Reclaiming Honor (warmonger's strategy)

[The Pilgrim]

That's cool, but I have two things for you, Pilgrim.

1. I have a name and it's not Opie
2. I'm not forcing anything

I currently plan to try straight Honor on a standard speed small map. If that doesn't work, I'll try something else. I hope it's OK with you that I don't just take your word for everything and try a few things. I say "plan" because I've been playing Tropico more than Civ the last couple nights.

Ehm... tough night? Tropico surely can cause a sleep deprivation.

1. OP is a widely used acronym across all forums and CFC specifically. By no means it's supposed to be offensive or disrespectful. If you take it this way... well, you shouldn't.
2 and the rest of your overreacting. There is nothing can be said in this thread that hasn't been covered in dozens of other threads about Honor. The one and only reason I initially replied, is that I saw you were blaming yourself for not succeeding at execution of this strategy and I felt I should let you know that's not your fault.
But I'm old enough to know that being nice to people can be pricey. I'll live with that.

 

[Syailendra]

Russia (is the best honour civ imo)

Greece and Sweden. use the CS bonuses to make up for whatever ur deficient in, Greece is especially good at bullying as he recovers twice as fast.

Aztec's as there floating gardens give u a bonus to grow already letting u focus on war

i want to say Dido/Carthage. simply because of the bounes she gets to production and growth ( if she gets fish ). and also because quins and elephants are insanely good. but i find i always end up going liberty.

danes

i'd say that those civs will get more from liberty or tradition compared to honor, while germany will get good support from honor that almost (yes, i say almost) give enough consolation to losing tradition growth or liberty early boost.
Germany get more units plus culture due to the combination of their ua and the opener, and later get bigger discount when upgrading l'knetch to lancer which is absurdly expensive considering how useless lancer is.

 

[warmonger]

Part of the problem is that I don't receive any convenient DoWs early in the game where the AI marches all its units conveniently into range, which is due to me playing on a lower level than immortal/deity, for which warmonger wrote the strategy.

On immortal, if you are not next to a known warmonger, you will have to provoke them. Don't settle cities near me; demand something; denounce. If all else fails, then you will have to declare on them. You can declare before all your army is assembled, just make certain you use the terrain to your advantage and pick off stray units rather than attack cities.



Why open and cover for promotions, do you take rough on the cover units?

I may have got the names wrong for ranged units - should be barrage and accuracy

Is marathon speed an advantage? I've been using standard.

This strategy only works on marathon. At std speed your units are obsolete too quickly.

My economy tanks under the weight of a large army, leaving me without cash to upgrade, how should I handle that?

Money is always tight until you complete the honor policies. you survive on barb camps; getting 25g from each AI for an embassy; happiness is not a problem so sell all lux whilst the AI is still friendly.

What civs are preferred?

I went through every civ in standard G&K (no extra DLC) and I've won with all of them on immortal and most on diety but not every time. Obviously Aztec, Huns, Germany, France and Greece are easier than Dutch or Austria.

Is an early tune up (post Military Tradition policy) war against a City State advisable?

For the ones close to home, I prefer to kill barbs and clear camps for them - that makes them very happy, they give you nice things, and even go to war with you.

I thought the topic interesting enough to merit it's own thread and naturally welcome any considered opinions. I'm interested mainly in single player. I like inland sea maps and added an extra AI player to make it more crowded.

I prefer pangea maps as you can ignore all water techs except sailing. Sometimes optics is useful to save walking through hills and help in escaping from seiges.

 

[warmonger]

Anyway, my questions are pretty simple, what Civs do you like for straight Honor, what's the story with your promotion plan (specifically, are you putting Cover just on your spears and pikes or on ranged as well), is an early war against a CS advisable, how do you handle the economic burden of so many units early on, do you settle any cities, how many do you puppet, how many do you raze.

I answered most of these above but here's a few more details:

Promotions: You need one melee that can defend on open terrain; one that defends on rough terrain. Melee rarely attack, they absorb hits from the attacking enemy and city defense until they get the march promotion. Before getting march they only attack if it is absolutely necassary to kill that enemy unit that turn and your range won't get it done. Attack with the melee unit first, then use range. This way the melee unit stays in position and does not get exposed to a multi-unit counter attack.

Range get either barrage or shock promotions.

If you know you can kill all attacking units without fuss, use the range so that you get the maximum XP for units - this leads to faster promotions and more GGs.

Economics: you have to support 8 units initially. That's your 6 man army, it's accompanying GG, and a worker for your capital. If you have a river start you should have enough gold most of the time. Clear camps for extra cash. Depending how fast your capital grows, you may hit the unit limit (the little red exclaimation mark by the happy counter) that slows down production. Ignore it - once you take your first enemy capital it goes away and gold is no longer a problem.

Then you build / buy archers for garrison duties.

Captured cities and settled cities. The only time I build a second city is when the map is not pangea and my capital is not coastal. You need a coastal city to build a navy and go find the next victims. you can either settle this second city or assimulate a captured coastal city so that you can control the build order.

Raze everything you can, - selling buildings on each turn. Puppet the rest.

 

[Elz Majesto]

I was able to get an Immortal victory last night going Monty, Full Honor, then Full Tradition, and then wrapping up Rationalism for SV. Ended up winning at turn 370ish.

Obviously, I am not playing no where near full efficiency, and I hope that with this month's Immortal Challenge I can play a part and see where I can improve my strategies.

I will post a screenshot when I get off work. But just want to show that you can win going full Honor on higher difficulties, with the right civ. Its not for everyone, but its possible.

I went straight for Education (after CompBow rush to nearest neighbor) and then went straight for Public Schools and Research Labs. Then bulbed to Satellites, built Hubble, and timed Rationalism finisher for the last 2 techs for Space Race tech. I was only able to build 2 cities however (Cap and 1 more), but they both hit high 20s-low 30s. BTW- the gold you get in late game unit destruction is insane! And when you couple that with the high level AIs unit spamming you can easily get well over 200-300 gold per turn (and culture if your using Monty).

Next up I will use Germany.

 

[flairin]

I've been opening with Honor and then switching to full Tradition the past few games. This has been working quite well no matter the Civ, espec. with an early 20 culture ruin...

 

[Unresolved]

I've been opening with Honor and then switching to full Tradition the past few games. This has been working quite well no matter the Civ, espec. with an early 20 culture ruin...

The only problem with just opening Honor is that it will never make up for the increased culture costs. Not even with raging barbs on.

 

[flairin]

The only problem with just opening Honor is that it will never make up for the increased culture costs. Not even with raging barbs on.

Well, I finished Tradition between t70-80 so it worked alright... you always have the Oracle as well to catch up. It is just One xtra social policy... plus it gives more incentive to focus more on building units and attacking barbs early in the game as well as gaining an edge with CS. You could build your capital pretty well through turn 50-60 (certainly have another city or two with gold). You could easily be allied with 4-5 CS at this point (hopefully at least one Cultural, one Faith, and perhaps one or two Military). With all the units gained from military CS plus several that you built yourself you could easily pick up a few extra cities from a neighboring rival without sacrificing population in your capital or building a few wonders...

 

[Unresolved]

Well, I finished Tradition between t70-80 so it worked alright... you always have the Oracle as well to catch up. It is just One xtra social policy... plus it gives more incentive to focus more on building units and attacking barbs early in the game as well as gaining an edge with CS. You could build your capital pretty well through turn 50-60 (certainly have another city or two with gold). You could easily be allied with 4-5 CS at this point (hopefully at least one Cultural, one Faith, and perhaps one or two Military). With all the units gained from military CS plus several that you built yourself you could easily pick up a few extra cities from a neighboring rival without sacrificing population in your capital or building a few wonders...

In a normal science/diplo game, you would need to get 11 social policies + the free one from the Oracle. With Honor, that increases to 12 social policies and the Oracle. That's roughly a 2500 culture deficit with 3-4 cities; a number that the honor opener cannot possibly match. And there's also the argument that finishing Tradition too early is detrimental to being able to finish Rationalism + 2 in Order because you won't be in the Renaissance Era yet.

 

[flairin]

Well it depends on the victory condition your going for... I've played games that focused on rationalism too, going only 4 deep in Liberty by ignoring culture before reaching Renaissance and getting Ratl. opened with Oracle, then continuing down the Ratl. tree with my 5th soc. policy selection. It is possible to tear through Rationalism rapidly and jack up science if you play that way (done it by mid 100's before). For Order I'm only talking about the opener anyway and getting a quick start... In the examples I gave I focused on Civil Service rather than science at the top of the tree. I'm beginning to prefer having my capital with nearly a 10 pop by t50