Addicted to Honor

[EasyGoin]

I have shared a similar experience to the OP. Once you play a few games with honor it's awfully hard to go back. I find myself sending too few units to cap a city or wipe out another army and getting them killed off because I'm used to my units being insanely promoted.

I would assert, however, that the GG from the Honor tree can be very useful in the early goings. (I would not assert its one of the best policies, just think it doesn't get enough credit). If you can pop a Culture hut and get down to the GG in the early game, it makes an early warrior rush to take out your nearest neighbor that much easier and that much more likely that your guys will live.

 

[bhavv]

Fixed for you

Nah, economy is more powerful in Civ V too with CS's and patronage.

 

[SureYouCan]

The thing with city states is that it's only the initial investment that can be tough to scrounge up for. Once you've dumped 750 into the citystate 250 gold every 30 turns is nothing. In an ICS once my TP spam is complete I'm buying out city states left and right. What I'm trying to say is that without patronage I still maintain 5+ city states. Without honor I don't even remember what comes after drill 2 and medic.

After the latest patch where the AI doesn't send everything it has at you until it's broke and defenseless, unless you advance into their flat land surrounded territory, having rifles that can fortify on open ground and not take 8 damage from an elephant knight actually lets you advance.

 

[Seek]

Honor is powerful but unfortunately unnecessary - I used it a lot In my first few games but now I'd rather use the culture points on other trees. As we all know, the combat AI is pretty shoddy, thus it's more fun (for me anyway) to not take combat bonuses when there are other useful options.

 

[futurehermit]

Honor is really good if you're going for a war --> puppet --> domination approach

Liberty is really good if you're going for a ICS --> <insert strategy here> --> win approach

Both are dominant strategies depending on the lay of the land in your game.

 

[Feyd Rautha]

Honor is powerful but unfortunately unnecessary - I used it a lot In my first few games but now I'd rather use the culture points on other trees. As we all know, the combat AI is pretty shoddy, thus it's more fun (for me anyway) to not take combat bonuses when there are other useful options.

I can see this also. I've been through a few games where I didn't touch the honor tree. Combat isn't as overpowered, but you're not weak by any means. The thing I actually miss is just the barbarian encampment notification. It's very useful especially if you intentionally leave part of your map undiscovered for barbarian xp/cash.

 

[CultureManiac]

Grabbing the 2xp in honor as China with its Cho-ku-nos is insanely powerful. With two attacks per turn they are now building up experience four times as fast. You get elite units in almost no time at all.

 

[THE_COW_IS_OK]

Grabbing the 2xp in honor as China with its Cho-ku-nos is insanely powerful. With two attacks per turn they are now building up experience four times as fast. You get elite units in almost no time at all.

Add to that they keep their promotion when upgraded to Rifles....
First you get blitz for free, second you unlock more terrain promotions. eg: get rough terrain bonus when Cho-Ku, then add drill promotion when riffleman and with added GG bonus, you ll easily get +180% attack modifier.... Thats when a riffle can kill a Mech infantry! No wonder why I don't use horsesman in my diey games

Since in Civ5, you can only have so many units in a given battlefield, promotion tips the win to your side, no matter how many units the AI have waiting behind. So again I say, 2xp is the best policy in this war oriented game.

 

[Bibor]

Both the extra GG and the double EXP are insanely powerful. The right side of the tree is also very good (apart from the garrison happiness that costs you more than a stadium in upkeep). One might argue that saving all that money on upgrades makes some other traits look really bad. Like... half of the patronage tree

 

[Mark the Bold]

My social policies are as follows in most games in this order:

Tradition -> Wonders + 30%

Honor -> Great General -> Double XP

Piety -> 25% Golden Age Bonus -> Theocracy (-20% unhappiness)

With all the maritime city state broken bonuses, I usually turn City States off for two reasons (a) The map looks cheezeball with nothing but TP everywhere (b) Gives the AI a fighting chance. However, with City States on I will usually take the Patronage bonuses to get the 33% science bonus.

The Tradition bonus is certainly not necessary but I have a wonder fetish and it makes my civ competitive with Egypt on the higher difficulties. However, with or without City States the Theocracy bonus is absolutely massive. 20% on most standard map game sizes works out to at least 30 smiley faces. Simply awesome. While the Rationalism TP / science bonus is great I have always found that a larger pop / happier empire (via Piety -> THeocracy) usually out-sciences a Rationalism civ of equal number of cities.

Any criticisms welcome in my logic. I never touch Liberty; Piety makes your population must bigger and happier SP for SP.