Armies are crazy expensive, and if you're building an early army you aren't building cargo ships/caravans making them even more expensive. I find this a much bigger detractor for early warring than the warmonger penalty. I'm a big supporter of classical and medival warring (I find you can get choices terrain this way as opposed to building your own, penalty can be dealt with by liberation easily enough, and if other civs aren't warring, well they're probably pushovers). Simply adding in a 25% maintenance redux to army maintenance cost could go a long way in alleviating this. Perhaps something smaller as that roughly equates to half of germany's UA (although the real perk there is the instant army it produces making that redux necessary - although a further redux could really allow Germany to make some serious use of that army). Really anything from 15% - 25% would instantly make the tree better.
As it stands opening honor is always my first pick (unless certain archie maps) as playing with raging barbs I more than make up the increasing SP costs through culture gained from very active barb hunting, until later in the game anyways. However my second choice is always liberty as I'll be seriously looking forward to mostly monarchy but also landed elite; those 2 policies I find too good (after a couple piety games I'm quite enjoying theocracy as well). There is simply no gpt bonus in honor (until the finisher which I find comes too late to avoid playing a severly boring game of catch up) and I don't find military caste to balance out the 2 tradition policies I mentioned. Military caste without oligarchy is also expensive as it requires the garrison of units (which all cost the same so you cannot circumvent by simply leaving a cheap obselete unit in place). The happiness bonus in honor would be much better served from fortification buildings (as it previously was) or through size of standing armies (scaled for map size of course).
True, the cost of a large army can be offset through continuously moving an army around demanding tribute from CS. But this can be quite tedious, greatly extend the time it takes to play the game (marathon being my prefered game speed), and have diplomatic consequences (which are already a factor for a warring Civ). Whereas gold from other policies are simply passive (even my religious barb hunting can be quite time consuming as is).
There are policies in honor I would very much like. Professional army is something I always wish I had come later domination games, but again at that point I can pick out a 3 sequence policy path with which I would be better off, as honor is simply filled with too much "chaff" to navigate through (warrior code and discipline being very marginal policies when you consider just how superior ranged is to melee. I would much rather see the production bonus from professional army put into the firs tier of honor which would make it very beneficial without being overpowered as well piety has it's useful production bonus added very early in the tree).
Honor has nice policies and bonuses. It is simply too much of a "plan ahead" tree to take early; as the other trees offer up more instant gratification when it's needed, and the later trees also outshine it. It lacks early gpt and the tree/style of play associated with the tree itself further harm the gpt issue. It's simply a clumsy tree that I find the order in which you receive bonuses are mixed up and the melee < ranged imbalance.
Since we're discussing policies, something in the liberty tree reducing the cos or requirements for national wonders would be appreciated. Although this is wishful thinking and perhaps asking too much as the tree is good enough as is.
As it stands opening honor is always my first pick (unless certain archie maps) as playing with raging barbs I more than make up the increasing SP costs through culture gained from very active barb hunting, until later in the game anyways. However my second choice is always liberty as I'll be seriously looking forward to mostly monarchy but also landed elite; those 2 policies I find too good (after a couple piety games I'm quite enjoying theocracy as well). There is simply no gpt bonus in honor (until the finisher which I find comes too late to avoid playing a severly boring game of catch up) and I don't find military caste to balance out the 2 tradition policies I mentioned. Military caste without oligarchy is also expensive as it requires the garrison of units (which all cost the same so you cannot circumvent by simply leaving a cheap obselete unit in place). The happiness bonus in honor would be much better served from fortification buildings (as it previously was) or through size of standing armies (scaled for map size of course).
True, the cost of a large army can be offset through continuously moving an army around demanding tribute from CS. But this can be quite tedious, greatly extend the time it takes to play the game (marathon being my prefered game speed), and have diplomatic consequences (which are already a factor for a warring Civ). Whereas gold from other policies are simply passive (even my religious barb hunting can be quite time consuming as is).
There are policies in honor I would very much like. Professional army is something I always wish I had come later domination games, but again at that point I can pick out a 3 sequence policy path with which I would be better off, as honor is simply filled with too much "chaff" to navigate through (warrior code and discipline being very marginal policies when you consider just how superior ranged is to melee. I would much rather see the production bonus from professional army put into the firs tier of honor which would make it very beneficial without being overpowered as well piety has it's useful production bonus added very early in the tree).
Honor has nice policies and bonuses. It is simply too much of a "plan ahead" tree to take early; as the other trees offer up more instant gratification when it's needed, and the later trees also outshine it. It lacks early gpt and the tree/style of play associated with the tree itself further harm the gpt issue. It's simply a clumsy tree that I find the order in which you receive bonuses are mixed up and the melee < ranged imbalance.
Since we're discussing policies, something in the liberty tree reducing the cos or requirements for national wonders would be appreciated. Although this is wishful thinking and perhaps asking too much as the tree is good enough as is.
