How to start off with the Honor Policy?

[BjoernLars]

I'm usually a player who either starts off with Liberty or Tradition first. Liberty is probably a hold over from my Civ 4 days of the need for REX early on and Tradition is due my love of building tall.

I want to try a game of starting off with Honor. I am not hugely familiar with the Warmonger's path to victory, so I was wondering if I could get some feedback on my thought process.

• [1]Songhai or Germany on map with raging barbs. Start zone should have a fair amount of open terrain to promote mobility for troops.
  [2]Tech to focus on, Archery, Bronze Working and Iron Working
  [3]Farm barbs and barb camps for more culture, gold and troops if Germany.
  [4]Lay down a base of a couple of cities with some improvements and infrastructure.
  [5]Once Catapults and Swordsmen are ready, start conquering neighbors.
  
  What do you think? How can I make this effective?

 

[SammyKhalifa]

I'm usually a player who either starts off with Liberty or Tradition first. Liberty is probably a hold over from my Civ 4 days of the need for REX early on and Tradition is due my love of building tall.

I want to try a game of starting off with Honor. I am not hugely familiar with the Warmonger's path to victory, so I was wondering if I could get some feedback on my thought process.

• [1]Songhai or Germany on map with raging barbs. Start zone should have a fair amount of open terrain to promote mobility for troops.
  [2]Tech to focus on, Archery, Bronze Working and Iron Working
  [3]Farm barbs and barb camps for more culture, gold and troops if Germany.
  [4]Lay down a base of a couple of cities with some improvements and infrastructure.
  [5]Once Catapults and Swordsmen are ready, start conquering neighbors.
  
  What do you think? How can I make this effective?

• 
  
  If you want to really explore honor, start a game as the Aztecs.

 

[MadDjinn]

If you're going with Raging barbs, then Archery first helps.

Find a barb camp and clear the external barbs. leave an archer/camp and range kill the barb in the camp for culture. Keep this up for a number of camps and you'll finish Honour in no time.

If a camp is on a City State border, you'll also get 12 influence each time you kill the barb in the camp. (with Raging, this should get you within 250g of being an ally pretty quickly)

With the Songhai and Germany, you'll want to take the camps though. Which is a bit rough, so try not to watch all territory, else they won't spawn.

Otherwise, grab the free GG and +15% boost to military production before Discipline. With Germany, you are better off going straight to Civil Service, since LKs are very very cheap to produce. In volume, they can stand against most units. Getting the Heroic Epic up in your cap is a good plan before spamming.

LKs with Honour/HE = 50hammer major spam.
10 Combat strength
+10%/flanker
+10% adjacent unit
+20% General
+15% Heroic Epic
+terrain

That's plenty to take down Longswords or Muskets, let alone the swords and spear/pikes you'll meet. Ensure (defensively) to have formations where the most likely LK to be attacked has 3 flankers and you're at 17.5 combat strength + terrain modifiers + fortification bonuses.

Just watch out for Ranged units, since you're going to get them spammed at you.

For the Songhai, switch Archers for chariot archers. Ensure to take Siege as your 2nd promotion, then get to chivalry and mass upgrade.

 

[vexing]

if you want to make things really easy bump the speed down to epic. you lessen the relative culture gain / kill, but with raging barbs on you should be able to kill near 1.5x as many making it a wash, and epic speed amplifies any player military advantage.

to assist in the mobility factor great plains is a good map choice.

as was mentioned aztec would also be a good choice, or mongolia for obvious reasons, and at epic speed you could dominate the world with CCs as greece or even war chariots as egypt.

 

[Mazer Rackham]

If you play as China or Babylon, go ahead and get your conquest going with archers and your initial warrior. Research archery ASAP and build a set of 6 or more archers. Take the GG policy and go.

Bowmen stand up very well if they accidentally get out of position and get attacked. And Chinese archers obviously upgrade to a great UU. It doesn't hurt to start getting them experience early.

 

[ahawk]

Try Persia at least a couple of times.

If you start off with Honor with Persia, you can pump out Immortals (their UU with extra healing), use Honor to grab a GG and the 10% bonus for adjacent units (Discipline, I think), and then time a Golden Age just as you declare war on a nearby neighbor to grab the UA's extra movement and strength bonus.

That's a lot of fire-power, and so long as your closest neighbor isn't Babylon (Bowman are pretty tough to beat, and Walls of Babylon are dangerous too) or Rome or Greece, you'll probably fair quite well. Just try to make sure the Great Wall wonder isn't in whoever you attack.

This works on any map setting that doesn't require you to cross water right away to get at your closest neighbor.

 

[Rittmeyer]

The more I play the more I like Archer rushes on Deity. Even without any UU or major bonus you can usually pull it off. It`s a shame that it doesn`t work well against the AI that is exactly the one that give me more trouble when it`s my neighbour: Alex. A psycho equipped with those early UU`s is really a pain.

 

[ahawk]

The more I play the more I like Archer rushes on Deity.

I play King, Prince, and can say at those levels that if you can build the Temple of Artemis quickly enough, Archer rushes are insane.

On Deity, I can't say, but the time spent building the ToA is probably better spent just popping out Archers straight away, unless you can rush the ToA with a GE. The higher the difficulty, the higher the risk that 15 or 20 turns toward a wonder can set you almost permanently behind unless it's a huge part of your strategy to have that wonder. At least, that's what I hear

 

[Kbo]

I play King, Prince, and can say at those levels that if you can build the Temple of Artemis quickly enough, Archer rushes are insane.

On Deity, I can't say, but the time spent building the ToA is probably better spent just popping out Archers straight away, unless you can rush the ToA with a GE. The higher the difficulty, the higher the risk that 15 or 20 turns toward a wonder can set you almost permanently behind unless it's a huge part of your strategy to have that wonder. At least, that's what I hear

ToA is gone long before you grab a GE on deity, its a high priority for most AI, I've never managed to complete it once. Better strategy is to let them build it for you

I'd agree that you can find a much better use for those hammers. I'm personally a huge fan of honor with the Iroquois MWs, as you dont have the need to hook up iron to have swordsmen after a beeline to IW.

 

[qemist]

If you're going with Raging barbs, then Archery first helps.

Find a barb camp and clear the external barbs. leave an archer/camp and range kill the barb in the camp for culture. Keep this up for a number of camps and you'll finish Honour in no time.

Brute milking is kind of exploitative, don't you think?

 

[snarzberry]

I like to go honour with a civ that has a very early UU to help with the rush. As a novelty try going honour with Egypt and war chariots on deity if you spawn very close to your nearest neighbour. The GG makes a big difference. Hiawatha is another obvious choice.

 

[MadDjinn]

Brute milking is kind of exploitative, don't you think?

well, it's a 'new' exploit that they just added due to giving Honour culture from barbs. *I didn't like that change, but whatever.

Though, it's not much of one on higher diff. levels due to the CSs and AIs interest in wandering into an empty barb camp. So you get less overall added culture from it.

 

[qemist]

well, it's a 'new' exploit that they just added due to giving Honour culture from barbs. *I didn't like that change, but whatever.

When I started here a few months ago Tradition was mainline, Honor situational and Liberty was rubbish. They tweaked and now the order seems to have been reversed.

Though, it's not much of one on higher diff. levels due to the CSs and AIs interest in wandering into an empty barb camp.

I've only tried it in a couple of games but it's been my experience that I don't get far before some asshat AI scout claims the barb camp. With favorable topo you might be able to cut off the approaches and keep it going all game, but it hasn't happened to me yet. Of course the time your scout and warrior spend stroking barbarians is time they're not exploring.

 

[King_Course]

None of the opening trees are rubbish.

 

[Kerosene31]

I was looking at this and I'm far from an expert but I can see the benefits of starting honor even if you aren't warmongering. Honor gives you some cheap happiness benefits early with troops in cities and defensive buildings. I don't know if it is the best way to go, but I think it is at least viable.

 

[joncnunn]

Every policy has some way to increase happiness:

Tradition: -50% unhappiness in capital. Plus 1 extra happiness for every 10 pop in a given city.

Republic: -1 unhappiness per city (after trade connection)

Honor: MP & Defense buildings

Piety: Happiness from cultural buildings and more

Patronage: Extra happiness from luxuries provided by city states

Order: -1 unhappiness per city

Autocracy: Even more happiness from Courthouses

Freedom: Extra happiness from specialists

Rationalism: Happiness from universities

Commerce: Extra happiness from luxuries from all sources.

I was looking at this and I'm far from an expert but I can see the benefits of starting honor even if you aren't warmongering. Honor gives you some cheap happiness benefits early with troops in cities and defensive buildings. I don't know if it is the best way to go, but I think it is at least viable.

 

[turtlefang]

I would recommend the Aztecs and go Jags. You need to actually capture the barb camps to get the gold. With an archer rush on higher levels, you tend to clear camps and the AI (at least in my experience) captures them for you.

The Aztecs give you a fast units (starts with woodcraft) and, after getting Honor) you get 12 cultural points per kill. If you decide to go with raging barbs (+/- to this), you can rack up some SP points quickly early in the game. Also, the special abilities of the of the Jags stay with the infantry line through out the upgrades.

If your going with an archer rush, Babs or China are the best choice - I prefer China as I think the CKN are simply one of the best units in the game coupled with the Chinese GG. (However, Babs has science to fall back on). You will have to use units in pairs when you barb hunt - one to kill, one to capture.

 

[SarutobiSasuke]

Use a map like Pangaea to ensure that there are plenty of neighbors to conquer. Get tradition first to help with culture and border expansion, this will help your capital grow and allow you to work the nearby luxuries quicker. Use a civ like China, Egypt, or Persia. The happiness from the Egyptian and Persian unique buildings will help you expand(conquer) quickly while the gold from the paper maker will allow you to buy more friendships which will also allow for quick expansion. The Chinese and Persian UA and UU will definitely help you when it comes to domination.

Works pretty well for me up to Emperor but I haven't tried it on anything higher.

 

[w a i n y]

Ensure (defensively) to have formations where the most likely LK to be attacked has 3 flankers and you're at 17.5 combat strength + terrain modifiers + fortification bonuses.

Maybe I'm misunderstanding you, but I don't think it works this way. Defensive flanking bonuses are based on the number of your units next to their attacking unit, not your defending one. If you want 3 flankers, you would need to put 3 LKs further forward, surrounding any attacker. Of course, then the attacker will just go for your forward guard. Really, the best defensive formation is a straight line, or close to it, although when you're attacking you can break the line to milk the flanking bonuses for all they're worth.
The discipline policy from honour does work this way, giving +10% for having a unit next to your own unit when you're attacking or defending, but doesn't compound with more units.
I really liked your analysis of barbarian milking. Even though snarzberry's Songhai strategy with liberty is faster at getting chivalry, your honour strategy with Germany is still quite viable on deity. Since the July patch their unique trait allows them to better afford the large number of units this strategy requires. Got to try it sometime!

 

[Mikalo11]

I've actually been experimenting with this lately.
Using the Honor tree to support an Economy is entirely feasible.
-The kills you get from Barbarians will grant you culture and gold.
-The policy following Discipline grants +2 culture and 1 happiness from city garrisons. This makes garrisoned units effectively better than monuments. And a warrior takes less time to build too.
-The gold you get from killing barbarian encampments can be used to purchase cheap units/buildings such as workers, monuments, warriors, or archers. Or buy city-states.
-Killing barbarians encampments will earn the friendship of city states, which will grant you some economic bonuses early in the game.
-Completing the Honor tree will grant you gold for every unit enemy killed. 10-16 gold, in fact. This makes wars incredibly profitable.

This works especially well with the Aztecs, the Germans, or Songhai.
-The Germans will oftentimes get a free warriors from barbarian encampments. This saves you the trouble of building them.
-The Aztecs get 7 culture for every unit killed and with the additional bonus from adopting Honor you will earn 12 from each barbarian killed, allowing you to rush social policies. Plus, their unique unit heals 2 after combat, and moves unrestricted through forest and Jungle allowing you to explore the map easily.
-Songhai get triple gold from barbarian encampments. This can be spent on warriors or monuments. Or, it can be spent on city states too.


So, provided you use the bonuses you receive from hunting barbarians early in the game to build a stable economy, using the Honor tree to build an economy is entirely feasible AND effective. I think the name for that is called "War Profiteering"...