can one survive without the honor policies?

clif9710

clif9710

Warlord
Joined
Sep 28, 2009
Messages
200
Location
Chicago
I've always used the honor tree of policies, figuring that I needed the benefits to protect myself even if I didn't go on a rampage on my own (particularly Military Tradition and Discipline).

But of course choosing honor policies means you can't go with other policies, so this game, where I am going for culture, I am taking the risk of choosing nothing from honor. So far so good, though I'm only about a third of the way through the game with Egypt and the Maya on either side of me and both having DOW'ed me twice. :sad: Have any of you been able to win without anything from honor?
 
I never use honor...honor is far from necessary. In fact, I only use it when I want to purely go military or am having a hard time with barbarians.
 
I rarely go with Honor. I have more fun with the other two starting trees. Then I move on to Rationalism.

You can still use Honor if you want to go cultural. Culture from killing barbarians and culture from garrisoned units. Probably not the most optimal way, but it helps.
 
You can survive without honor, easily. Only 1 policy in honor even helps with unit strength, so as long as you don't fall behind in soldiers, you, picking something else, shouldn't have a hard time fighting against someone that goes honor.

You could make a strong argument that the hammer production from going down the liberty tree or food bonus from going tradition could actually make a bigger difference for your army than honor until you fill out the tree, when honor starts getting gold from killing units.
 
I rarely go honor. Maybe if I'm surrounded by people I know are going to come looking for me some day.
 
clif9710 said:
I've always used the honor tree of policies, figuring that I needed the benefits to protect myself even if I didn't go on a rampage on my own (particularly Military Tradition and Discipline).

But of course choosing honor policies means you can't go with other policies, so this game, where I am going for culture, I am taking the risk of choosing nothing from honor. So far so good, though I'm only about a third of the way through the game with Egypt and the Maya on either side of me and both having DOW'ed me twice. :sad: Have any of you been able to win without anything from honor?
Click to expand...

??

You get 10% combat bonus and a GG from honor. Either you can live without easily. Get archers on your hill city and it's easy deflecting any rush.

Once you get composite bows, you can deflect even riflemen, so I'm not sure which part you need help with?
 
Yeah which part of honor are you considering so vital? None of it is so fantastic where you need it to win. In fact, the other policies are much stronger.
 
I find Tradition to be a better policy tree. My preference is: Tradition>Liberty>Honor, usually, but I would go honor if I'm Montezuma (double culture from barbarian hunt!) or an already agressive civ like Germany.

If you are having troubles with the rushes, Oligarchy from Tradition tree grants +50% city ranged strenght, which is nice to kill some of the invaders. Honor by itself doesn't grant much great bonuses... I mean, +50% XP is really good and +15% strenght from adjacent military units is nice, but all the others, IMO, are eclipsed by tradition's (or even liberty's) bonuses.
 
Yzman said:
Yeah which part of honor are you considering so vital? None of it is so fantastic where you need it to win. In fact, the other policies are much stronger.
Click to expand...

Honor does have a strong finisher, and the bonus to melee unit production is valuable for warmonger civs.
 
I'm assuming this is a joke thread. Honor is by far the worst, anyone who picks it as there primary starting tree is missing out on two trees that actually help. And if you go honor for "Defense" you are missing the whole point of the tree. I really hope you don't actually do this all the time, because if you do you will never leave prince/warlord.
 
Honor provides more happiness per city than any other tree (except freedom and freedom have it from specialists). But this hapiness costs a lot of hammers and comes realy late.
Another big bonus is +50exp, but it is not huge, because later units come with +3*15 = 45 exp (and with BGate anoth 15exp, but that is not guaranteed).

With raging barbarians honor opener can give lot of culture early and bonus aginst barbarians is more important, so with raging barbarians it is much better than on default settings. And when I take honor opener, I usualy go for hapiness side (if ot for whole tree).
 
I've gone months now without using honor and do just fine. just do the usual stuff like build up ranged units, still construct a barracks, defend choke points and you should be fine.
 
emblemfire said:
I'm assuming this is a joke thread. Honor is by far the worst, anyone who picks it as there primary starting tree is missing out on two trees that actually help. And if you go honor for "Defense" you are missing the whole point of the tree. I really hope you don't actually do this all the time, because if you do you will never leave prince/warlord.
Click to expand...

If you are going to war a lot, the other trees are much less helpful than honor. 50% more exp alone is probably worth more than all of tradition by the end of the game if you stay in war...heck, it might be worth more just in +1 range units.

The issue is that if you are doing anything but warring most of the game, it's not worth it, just as liberty isn't worth it if try OCC or tradition isn't worth it if you ICS.
 
thanks for all the good advice - Civ5 is a lesson in opportunity cost, particularly with the policy trees.

Going cultural, my fear is always of overwhelming attack. To have the 50% experience benefit helps hold off the hordes, particularly when I have two coming at me at once. But I can see that increasing the defense of the capital is much more important and diplomacy is a must. I've found spreading my religion to a non-religious neighbor will calm him down considerably. Always there's the worry that going very tall will end in tears with a nuke just when victory is within reach.
 
If you are going cultural not only is honor not a must I would avoid it! So many other policies are more crucial for a cultural game. Tradition and liberty are both better for cultural.
 
Try going tradition first, take all 3 middle policies, then maybe open honor and go get the double XP before finishing tradition (or finish tradition straight away and open honor as your second policy tree). Stick to 4-6 cities and build up your army. Eventually getting the culture and happy boost from Honor can nicely compliment your now-strong empire.

If you're really having trouble defending against AI attacks early you might be expanding too rapidly. Cities and archers/CBs can usually repel most early rushes.
 
I always warmonger, but I only choose honor about 15% of the time. It's a fine tree (besides the opener and closer, which are trash) but the benefits to growth from Tradition and Liberty allow you to field a large army while also tending to your economy.
 
Honor would be so much more relevant if your units had a -50% XP cost for promotions instead of +50% XP for fights.

- Marty Lund
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

K
Social policy skipping (NOT the "right click" question)
Replies
4
Views
1K
Equilin
Equilin
pineappledan
  • Locked
(7-39) Authority Discipline Change
Replies
11
Views
491
axatin
A
S
OCC challenge
2
Replies
30
Views
1K
rkkn
R
A
Preventing AI from choosing certain social policies or ideologies
Replies
0
Views
164
Andrew Harlane
A
CAYM
Is policy tradition okay as is?
2
Replies
31
Views
3K
CppMaster
CppMaster
Top Bottom