Honor Policy suggestion

I find the opener a bit ( a lot actually ) overpowered.
Would like to suggest to move the combat bonus - and maybe reduce it to 25% - to Discipline. In BNW reports on where barbs spawn is already very very useful in protecting trade routs and "farming" camps early on. And the culture for kills pay back - for me at least - the investment.

Gem went tho all the process of giving barbarians heal and promotions, and I hate to see them reduced to "wild animals" with such powerful single policy.

GL HF

Yeah I agree that the opener is really powerful, but it does depend on your map. I like to play on more condensed maps where your neighbors are closer. That gives less space for barbarians to spawn, so in maps like that it's less useful.

Since barbarians are so early in the game, it might be useful to keep the advantage versus barbarians in the opener, but reducing it is an option. You may consider moving the culture bonus to a later policy. Perhaps make the closer give extra culture when defeating any unit, along with the gold bonus it already gives. Closers should be fairly powerful, but for specific strategies only.

I do agree with splitting the combat bonus and the reveal camp bonus.

The culture-for-kills is the culture generator for conquerors. Unfortunately it's very powerful at start (for those who manage to hunt the barbs, i.e. the human), but then fades away. While the liberty and tradition bonus get less important as well, they do stay...

Making it apply to major civs units would probably be too similar to the Aztecs, and more importantly help "defenders" as well, it'd probably be a clear choice to take if it's not too far into the tree. One way to prolong the effect would be to make it apply to Minor Civs units as well, another reason to go after city states....

But can we think of more AI-friendly effects that are still active enough as alternatives? What about culture-for-each-unit-built? That's active, flavourful, but probably too easily exploitable. (Build&disband). I like that effect, but it's probably very difficult to balance and make non-exploitable.

Culture-for-each-unit-died is probably the most realistic (martyr stories abound), but runs against gameplay.

My other candidate is culture-per-xp (from combat, not buildings-and-wonders), makes sense as war stories are plenty, is quite easily balanced and conquerors should get more experience than defenders (ranged attacks give less xp than melee ones).

So yeah, I'm just looking for options that are non-barb related. The rest of the tree (assuming this is the general honor policy thread ). I like the GEM version of this very much. Combat also hasn't changed much with maybe the exception of increased importance of pillaging trade routes.

This is the last GEM version according to the wiki, but I am not sure since military caste and Finisher double each other:


Opener: Move Reveal Barbs away, include minor civs units as culture-on-kill.
Military Caste: Needing garrisons is 'bad' as we want units out in the field. I like the version with garrison or barracks, but the buffed one.
War Epics: Wasn't liked at all in this version, I guess it depends on how much happiness we want in the tree. I can see one of the culture proposals above + reveal barb camps here. What about as effects extra gold/science/golden age points/other yield from pillaging improvements and trade routes or (another effect) from clearing barb camps? Or something to do with internal trade routes?

mitsho said:

Military Caste: Needing garrisons is 'bad' as we want units out in the field. I like the version with garrison or barracks, but the buffed one.

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This, I imagine, is more intended to abate the unhappiness penalty of newly conquered cities. Stick in a garrison and the penalty, before being able to build a Courthouse, is not so bad and doesn't inhibit a military campaign quite so severely as it might another.

I'd rather leave the culture on barb kills in the opener since it has such a limited window, and reduce the combat bonus or move it. It was 10% in GEM. That seems reasonable. Revealing camps could be moved elsewhere to boost another policy effect. It's more important now because of trade routes.

@Mitsho, military caste was removed from GEM in the final version. That's why the effect was duplicated. The wiki just didn't get updated to reflect this because much was in flux in those last versions, especially on some policies. And much was unpopular with a vigorous few on those changes in particular (the happiness in war epics in particular and the duplicated decreased upkeep for units effect, both awful in my opinion).

Eric, I disagree that closers should be powerful now that we no longer need to fill out trees. I'd rather have more powerful policies, or at least fewer dud policies. You should pick the tree for the policies, not the closer. If the policies are useful enough, you will get the closer anyway. The closer is often powerful enough allowing GP buys or free GPs, and maybe things like free "X building" could be moved to closers as well.

As far as the Honor tree.
Thoughts
Reduce the combat bonus against barbarians to 10% (give the AI a natural anti-barb bonus to compensate?)
I don't mind the faster XP gain in vanilla, but it is weak on its own. Put it with discipline or with a faster GG gain/free GG. (I like faster GG gain here too).
Bonus moves for GGs/GAs would be a nice effect here.
Boost the melee unit bonus to 20% (and include mainline gun units, but not ranged units or mounted/mobile units. We could put a similar effect on naval ships in a tree perhaps too, just not this one).

Not sure how culture from XP would work in a balance perspective (how much per XP?), but it sounds interesting. I'm not sure how it is that different from culture on kills though either.

Don't put happiness on barracks back in the tree. We could move the bonus default happiness from arenas/colosseums in here instead.
Don't put culture on any kills in the tree. Honor has two sources of culture to me; early barbarian hunting/farming and mid-game you get garrisons. We could add culture to arenas or barracks if that's not enough. Culture on kills should stay as an Aztec UA.
Don't put happiness on culture buildings in here. That could go in aesthetics or freedom, if it comes from anywhere.

mystikx21 said:

@Mitsho, military caste was removed from GEM in the final version. That's why the effect was duplicated. The wiki just didn't get updated to reflect this because much was in flux in those last versions, especially on some policies. And much was unpopular with a vigorous few on those changes in particular (the happiness in war epics in particular and the duplicated decreased upkeep for units effect, both awful in my opinion).

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Yeah, I can't for the life of me remember what the last "military caste" effect was though? Care to enlighten me?

Culture-from-XP is different than on kills as you get xp even when attacked and melee units get more xp. The culture from kills is based on :c5meleestrength: as well which goes into the same direction, true. It's just a try to move towards bonuses that work better for the AI? Requiring conquest or killing a unit just sets certain conditions that neither Liberty nor Tradition do... (with the exception of the production-if-specialist-in-city one)

Also in regard of the AI, should there be some sort of economic boost in this tree? Conquest Empires need early boosts, so what about "Gains Alliance status with nearest City State) (=80 free influence). Though then that one can't be a target... I'd suggest the higher quantity of strategics but that's already a speciality of the Germans.

I like when the bonuses apply to all unit lines, not just the soldier ones, what if you build your army around a archer UU? Restricting it results in narrow policies, but they all should have some value all the time

What bonus can we possibly pair with either the reveal camps OR combat bonus vs. barbs (I think all three effects are too strong on the opener and the culture should stay there. I'd prefer keeping the combat one there as well): Free Great General + General Movement? Double Yields from meeting City States/Ruins/Defeating Barb Camps (Conquest civs should explore to find the enemy after all)

It was removed entirely as a policy and replaced with War Epics. Count it up, there are 8 policies listed when there are only 7 available in the tree. It just never got updated (my bad on that).

I don't like the idea of nearness being all that important for CS alliances. You might as an honor conquest society want to go capture that CS rather than align with it. I prefer that option remain available than that we get a free alliance, especially via distance.

Ranged units in my opinion are quite powerful already. It's also more important to have melee units for conquest, especially for the AI. I'd be fine with a 15% bonus across the board for land units, but I'd prefer it remain a melee/mainline gun effect.

One possibility with Honor is to have a policy that increases with Militaristic CS. Maybe by 30 or 40. They share your views on military.

Additionally (and I haven't checked this properly) when Militaristic CS give you units they should have the XP of whatever your best city produces. -- Barracks, Armory etc.

This way you gain militaristically in areas that are normally out of your hands.

Any army can become bigger, stronger, faster etc. with use through promotions. The bonuses that come should really be almost unattainable without taking the policy.

If we want CS influence effects, we should be putting that in the patronage tree or possibly in ideologies.

GEM used to do XP for gifted units at a comparable level per era.

mystikx21 said:

If we want CS influence effects, we should be putting that in the patronage tree or possibly in ideologies.

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I was looking for economical boost that help conquest empires, Patronage isn't the place for that. It's the place for long-term City State strategy, this would have given you a one-shot early boost. Maybe it'd be better to let the player chose which CS (for ressources needed or proximity-to-target). But there may be better boosts, like f.e. more strategic ressources, a bonus vs. cities or better pillaging and raiding. Though I was looking for bonuses that don't require active participation (to help the AI).

ExpiredReign said:

One possibility with Honor is to have a policy that increases with Militaristic CS. Maybe by 30 or 40. They share your views on military.

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Military City States are designed to help non-warring empires more than conquest ones. Those need the culture or happiness more urgently after all and do have a unit-production city which gives them the units they want and need. Units from CS will be more experienced again, that's one element that definitely gets ported over from GEM.

mystikx21 said:

It was removed entirely as a policy and replaced with War Epics. Count it up, there are 8 policies listed when there are only 7 available in the tree. It just never got updated (my bad on that).

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Me and Mathematics...

Ranged units in my opinion are quite powerful already. It's also more important to have melee units for conquest, especially for the AI. I'd be fine with a 15% bonus across the board for land units, but I'd prefer it remain a melee/mainline gun effect.

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I guess it's the old discussion between narrow, but strong and wide, but less so. I can see both ways tbh.

I'd like to see more active buffs to having a large army in Honor.
Things like:
- Bullying city-states gives double benefits
- Capturing city-states gives double yield (when this feature is implemented)
- Double gold from pillaging, city capture
- Culture from pillaging, city capture
- Barb camps 50% likely to convert to your side (remove from Huns?)
- +x Global happiness for each city captured (I'm thinking 2 or 3)

While less active, here are a couple other effects that could be useful as well:
- Reduced melee unit maintenance (this would go a long way to improving the tree and early conquest imo)
- Militaristic CS give twice the number of units (stepping on Alex's toes, or awesome synergy with Alex's UA? You decide!)

If we were to split up the opener, I'd rather see the reveal/culture-on-barb-kills remain as the opener, and see the combat bonus moved into the tree, but have the combat bonus apply to city states and city state units as well. If the bonus is separated off and remains only against barbs, well, the policy will be next to worthless, I think. I know I'd skip it, personally.

Honor :

Opener : + ( insert desire % here ) gold from barb camps. Culture for barb kills.
Discipline : Here I would put the combat bonus vs barbs.


Reveal camps could be moved to Patronage - spread across the globe City States would share their scouting reports. Or to exploration.

As it is now i can only imagine some supersonic magic scout bird that fly around the world and stop by my kings castle to report " sir, i have discovered, CRA, another barbarian... CRA, group... CRA, 7000 miles away from our kingdom near the polar cap... CRA.

Or maybe the honor opener gives us survi satellite where mad scientist reports to the king about his finding :
- My Lord, our satellite have pin pointed another barb camp at the position 32.6 point 1...
- Ty my servant, now hurry up our scholars to finish their research on the Wheel. I cant w8 for my new carriages!

I'd like to see reduced maintenance on units somewhere in the Honor tree.

"Nationalism" in the autocracy ideology already does unit upkeep reduction. I'd rather it stay a late effect and do something else for honor. It already has gold on kills and cheaper upgrades, and faster barracks line construction as economic effects. Other than some source of happiness (other than garrisons), this seems fine on the economic side (and a per conquest happiness impact would be nice there).

I'd rather see more active effects like CS conquest or double pillaging. What it needs is some firepower effects to boost early wars, something you can't get from the other early trees.

Following some ideas from other threads: I think part of what we want from the Honor tree would be to make it easier to have profitable wars that aren't just for conquest.

A few ideas then:
a) Have a policy that gives extra gold from pillaging.
b) Change the culture policy to be about culture from any military kills (and maybe pillaging??) rather than just from barbs, and tweak the amount of culture generated appropriately.
[Potential problem overlap with aztecs though, they might need something else.]
c) For barbs maybe extra gold from camps is a better effect than a combat bonus. A combat bonus means you can fight off barbs with a smaller military, whereas more gold from camps encourages you to get a bigger military so as to do more barb hunting.
d) One possible bonus that has been in some scenarios: have a policy that gives a city attack bonus. This is a way of boosting warfare that doesn't make it too easy to destroy the enemy army.
[Then the statute of Zeus could do something else.]
e) Picking up several other ideas from other threads: what about a policy which, among other things, let you turn a city state into an ally a la liberation when you captured it?

MortalD said:

As it is now i can only imagine some supersonic magic scout bird that fly around the world and stop by my kings castle to report " sir, i have discovered, CRA, another barbarian... CRA, group... CRA, 7000 miles away from our kingdom near the polar cap... CRA.

Or maybe the honor opener gives us survi satellite where mad scientist reports to the king about his finding :
- My Lord, our satellite have pin pointed another barb camp at the position 32.6 point 1...
- Ty my servant, now hurry up our scholars to finish their research on the Wheel. I cant w8 for my new carriages!

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Meh, it's a game, sometimes you have to live with it. I'd be okay with removing the effect completely, it's rather gimmicky after all and maybe too strong. And it makes the human player act more passive, not scouting for those camps. On the other hand it removes micromanaging. It might also hurt the AI, but perhaps we can give them the ability with Late Classical Tech X anyways..

Ahriman said:

Following some ideas from other threads: I think part of what we want from the Honor tree would be to make it easier to have profitable wars that aren't from conquest.

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I always found the victory condition of conquest a) unrealistic, b) kinda defeating the game since you remove players from the board and c) something for the human player only. Wouldn't going more into that direction then require us giving up the idea of world domination as a victory condition?

Agree on your proposals though, those would be good ideas.

Wouldn't going more into that direction then require us giving up the idea of world domination as a victory condition?

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Not necessarily, it's still there, and it can still be supported quite well by Order or Autocracy. And there are still good reasons to capture capitals, as they tend to be good cities with lots of terrain, population, resources, wonders, and great works. But I don't think world domination needs to be something you are really pushing for in the early game, from Honor.

Basically: world domination is a way of ending the game early if you're massively ahead or on low difficulty levels, but it should be extremely hard on the highest difficulty levels. But smart war should help you to achieve the other victory conditions.