Liberty vs Honour - random match day

There have been lots of threads about the Honour tree recently, and I've seen Honour getting lots of stick; for most players this is the worst tree. Not without a few good policies, but too weak as a whole seems to be the verdict.

This thread is not meant as discussion thread #23 about which early policies to pick, instead I want to play a game in this thread. I'm planning to take a start save and play a game in 2 ways; one going Liberty, the other Honour. So basically playing 2 games simultaneously, to compare the 2 policies. Posting pictures here and showing how it goes, with hopefully your input on major choices. Emphasis in the game(s) will be on expansion.

It's mainly meant to be fun. I know I can't make a scientifically solid test. To deliver proof about what the best policy isn't going to work, but I think it would be nice to look at the policies from the point of view of an actual game.
It's not like in one game I'll go straight down the Liberty tree and in the other straight down Honour. Both may be mixed with Tradition if that's how people play, and it may depend on your input during the game.

We can cook settings to favour one tree or another, but I want a map and civ that is as neutral as possible. So average map settings, probably standard continents, and no civ with devastating early units or strange happiness or culture effects that affect their prepostion towards a certain policy. Definitely standard speed and no raging barbarians!
Ideas for civ to play this with: Denmark, Ottomans, Byzantium, Arabia, Ethiopia.

I'd like some input. I plan to roll some starts at some point and let you decide which start to pick. Although also the start should be neutral in production and available resources - not just Calendar resources on flat land or just Mining resources on hills, so I'll probably pre-select a bit with that in mind.

I hope I won't end up regretting having started this. I have huge doubts about being able to end these games, so no promises there - I think it'll take a massive amount of time that I might not have. Looking forward to it, though!

I like to mix in Honor with either Liberty or Tradition if I think I am going to fight. I think if you spin up a map, the map will dictate whether you need to use Honor first or not.

Three points in the right side of Honor can be pretty nice if you have multiple cities, combined with other traits.

This is an interesting idea. I do think Honor currently is lagging when taken on its own, which is a pity, because I think ideally the three core trees ought to stand on their own without mixing, as they represent fundamentally different ideologies (similar to Freedom/Autocracy/Order).

interesting this.

Recently (and I play more King than any other level) I find barbs to be a real PITA, as in in the stop me progressing, and I have wondered what effect it may have if I dipped in to honour. I mean if I have got to go through with the Barb bashing, I may as well make some culture or whatever with it.

So, I'll be interested to see the outcome.....

just take the foot slightly of the gas on your infrastructure, kick out some 2-3 archers and barbs will be benefitial: you can a) farm for xp b) kill camps for cs quests.

You probably would, but please pick a difficulty setting where happiness has to be "actively managed," i.e. king or above, as the comparisons lose a major point of interest when you don't need happiness from policies.

As for a mix, I think Monarchy and Military Tradition (possibly also Oligarchy and/or Professional Army) could be interesting. You get happiness on both sides, culture on both sides, and gold from tradition. It may fly in a domination game where happiness and not food is really limiting your population.

i think the only thing at stake is when to justify the timing of certain policies. liberty is obvious as it comes with free stuff like worker, settler, great person, and a golden age. honor only has a free general but the other benefits are dependent on circumstances. do you go left side or right side of honor while mixing in liberty?

ideally, with no civs that have a built in advantage to taking honor (like france or aztecs off the top of my head), my plan would be to start with liberty to free worker for early infrastructure help then go to honor for free GG and 50% xp (so your comp bows will get some promos while taking the first city or two) then back to liberty for golden age and trade route (for happiness and gold for upgrading) then back to honor for the combat bonus and then finish liberty sometime in the late Ren era for a free GP then finish Honor after that (hopefully by then you have 6+ cities/puppets filled with a garrison). after that it's a regular game of policies based on the VC.

Hammer Rabbi said:

i think the only thing at stake is when to justify the timing of certain policies. liberty is obvious as it comes with free stuff like worker, settler, great person, and a golden age. honor only has a free general but the other benefits are dependent on circumstances. do you go left side or right side of honor while mixing in liberty?

ideally, with no civs that have a built in advantage to taking honor (like france or aztecs off the top of my head), my plan would be to start with liberty to free worker for early infrastructure help then go to honor for free GG and 50% xp (so your comp bows will get some promos while taking the first city or two) then back to liberty for golden age and trade route (for happiness and gold for upgrading) then back to honor for the combat bonus and then finish liberty sometime in the late Ren era for a free GP then finish Honor after that (hopefully by then you have 6+ cities/puppets filled with a garrison). after that it's a regular game of policies based on the VC.

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This sounds about right to me. Getting left side of Honor early is crucial if you're going to be aggressive, which you should be since you're taking Honor. Taking those last few Honor policies will probably be critical by the time you get them, since your happiness will most likely be an issue all game, as Hammer Rabbi said.

Would you not fall way to far behind in tech using this method? I absolutely need the science generated from rationalism if I'm going to even be able to compete vs the AI. You can have the highest promoted crossbows ever but if your opponents have rifles, gatling guns, and cannons it's not gonna make much difference.

I could see if you could absolutely face roll the AI very quickly and establish a very big puppet empire w/ 4+ cities of your own and that could possibly make up for the loss of rationalism.

JINYX said:

Would you not fall way to far behind in tech using this method? I absolutely need the science generated from rationalism if I'm going to even be able to compete vs the AI. You can have the highest promoted crossbows ever but if your opponents have rifles, gatling guns, and cannons it's not gonna make much difference.

I could see if you could absolutely face roll the AI very quickly and establish a very big puppet empire w/ 4+ cities of your own and that could possibly make up for the loss of rationalism.

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at a high difficulty probably so. seeing as i dont think he is going with one, i dont think tech advantage will be a big thing to worry about up to Emperor. this is an experiment to test results on mixing it up with honor. but im still not sure if he wants to fill out a tree or dabble in both at the same time.

imo for the most conclusive results there has to be no dabbling. pure lib or pure honour.

Optional said:

This thread is not meant as discussion thread #23 about which early policies to pick

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Yet, that's exactly what will happen and is happening already.
It'll be interesting to follow your games progress anyway. I'm subscribing.

I am highly interested in this comparison, as i didn't had the time to try it myself. Subscribed to this thread, and will try to follow closely.

I find that Honor mixes well with liberty because while conquering you will go wide. Though 1 in Tradition for start then Honor policies might speed up the process. Also Oligarchy has a nice synergy with Honor. Also Legalism at some point will help with free culture buildings.

Lets face it, while liberty bonuses are great, their order is just horrible.

- The opener is crap. Either honor or tradition starters will net you much more culture and extra bonuses. You are better going with another opener and then switch to full liberty to get the full branch sooner.
- Both the free settler and free worker came a bit late, forcing you to buy settlers/ train a worker before you can benefit of this pocicies.
- Representation is the biggest problem. The biggest culture increase came from your first city, so the 33% decrease in a third policy (with that pitiful culture increase) is just crap. By that point you can already have 2-3 cities, reducing this benefit drastically. Moreover, you get a golden age witch you will want to get much later in the game.

Honor is great, but very situational and quite poor in the civ enhancement. The worst part came with the poor research numbers you will get. Culture will be great, the happiness will be just right, the gold with the upgrade discount can hold too, but the tech department will suffer a lot, specially in higher difficulties where your enemies will tech fast.

The only situation where Honor may be better option than liberty or tradition is when you conquer a neighbor really fast, or when you have a civ suited for constant war or early military abuse (hi Monty). Even then you can archieve similar results with a liberty or tradition setup. It can give a good boost to culture with raging barb, but nothing decisive.

While tradition doesn't have a better setup than liberty, it feels and works much smoother. On the long run is usually better. Liberty on the other hand provide a better position for the mid game (if you have the room to drop at least 6 cities), but the passives are a little weaker for the long run. On standard maps tradition usually shine more. Honor lose big on the passive enhancers, is a much more active, with great dependence on player's unit management.

If the map is bigger, liberty obviously get more points. More turns helps honor, as you can use more your units during a period.

Bottomline: Tradition is fine, Honor need some minor boost (free hammers or tech boost), Liberty need some minor tweaks (more benefit positioing than actual boosts).

I forgot to say anything about the difficulty level in the first post. I always play Immortal myself and I plan just stick with that for this game.

kaspergm said:

I do think Honor currently is lagging when taken on its own, which is a pity, because I think ideally the three core trees ought to stand on their own without mixing, as they represent fundamentally different ideologies (similar to Freedom/Autocracy/Order).

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Yes, I can see that, although that would require a different game design. Each policy tree consists of just 6 policies and you get much more picks, so you need to combine anyway.
The game designers have made only Piety and Rationalism mutually exclusive. It would have been nice had they expanded on the policy trees and built in more similar type of restrictions, but currently that's difficult; the policy tree system is too small and players would be left with no choice at all if more red tape would be added.

iconocast said:

imo for the most conclusive results there has to be no dabbling. pure lib or pure honour.

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I'll not be trying to play a game where I'll be isolating the policy trees. That's not logical in the game's current design, also you could say that if a tree has good synergy with another tree then that's a quality of that tree.
The only thing in which I'll be strict with in the games is that Liberty and Honour will not be mixed with each other, as this is still meant as a face off between the two, so no mixing there.

I personally think that Liberty is better at standing on its own than Honour, but that Honour has a better synergy with Tradition. For me the strongest way to play Honour is to mix it with Tradition. What the strongest way to play Liberty is I don't know and I'll admit that I hardly play the tree. Not that I think it's a weak tree, but it's a bit too much of a ready made meal for me (for the same reason I don't like to play Babylon for example, with its free scientist for which I don't need to do anything).
I thought it was still strong to start and finish the tree straight away - free settler, free worker and free Great Person all asap for the best benefit. It was like that before Gods & Kings, before they did a reshuffle to make the free settler appear a bit later.
I think I would still want that free settler asap, so beeline to that while hand-building a worker - the free worker would come too late, I would want work done before that. Or is this not how people play? I like to play this in a manner that people think is strong, other wise there's no point, so I need to ask:

Should I play Liberty mixed with Tradition, or just fill the Liberty tree straight away, and which policies first? Is the first settler the free one or do most players want to build one before that?

For Honour I have a clearer idea. With an early culture ruin (if there is one very early it would be for both games) I would want the Tradition opener first, then go straight to Military Tradition. Unless there's a great opportunity for a Great General's citadel to steal a lux.

thanks, Optional. that clarifies it better for me. no mixing of honor and liberty. that means that you will be doing tradition+liberty or tradition+honor (or possibly liberty only--im guessing honor only is probably off the table).

ive done trad opener then all of liberty then legalism for 4 free opera houses and it was pretty fun. after that was a typical path into rationalism. ive never really specifically gone full honor since GnK came out so to me that tree is really only for cherry-picking the policies you really want. I'd probably go full Tradition then 3 in Honor for left side. the only reason to delay finishing tradition is to avoid aqueducts if you have happiness issues. right side of honor is hard to justify only for the opportunity cost of other policies that are probably more useful.

if going for dom exclusively you should be shooting for sub200 vics with either strategy though. i'd only be trying for non-dom if it was on deity or if i was playing with Aztecs.

ah yes i see what u are trying to do now.
the reason i have the opinion that pure honour was the way to go was becasue due to honour finisher being one of the more attractive things about that specific policy tree, so the sooner to get it the better.
but tradition-lib or tradition-honour is still going to be interesting to watch

Hammer Rabbi said:

that means that you will be doing tradition+liberty or tradition+honor...

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No, it's not 'or', it's 'and'; two games will be played, both taking the same start save. One taking the Liberty tree, the other taking the Honour tree. A little bit mad, because I think it'll be a huge task to play two games simultaneously, but that's the plan.
And I'm counting on lots of things happening that'll mess up a fair comparison between the trees, like a neighbour declaring on me in one game but not in the other, this I cannot avoid. So the games won't throw up any conclusive results about which tree is better, that's why I'm calling this a 'random match day' in the thread title.

But what I like to do is to play the trees - both Liberty and Honour - in a way people actually play them. If almost no one plays a tree pure because we already know that's not the strongest way, then there's no point taking that route in my opinion.
That's why I'm asking what currently is the favoured way to play Liberty; I know Liberty is still popular, but I honestly don't know how people play this tree. If I don't get answers on that question I'll probably mix it with Tradition just like I do with Honour, at least then I'm treating them in the same way and this might give a fairer comparison. Although in a way mixing Tradition with Liberty is unlogical, because one has been designed for tall games, the other for wide. They're opposites that aren't meant to be mixed, but I can see that practically there aren't many objections to doing it.

For civ to take I'm now leaning towards Byzantium. I first thought about Denmark, but seeing when most civs get their first UU, Denmark's comes unusually late, and a coastal start position is also not how most people like to play (personally I like a coastal start, but let's not get into that).
When the Cataphract comes, almost half the civs already have their first UU, the other half is still waiting, so the Byzantines nicely hold the middle with their UU timing. I know there's the Dromon as well, but the Byzantines don't have a coastal start bias, and if we take an inland start the Dromon won't feature early either.
Neither Byzantine UU benefits from the Warrior Code discount, and there's nothing in the UA that would favour one approach more than another. If anything, the extra reward for going religion could mean you would rather invest in faith than in units. Despite the UU's being nice, the Byzantines are hardly specialised in warmongering, except probably on archipelago.

If no input changes things, I hope to get a few starts up in or just before the weekend, for the forum to pick one.

When I play Liberty, I usually do the whole tree, straight through, beginning to end, as that's where this tree is strongest.

I used to open Tradition (4 CPT) then run Liberty, but as stated above, a number of the advantages are a bit late, and this only slows it down even more. So with Liberty, it's opener, through to get the free settler while building/stealing another, then get the free worker, then through to the end. I normally take a free GE to get me a wonder with another free GP, or a free tech or free SP. I use the free GP to get me a wonder AND something else.

I've never been a big user of Honour, mainly because I used to focus on culture VC, and found Liberty & Tradition to be a better path. Now I tend to go science or domination, so tend not to complete all the policy trees I open.

Like others, I consider Honour to be very Civ or map specific. In my current game we have a number of civs quite close together so the number of Barbs has been small. However, I often play a large map with only 8 civs and 24 CS, allowing more room and thus more barbs, so I will be interested to see how this turns out.

Optional said:

I know Liberty is still popular, but I honestly don't know how people play this tree.

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One way to play it is quick domination. There was a gotm, where full liberty proved to be the fastest route to victory (on Pangaea immortal). Quick access to production boost and settler/worker allows for fast production/purchase of Composites, so it all snowballs pretty rapidly. GS from finisher is particularly beneficial, because it can be used to unlock crossbows just in time to finish off what's left. To be fair, some talented players finished everyone off without the need for xbows. Not an easy task though .

On continents, i bet there is use for fast astronomy, with GS from liberty.

Other than that, it's hard for me to substitute tradition for liberty in the long run. Liberty's happiness bonus only starts to shine in mid game, where as you need some happiness to kick start the empire, happiness, which is instantly available in Monarchy. I guess, in a hypothetical situation, where i have huge free space to settle, potentially strong religion (like being in the middle of desert) and some Mercantile CS, with barb camps next to them, i'd go liberty.

Regarding combinations: tradition - honor or liberty - honor. I'd pick tradition if i am planning to play past industrial age and liberty - if i am planning to finish fast.

By the way, maybe you can post the save, not just pics, some people might want to play along. I know i might .