Social Policy: Honor, worth it?

[StormEye]

In many recent games, I have been picking Honor quite early for culture bonus and barbarian combat bonus, but have not progressed through the policy tree at all (just picking the title and leaving it be).

I have been wondering whether picking this is just wasting my policy that can be put elsewhere, or I am actually benefiting enough from barbarian killing alone to grant a point into honor.

Should I continue doing this? Explore further into the Honor tree?

Some advices would be apreciated.

Thank you.

[The Pilgrim]

Just the opener - no. If you plan to take the whole tree or at least its right side for happiness boosters, maybe. Tradition and Liberty as opening trees are by far more profitable. Of course there are some marginal cases when you plan to dominate the entire globe before turn 100 and such... But generally, no.

[Schalke 04]

I think Honour needs a buff, especially in the opener, to compete with Liberty and Tradition.

Maybe something like 4 units free of maintenance...?

[GAGA Extrem]

A few free units for the opener (2-4) would indeed be cool.
Apart from that I think the right side of the tree is pretty neat for wide empires. The happiness and culture benefit from garrisons is cool and defensive building happiness adds up over time.

[prince_caspian]

You can focus on the liberty tree early, then proceed to take honor when you warplans are ready.

[darune]

I like opening honor too sometimes (but if i do, usually after opening tradition first), especially if going cultural and if i see enough barbarians around.
It means the starting warriors can fight barbarians too and with the cultur you get in return means the set back you will be on finishing liberty or tradition is not too bad.
You need to kill ALOT of barbs to offset though, but it really helps in killing and finding those camps, and you can get other stuff from killing barbs too (city states, little gold, not getting harrased).
If/when you pick more Honor SP, i often find i just dip into left or right side. If you do this early on, its left side: your building your civilization with force, killing your neighbor early, capture/bully/ally CS.

[darune]

I like opening honor too sometimes (but if i do, never before opening tradition first), especially if going cultural and if i see enough barbarians around.
It means the starting warriors can fight barbarians too and with the cultur you get in return means the set back you will be on finishing liberty or tradition is not too bad.
You need to kill ALOT of barbs to offset though, but it really helps in killing and finding those camps, and you can get other stuff from killing barbs too (city states, little gold).
If/when you pick more Honor SP, i often find i just dip into left or right side. If you do this early on, its left side: your building your civilization with force, killing your neighbor early, capture/bully/ally CS.

[Polycrates]

Yeah I don't think Honour is just for early warmongering, it's also good for going "cautiously wide". I.e. you get a great anti-barb bonus, some nice combat bonuses, potentially the most culture of any of the early trees, and potentially the most happiness as well. So if you want to go wide but Alex and Attila are next door and you'd rather trade speed for security, then Honour is great. New cities come more slowly than with Liberty but you can sustain that growth out to more cities without hitting happiness problems, and you get somewhat faster border growth as well. Also you've got a good excuse to play it safe and build walls! You can then seamlessly transition to taking the offensive in the classical or medieval when you're ready and fully catapulted-up.
The opener is a little weak and will definitely give you less culture than either of the other two openers, but to make best use of it I think you have to aggressively target barbarian camps for citystates and/or farm untargeted ones.

Also on a side note, am I the only one who really likes Neuschwanstein? Synergises really perfectly with the Honour tree too!

[Syntax Error]

Montezuma + Honor Opener + Raging Barbs = Friendly City States and free culture.

Build a scout upon settling and explore the land with it and your jaguar. Build another Jaguar at home. Find a camp and keep destroying barbs for free culture (and influence if you kill it near CS Borders). A great start will have a camp near your initial city. If that happens, grin, because you have a lot of sacrifices. Take over the camp ONLY if it becomes a part of a CS quest. You save gold from buying influence and you save hammers from building early culture buildings to get the desired early SP's you need. Granted, you get a faith hit, but 16 Culture for each felled Barbarian Warrior is too good to pass up (at least for me in lower difficulties).

[Xile]

Honour's kinda bad, at least imo. I went honour a couple of times in vanilla, with G&K making early warfare not really worth it, the tree just becomes nearly useless. Even for defending against another civ Oligarchy is arguably better than anything the honour tree has to offer. The other 2 trees just seem far superior.

[Zet]

Honor is still crippled by the awful opener. I wish they'd have done something about that in G&K.

[budweiser]

Its kind of nice to take the Honor opener and have the option to pop a GG whenever you want and then start producing men. Its even better now that you can put down a citadel where ever and really mess with someone.

[_megafone_]

Honor is great. Just gotta use it and stomp people in the early game ^^

On higher difficulty levels you get a TON of gold out of the finisher... all those carpets of doom lol. And now with more incentive to build Walls you actually get a lot of mileage out of the tree overall.

That said, I never open with it unless I see a neighbor very close. Open with something else then get into Honor once you know where you're heading.

[KillingMeSoftly]

Not a big fan of Honor, really. It's very nice for some edge cases, but Tradition and Liberty really trump it. G&K made Tradition and Liberty very balanced with one another, but did very little for Honor. Barbarians having more Combat Strength and thus you gaining more culture is really the only thing that indirectly helped Honor. Units always being garrisoned is also an indirect "buff" but its more a quality of life thing. I really wish that Honor gave Culture for all kills, not just Barbarians. I know that's exactly what the Aztecs have as a Unique Ability, but I think it would make Honor much better. Aztecs would simply get a double up on their UA if they went Honor.

[sschmalz]

When playing for conquest, I place Honor above both Tradition and Liberty. The reason being that Tradition and Liberty are really focused on boosting an empire early game, but they don't help much after that initial boom. Whereas the combat bonuses and happiness from Honor is extremely helpful throughout the game.

I know I'm in the minority on this one, but I finish out the Honor tree in probably 2 out of every 3 games, and I do just fine growing my empire early game without the use of Tradition or Liberty (playing on Emperor difficulty).

[Machiavelli24]

Just taking the opener for Honor isn't worth it. Unless you're playing with raging barbs or farming barb camps the barbarians are going to dry up by turn ~80. Even if you kill a barb every 5 turns or so that is only going to be a bit more than the Liberty opener would provide.

Another factor is that while the first 3 policies are relatively cheap there is a decent jump in the cost of the 4th policy. Splashing Honor before going into Tradition or Liberty is going to keep you from getting some of the deeper policies in the Tradition or Liberty tree in a timely manner if you aren't putting effort into culture generation.

Originally Posted by Schalke 04

I think Honour needs a buff, especially in the opener, to compete with Liberty and Tradition.

Maybe something like 4 units free of maintenance...?

I agree that the honor opener is pretty weak. I made a mod that buffed it to give culture on any kill, so it can keep providing a drip of culture even after the barbarians dry up.

[Calouste]

I think Honor is useful for the aggressive civs, Germany, Songhai, Mongolia, Japan, the Ottomans, the Huns, maybe the Aztecs. Other than those, I don't think it adds much value.

[Trickster7135]

Honor is difficult to balance. In normal games, it is subpar but not horrible compared to the other options. With raging barbarians checked, honor becomes the defacto choice. It is also dependent on the map. Even if you plan to go conquering, if your start puts you far from anyone else, you really should go liberty and start expanding. Now if you start sandwiched between Monty and the huns, then Honor may be the best policy no matter what your game plan is.

[Schalke 04]

Originally Posted by _megafone_

That said, I never open with it unless I see a neighbor very close. Open with something else then get into Honor once you know where you're heading.

And exactly that is my problem with Honour. When I started with Liberty or Tradition I want to finish these policies. Once they are completed other policy trees are available and much more appealing than the Honour opener. Normally I don't need to deal with barbs much at this stage of the game, and the Honour opener fells like a huge waste for me, especially compared with Rationalism for example...

[smallfish]

If going on a long domination spree, then yes, the left side of Honor is very nice. You'll need all the happiness you can get, and that's never a bad thing with Military Caste/Professional Army since your cities will be needing garrisons and defenses as your armies march.