Honor Tree

[kkapalk]

I just wanted you guys' opinions on the Honor tree. Reading through the forums I nearly always see the opinion that it is weak. Today I tried it out with barbarians in, and went two points into said tree. I must admit it seems very useful. The bonus against barbs, the culture for killing them and the Great General point are really useful in my opinion. Would someone explain why going this way, then filling out the Tradition or Liberty tree, does not work? I play on King at the moment, maybe Honor is weaker on higher levels? Or do you lose too much culture, etc, by leaving the T/L tree a little later?
Thanks,
Kev

 

[Tiny Hands]

Which civ were you using? Honor benefits some civs more than others, especially in the early game (AZTECS).

 

[Memoryjar]

Not weak, just not polyvalent. Honor tree is for warfare. Unlke Piety, it's a way to win with domination. It really fit with warry civ.
You can open it with all civ, you'll have happiness like it Tradition and Liberty. All 5 policies are for war. So, if you plain domination it's a good deal.

With Sweden, it's perfect cause you can gift your general to ally CS early and have food and happiness missed with Honor rather than Tradition and Liberty.

I really love finish Honor tree with Aztecs, Celts, America (maybe Brazil, but UU is very late) to see XP + Culture/Faith + Gold when I kill an unit.

 

[erisiamk]

Going Honor before Tradition or Liberty, you end up shooting yourself in the foot by handicapping your civ's growth (Tradition) or expansion (Liberty), and thus preventing you from capitalising on Honor's bonuses. Sure, your melee units might be stronger and you might have a Great General, but against an equally good Tradition or Liberty opponent they could either be facing more advanced units or simply facing more of them. Unless you plan to overwhelm an opponent from the very beginning, or have some unique bonus that makes opening Honor more justifiable (Aztecs), they'll usually have time to outcompete your economy and repel your initial forces, eventually overtaking you completely.

On the other hand, opening Tradition or Liberty first and then going through Honor is a little better, since you should have better midgame parity with your rivals and you'll be able to make the most of Honor's bonuses when you're on a more even footing.

 

[kaspergm]

Like others said, a pure Honor start (complete Honor before any other tree) is next to suicide. Combined Honor with either Tradition or Liberty works fine if you intend to do warmongering in early/mid game. This will usually go like open Honor (to harvest early culture from barbs) -> complete alternative tree -> finish Honor.

Opening Honor if you don't tend to go warmonger is not worth it. You'll get more benefit from going into another tree - Piety, Aesthetics, Commerce and Exploration will all be better secondary trees if you don't focus on military, the best choice depending on what you DO focus on, combined Tradition + Liberty starts can also work very well from my experience.

Opening Honor just for the culture without intending to finish it is not a good investment. You will not get to finish Tradition faster than if you skip Honor because you need to save up for one more policy (which really starts hurting around policy 5-6), and in the long run, it's only a negative investment, so unless your survival depends on the combat bonus against barbs, don't be lured by the apparant easy culture from barb hunting.

 

[Bulldog Bats]

The policies are just not balanced. For the most part you have Tradition and Rationalism, and all the others. I think for 95% of the players, Tradition is an automatic (even many of the players who like to go wide prefer Tradition) - I haven't seen anyone who goes whole hog honor.

For the most part, if you skip rationalism, you cannot catch up on science. To me the goal should be that each policy should be equally powerful, and the pick is solely on what way you want to take your civ. Right now, it just is not that way.

 

[VicRatlhead5199]

Only certain civs really benefit a lot from honor anymore, it used to be a pretty good tree before some of the happiness was removed. Aztecs, Germany, the Ottomans and the Songhai are obvious even just for the opener. The opener helps finish CS quests and alerts you to dangers your trade routes might run into. I think any civ with a pre-gunpowder melee UU is good too because Warrior Code helps spam out those UUs easier. Imo the best policy in the entire tree is military tradition though. It'll get your melee units march faster and ranged units logistics and range faster. Veteran troops are worth so much more than lesser promoted ones. It also enhances both China's and the Zulu's UAs. Military caste beats the other two trees culture output too (tradition's flat 4 and liberty's measly 1 per city). A lot of people complain that it's expensive to garrison every city but all it requires is a scout and they're cheap to maintain and quick to build.

The problem with a straight honor start vs. going liberty or tradition is that you're screwed out of a lot of growth and free stuff from the other trees so you're forced to hard build or buy more. So you'll fall behind in science unless you can really hamstring the other civs early and science drives everything. You also don't get the economic benefits of tradition (all that free gold in tradition is what makes it the most imbalanced imo). Professional army and the finisher help you make do with less but it really doesn't change the fact that you have less.

I like to hybrid tradition and honor myself. I'll usually go:

Tradition opener
Honor opener
(gets culture going in high gear)
Legalism
Landed Elite
Monarchy
(economic, growth and happiness benefits)
Discipline
(an ok buff but really only good for getting to military caste)
Military Caste
(happiness and culture)
Aristocracy/Oligarchy
(order doesn't matter, whatever is more useful at the time goes first, they're mainly for finishing the tree to get the growth and aqueducts although oligarchy makes military caste free which is nice)
Warrior Code
Military Tradition
Professional Army

I can usually get this done before the Renaissance with some hardcore barb hunting. With the Aztecs I can usually finish both trees in the same time I usually finish Tradition alone with other civs. The UA plus the efficient barb slaughtering jags makes getting those early policies lightning fast. If you're not the Aztecs build horsemen early for barb hunting since they can make it to camps faster. Some people like to farm camps for culture but I like to clear as many as possible. The gold is hard to pass up.

Once you get 4 or 5 archers and a couple melee units you should DoW your nearest neighbor for some "free" workers and pillage gold. You don't need to take any cities, just farm gold, workers and exp. Denounce before DoWing so they get the neg. modifier of your denouncement and cannot denounce you back. Usually this helps to keep other civs off your back. Try to get other civs to join the war before you take any cities. That way they won't care much when you start capturing.

 

[El Caballerion]

Definitely go down HONOR if playing as Aztecs, Mongols, or Songhai.

 

[chazzycat]

honor was really hurt by 3 changes in BNW:

- removing the happiness policy from walls, making early conquering more difficult
- the overall puppet empire nerf (science penalty, ceremonial burial nerf)
- warmonger penalties increased greatly for early city capturing

So it's generally harder to make early warfare pay off. And if you have your heart set on early conquering...well liberty is probably better, because you need those per-city happiness bonuses. Not to mention liberty gives you a faster CB rush, gets your cities up faster, makes workers faster, unlocks pyramids, etc...basically liberty is just really good any time you are playing expansively, whether it be peaceful or not.

mostly it's the "military caste" policy that I think needs to get changed. Honor is for being aggressive, but for this policy you need to keep your army in your cities to get the happiness. It's really not very helpful because if you ever to need to move out, you have to make up that happiness. The culture is pretty nice in times of peace, but honor should not be creating incentives to play peacefully, that just doesn't make any sense.

the other policies are not that bad, I think if that one got a buff and the wamonger penalty was slightly relaxed (which i think will happen) honor will be a lot more competitive.

 

[njmfff]

Honor is not bad, it's just that some other trees are more useful. It's good with Tradition combo, useful for some civs (mentioned above) or if you plan medium\heavy warfare.

If you have close aggressive neighbor like Zulus or Huns, Honor can be very useful (getting GWG, experience or discipline). It stacks perfectly with Heroic Epic boosts which are easy to build for small Tall (Tradition) empires.

It's must for Mongols and Zulu, since that faster experience makes their units (Keshiks and Impi) fly through promotions.

For autocratic civs, Professional army and finisher are very useful, when you have lots of units that need to be upgraded and if you're doing some heavy killings.

So in general, Honor is not a bad tree, it's just that some others are more useful in any situation. Not a bad thing to open it, so you can get that extra damage on barbs (and also makes barb hunt easier), then switch to either Tradition\Liberty, then finishing Honor as second tree.

mostly it's the "military caste" policy that I think needs to get changed. Honor is for being aggressive, but for this policy you need to keep your army in your cities to get the happiness. It's really not very helpful because if you ever to need to move out, you have to make up that happiness. The culture is pretty nice in times of peace, but honor should not be creating incentives to play peacefully, that just doesn't make any sense.

Nope, that's not a problem. Most of the players will keep archer\cannon inside their cities just in case something goes wrong (like AI deciding to backstab you while you're busy fighting other AI) so that happiness\culture bonus is not a bad thing. It also goes well with Traditions "Oligarchy".

 

[chazzycat]

leaving units in a couple cities near borders is fine, but leaving them in every city is usually far from ideal. True point about oligarchy - if the units are free it's not nearly as big of a deal. But then you're mixing two early trees which is also not ideal.

 

[kaspergm]

A lot of people complain that it's expensive to garrison every city but all it requires is a scout and they're cheap to maintain and quick to build.

If I'm not mistaken, all units have same maintenance cost in a given era (cost will increase with eras, but in a given era, I think all units will cost the same GPT), so I think only the point about the production applies. Really, this policy should inherit the free garrison from Oligarchy, Tradition has plenty of gold and then some with Monarchy.

 

[adwcta]

If I'm not mistaken, all units have same maintenance cost in a given era (cost will increase with eras, but in a given era, I think all units will cost the same GPT), so I think only the point about the production applies. Really, this policy should inherit the free garrison from Oligarchy, Tradition has plenty of gold and then some with Monarchy.

You are not mistaken. Scout upkeep, worker upkeep, missionary upkeep, great people upkeep, and giant death robot upkeep are all the same, scaling by era. This is why honor is best for Zulu and Germany... who suffer less from keeping extra standing armies.

Pre BNW, honor tree was very defensive, with bonuses to walls, garissons, etc. Now, the new Honor tree is a mix of defense and large experience army creation (which you would only need if you were aggressive or had a large empire). It's..... Awkward. The worst part of honor is that gold doesn't come until the very end, when you actually need it somewhere around the third policy, like tradition and piety. It should come right after the great general and unit production bonus, on the left side, perhapsbalso after the faster exp bonus policy. Move the 15% damage policy to be the finisher.

Also, and I feel like I need to say this in every Honor/Mongol tread... Mongols are uniquely unsuited to open honor. It is actually probably the worst starting tree for them. They can't garisson, because each unit is precious; they don't get as much from faster exp, since they have that bonus already, same with khans, they don't build melee troops, they don't need to upgrade units, they don't gain much from attacking anything early, and their movement makes it difficult to consistently get the 15% bonus. The only thing in that tree that's really useful to them is the finisher and building barracks... That's not worth an entire tree. Same for the Huns.

 

[Callonia]

I open Tradition then Honor then go back and fill out the tradition completely then fill out honor tree second until its all filled out. That's just how I do it.

Honor finisher really comes into action during Industrial era when units is starting to get very valuable for being killed off... 58 gold? Yes please xD It has funded entire things.

 

[Silverman6083]

In my opinion, policy trees like Honor & Pirty & Exploration that people say are "crap" aren't at all. People hate these trees because they aren't Tradition or Rationalism or Freedom. Honor is a great tree if applied properly. People who hate on it don't like it because they can't apply it properly, while Tradition & Rationalism don't need to be applied, it's instant benefit. The truth is Honor & Piety & Ecploration together, if applied properly can be a killer combination

 

[reddishrecue]

Trying out honor and dying could give experience for honor starts. Circus maximus and conquering cities removes the need for resources.

 

[sendos]

I've had more thoughts on how to improve Honor tree without making too many changes or overlapping with autocracy tenets:

- Each policy grants a maintenance free warrior
- +50% barracks production goes with discipline
- Finisher grants a warmonger penalty reduction from annexing civs and CS' by 65%. Capturing CS' (not buying them out but physically annexing them with your armies) offer various benefits, scaled up over time.
--Maritime - +25% food in your empire for 50 turns (standard speed).
--Militaristic - gain 4 maintenance free units. Early on they are warriors, but you have iron and the necessary techs, they are upgraded up the warrior path (e.g. swordsmen, longswordsmen). UU replacements still occur with these units.
--Mercantile - doubled loot from capturing the city. May grab a tradable copy of ULR's from the captured CS.
--religious - faith bonus from capturing the city.
--cultural - culture bonus from capturing the city.

 

[GhostSalsa]

I've had several successful pure Honor starts in BNW, though with pretty late victory times (turn 360). This is more to do with Autocracy's weak paths for actual victory conditions (especially the lack of spaceship bonus) which if fixed would make Honor starts look more optimal (but don't really need to be fixed).

And, I wouldn't recommend ANY blending with Liberty or Tradition. If you are going to get Honor, you want to finish it. The last two policies and finisher are the ones that pay off in late game. If you are going to finish it, you want to do so before you have to sacrifice any Rationalism or Autocracy policies to do so.

The same considerations apply to Liberty and Tradition - having unfinished policies in Renaissance is unacceptable. Leaving them open is unacceptable, especially if Honor was opened and finished first - the Liberty and Tradition top-tree policies on their own are weak by the mid-game, Commerce or Exploration are objectively better for a warmonger. I strongly dislike split openings.

Honor openings imply you will lack food and production bonuses. Just do your best to make up for it. Splitting policies trees only makes things worse.

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It's fair to criticize the garrison requirement, especially for the happiness. But early conquest is completely unrewarding in BNW anyway, and you aren't growing much, so you aren't likely to be actually 'held back' by happiness. This is something that should be fixed but doesn't come into play much under the current game balance. Conquering during late-game when you have Autocracy is more ideal. Here, Honor is doing you a huge favor for happiness with the XP-buildings discount. With the 2 happiness from Autocracy these are the best happiness buildings in the game (low gold maintenance) and Honor lets new conquests build them in a couple turns.

For the culture bonus, the garrison requirement is a fair nerf since its otherwise the strongest culture policy in the game (2 per city, twice what liberty opener gives).

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I strongly agree with all the criticisms of Honor. I strongly dislike the fact that a human player with tradition will always have a stronger army (via better science) than a human player with Honor. I strongly dislike that the melee line has been completely superfluous compared to ranged since G&K, and Honor's production bonus only applies to a class of unit that will get chewed up by AI spam (I'd prefer it if melee dominated battles). I strongly dislike that you can't conquer early and Honor only tries to punish you more if you do (garrison happiness).

But the synergy with Commerce and Autocracy is a joy to behold, if you survive to late game. It sets up for a really engaging conquest. I've had successful Honor games (Immortal, Continents standard) as Zulus, Aztecs, Germany, Denmark. Failed as Huns (Korea got science victory 2 turns before me) and several others. It's a risky way to play.

 

[civ54lyfe]

at King, you have enough margin of error to still have fun with Honor.

 

[kkapalk]

Thanks for the useful replies. Some good pointers to learn from here. By the way I am playing as China, and I do indeed have some dangerous neighbours. Shaka to my West and Monty to my Southern border. I have now filled out the Tradition tree and plan on filling Rationalism. It certainly has made the game entertaining, experimenting a little with a different tree. I do see the points made, that the T/L trees are the most powerful for the early policies.
Thanks,
Kev