. The barbs are most active starting around turn 25 to 30. You should have an archer ready for them.

Most advice on the forums is pangaea centric and fails to account for a coastal setting where you can make a galley and get 10 honor from barb ships. This can double the effect.

Even if you pick Honor you can usually finish a tree in about the same time as if you didn't take Honor especially if you build the Oracle. tradition with an Honor opener works well and sets you up for attacking later.

Basically Honor assumes that you will be going out and conquering your way to victory.

If you're not constantly at war, you're not getting the benefit from honor.

And therein lies the problem. You can never be constantly at war if you're playing at the right skill level. At some point your economy will need a breather for happiness and science.

Assuming standard settings, opening Honor as a means of Culture generation doesn't pay off (as many have said). I find Honor to be a pretty decent tree overall, but it's all about what you want to do with the game.

If I feel boxed in or my closest neighbor is aggressive, I may go straight through Honor. If I'm planning on going to war in the Medieval/Renaissance Era, I may grab a policy or two in Honor and then work through another tree before finishing Honor.

I often don't take Honor late game (as I'm generally working though either Rationalism or my Ideology), but it can be very beneficial if you have the culture for it. Frigates/Battleships earning extra experience is always nice.

Certain Civs have terrific synergy with Honor and really benefit from it's policies. Germany, Zulu, and Aztecs are the first that come to mind, but Civs like China and Songhai also do very well with it.

I cannot imagine Zulu, Mongolia, Huns, Japan, Germany without Honor. Also, Honor with Aztecs is pretty cool idea.

But also, I hardly imagine non - Domination non - warmonger civ taking Honor

When I'm playing Aztecs, I'm often very torn between Honor and Tradition. Tradition is great for going tall, while Honor lets you kill Barbs even faster and get double the culture returns. Germany has a similar synergy, and Zulus benefit from more EXP. There's something to be said about an early Chinese general, although it's not really my style.

I feel the Huns are generally better off going Liberty because of the +1 production policy.

That said, Honor is my least-used tree in general. As for being a first policy, Tradition and Liberty make strong competition. (and even Piety in some circumstances)

Honor with Shoshone could not be a bad idea when you upgrade their UU to a composite bowman. Once you have that composite up, you can explore the map and shoot any primitive barbarians that stand in your way as you explore to gain a small additional culture boost. However, when barbs no longer spawn, it loses its effect.

One "nice" thing about Honor is the free Great General.

I'm mainly thinking about MP here. There's around a 50/50 chance you are going to get invaded in any MP game, and you're not going to have a Great General unless you've been warmongering or you've been defending an invasion for 20 turns. A free Citadel on a key tile can save your entire civilization from a horde of Legions.

Of course the opener is useful for peaceful civs anyway. Whether or not it's worth two social policies to drop a Citadel at a mountain chokepoint is debatable, but then again, it's obvious when you're next on the chopping block. Just something to consider.

I take Honor a lot more nowadays, the benefits aren't as straightforward as Tradition, but I think there's a lot of hidden benefits that people overlook.

Vathris said:

One "nice" thing about Honor is the free Great General.



I'm mainly thinking about MP here. There's around a 50/50 chance you are going to get invaded in any MP game, and you're not going to have a Great General unless you've been warmongering or you've been defending an invasion for 20 turns. A free Citadel on a key tile can save your entire civilization from a horde of Legions.



Of course the opener is useful for peaceful civs anyway. Whether or not it's worth two social policies to drop a Citadel at a mountain chokepoint is debatable, but then again, it's obvious when you're next on the chopping block. Just something to consider.



I take Honor a lot more nowadays, the benefits aren't as straightforward as Tradition, but I think there's a lot of hidden benefits that people overlook.

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I went through Honor with China and had an insane number of Great Generals. I definitely agree about it's benefits - there are a lot of nice things Honor provides and I like that you actually have to make an effort to utilize them (unlike Tradition). I find myself rarely picking Tradition anymore because it's too good, so Honor is usually one of my favorite starting trees.

I believe the Honor opener is the most essential policy in the game. The benefits in the early game are enormous.

As for the other honor policies, I would never go down the left side of the tree unless I was going for domination. I hardly ever touch the right side of the tree either, but I could see it being useful if you have a large empire or are frequently fighting defensive wars.

holywar said:

I believe the Honor opener is the most essential policy in the game. The benefits in the early game are enormous.

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It pales in comparison to both getting free aqueducts much faster (Tradition) and getting a Free Great person much faster (Liberty)

It takes a very large number of unit kills even to break even for completing a tree.

I recently found new love for Honor. Pick up few policies or even finish it, do heavy warmongering, but don't conquer any cities (unless it's really good).

Just go killing AI units, get good peace trade. When treaty ends, attack AI again and just keep killing his units and repeat the process. You'll quickly fill policies and get extra gold from war. You can also always pillage AIs titles for some extra gold.

Honor is terrific if you start next to a guys that like to spam units and go agro, like Shaka\Attila\Napoleon\Hiawatta.

Oh, if Spain is next to you, pick Honor! Then allow Isabella to become your punching bag. Askia is not a terrible choice either, he'll always go for culture victory and try to (unsuccessfully) conquer the world.