Best honor starters

[Cromagnus]

Yeah, that guide is now somewhat misguided post-patch.

If you open left-side, you're screwed on culture output, and besides, to benefit from bonus XP that early you need to pump out units early, so you need to capture cities early to compensate for building units instead of settlers.

Otherwise, you're at the unit supply cap because you didn't build settlers first. If you capture a city on t55, problem solved. If you don't, you're screwed. Early capture is totally nerfed, so I advise against the left-side start. (On Immortal or above. The big diplo hits come from having an inferior military, not just from city capture. On lower difficulty levels the AI will be too scared of your military to chain-DoW that early)

Here are some civs that I find work well with Honor:

* Persia (They're just OP for early conquest in general, and the Golden Age comes right when your CBs get Logistics if you time it right. Plus Immortals take advantage of the Honor bonuses)
* Germany (The barb camp conversion and reduced maintenance plays well with Honor)
* Zulu (Same, reduced unit maintenance is nice, and their UU takes advantage of the Honor bonuses)
* Arabia (You get +50% XP right about the time that your chariots hit the barb XP cap... which means you hit Logistics right when you upgrade to Camel Archers.. = WIN)
* Inca (Terrace farms to make up for Honor's slow growth, plus free movement in hills)
* Sweden (donating Great Generals)
* Byzantium on Water Maps (Your Dromons will have either Range or Logistics by the time they upgrade to Galleas... and by the time they upgrade to Frigates... yeah, ridiculous)
* Greece (Hoplite is an excellent UU meatshield for your CBs, trashes barb camps for CS quests, etc.)
* Poland (Open Tradition before Honor and still have Landsknecht early)
* Denmark (On water maps)
* Aztecs (Open Tradition before Honor + extra growth)
* America (Reduced cost for tile purchase helps with pitiful border expansion)
* The Celts (Pictish Warrior faith/culture/gold per kill extravaganza)
* The list goes on and on really, use your imagation

I think Germany might have the best overall synergy, but the problem is the unit supply cap. If you don't focus on getting settlers out with Germany and maximizing growth you can easily hit the supply cap and cripple yourself from barb camp conversion alone. But you can basically convert all the archers and melee units you need, freeing you up to build settlers/buildings instead, all while completing CS quests. And that freed up production in the early game is HUGE.

Really any civ can work with Honor though if it has Production, Growth or Happiness bonuses.

The key weaknesses of Honor:

1) It has less Happiness than either Tradition or Liberty (because the +1/garrison is impractical)

2) It has less Production than Liberty (especially because of the free/reduced cost setttlers and free worker)

3) It has less Growth than Tradition. (Obviously)

4) It has virtually no border expansion (again, garrisons are impractical for Domination)

These factors combine into a very slow start, and success at Domination is heavily influenced by a fast start. So to counteract this, any civ with happiness, production, border expansion or growth bonuses is good. Or just focus on boosting those things when planning your city expansions if the civ doesn't have them as a UA/UB.

 

[King_Course]

I often play an Honor game where I open tradition first. The 3 culture gets things going and the fast border expansion is worth it in the beginning game where you don't have gold for buying tiles.

Then Honor, you'll want raging barbs of course. I go down right side to get the 2 culture for a garrison.

The Aztecs work, Japan also work with some fishing boats. Any Civ with a means to boost early culture I guess. A pantheon that adds culture is also pretty important I think. So wine/incense or silver/gold is perfect.

Cultural CS too, do their quests, it's really about finishing a policy tree in good time. When Honor is full the gold for a victory is very nice, especially on the higher levels where the A.I. throw a ton of units at you.

 

[Cromagnus]

Yeah, Cultural CS is key with Honor. I go right-side first for the cheaper upgrades though. If you don't go right-side first you won't get that policy in time for upgrading archers to CBs. There are really two ways to handle it though:

1) keep 4 units in cities, wasting gpt and all the production it took to build them, taking up unit supply. This *doubles* border expansion in your cities, and adds 8 culture/turn. But now you don't have any units to attack anyone or do barb quests.

2) Use those 4 units to get CS allies through quests, each of which will yield 6cpt, and to attack your neighbor.

Generally, I do a mix of the two. I build extra scouts for garrisoning (to get garrisons up ASAP) and put my archers on offense from the first moment. This runs into unit supply issues, so you need to be ultra-efficient on offense, or run with very few workers. (which is a bad thing)

There's no ideal solution for a CB rush really. You're just going to run into unit supply issues or have culture problems. Once I have cheap upgrades, I'd rather have it take longer to finish the tree, and keep my units on offense. But you want that gold/kill ASAP. Hence Cultural CS allies are critical.

 

[budweiser]

You don't really need six straight Honor policies, at least at first.

Lets say you do want to pick Honor first because you want to kill someone. So you get that and you kill some barbs and you get another pick. You take a General and you build more men and you kill more barbs and you pick what? Discipline? OK, now your guys arte real tough and you kill AI one and you get another pick. Fats XP or 'Garrisons'. You can fight more AI next to you so you pick Fast XP. Now he is dead too and you pick 'garrisons' next. And all your men are sitting in the cities you have.

The next pick is for upgrades but you don't need that because your foes are dead anyway. You can take it much later.

It might string better on Pangea or somewhere early mid game.

 

[Resipsa]

You don't really need six straight Honor policies, at least at first.

Lets say you do want to pick Honor first because you want to kill someone. So you get that and you kill some barbs and you get another pick. You take a General and you build more men and you kill more barbs and you pick what? Discipline? OK, now your guys arte real tough and you kill AI one and you get another pick. Fats XP or 'Garrisons'. You can fight more AI next to you so you pick Fast XP. Now he is dead too and you pick 'garrisons' next. And all your men are sitting in the cities you have.

The next pick is for upgrades but you don't need that because your foes are dead anyway. You can take it much later.

It might string better on Pangea or somewhere early mid game.

Its really dependant on game situation, with Sweden I go 1. Opener, 2. General, (gift General to Culture CS) 3. 4. right side two and forward settle the AI I'm at war with and let them just come to my second city, 5. get 50% more XP as well as finishing NC around the same time and then tech to composites and around then you can 6. finish Honor sometime between t65-75. Upgrade your archers for 50g a piece and pump out a few melees to soak damage. Tech to Crossbows and keep it going. You'll be in good shape at that point.

 

[Cromagnus]

I think you pretty much need to go straight through Honor. I do agree the Tradition starter is good to take first, but you need that gold/kill ASAP for a CB rush. You don't have the pillage-healing from Liberty.

The mixed Honor/Liberty approach (Liberty to free worker, right-side Honor, left-side Honor) is *ok* but not great... the cheap upgrades just come too late, as does the gold/kill. It does buy you the pyramids though, which makes up for the gold/kill. But you end up really hurting on happiness and production. Personally, I find full Honor works better, but really, Honor just kinda sucks as an opener. You'll be SO far behind in tech compared to full Liberty. Full Liberty will easily shave 15 turns off Machinery... bulbing a GS + extra production/workers to chop/build libraries/NC faster is just so valuable.

However, if you are going to open Honor, I do think it's best to go all-in. You can always open Liberty *afterwards* when you capture the Pyramids.

 

[Cromagnus]

Its really dependant on game situation, with Sweden I go 1. Opener, 2. General, (gift General to Culture CS) 3. 4. right side two and forward settle the AI I'm at war with and let them just come to my second city, 5. get 50% more XP as well as finishing NC around the same time and then tech to composites and around then you can 6. finish Honor sometime between t65-75. Upgrade your archers for 50g a piece and pump out a few melees to soak damage. Tech to Crossbows and keep it going. You'll be in good shape at that point.

Sweden is definitely a good exception.