Should you open honour before other policies?

[revco]

Hi all.
Is it a good idea to open honour for the culture from killing barbs, or does it delay getting settlers/workers too much?
I've done this the last couple of games. It only takes killing 5 barbs to cover the cost of the first policy and seems to be speeding me through a bit.
Haven't tried with raging barbs yet. Wondering if I have RB on, if the AI will open with honour too.

 

[Aaron90495]

If you don't want any of the Honor policies at all, it's not worth it to open Honor. If there are a lot of barbarians and/or you want to get into Honor quickly, you probably should just open it first. If you just want one or two policies in Honor, I'd say open Tradition/Liberty first.

 

[Xahz]

It's a really pitiful amount of culture. Honor is kind of a crappy tree, compared to Liberty and especially Tradition. It's good for specific civs that rely heavily on creeping (Songhai, Germany, Aztecs, maybe Celts). Also an alright choice for heavy domination civs like China. But I wouldn't open it just for the culture bonus, definitely not a good investment.

 

[Dr.Phil]

There are plenty of great reasons to open Honor, but the idea that the culture you earn from killing barbs will get you through another social policy tree faster isn't one of them. The math doesn't play out. You'll never break even, let alone speed up.

 

[revco]

Thanks for the replies.

 

[joncnunn]

Are you playing with raging barbs on or normal?

With raging barbs on, the Honor opener can speed up the first few policies on flat region land maps. (Barb camps formation is based on number of land tiles in fog of war and region maps have tons) But later it won't pay for itself.

 

[Lvrpool]

Oftentimes, I tend to lead with Honor, especially with Raging Barbarians on, as a small bonus for killing barbs is quite nice at times.

Also on the higher difficulties, having a combat bonus against them helps too, which is my main motive for opening up the Honor track (playing an Emperor game on an Arborea map at present - that combat bonus is paying dividends big time!!)

 

[Cicerosaurus]

Revco, here is a small thread that may help.

It has been entertaining playing that way. Not only culture, but the extra cash for killing enemies is helpful later in the game.

 

[Xiao Xiong]

A huge and often overlooked benefit of the honour opener is knowing WHERE the barb camps are. This sometimes allows you to send your settler somewhere without an escort, or at least the last part of the journey. For example, into a little peninsula that you have scouted--you KNOW whether or not a barb camp has spawned there, and so you KNOW that there are no barbs.

However I almost never take it as a FIRST policy. I often take it as a SECOND. I usually grab liberty first, sometimes tradition depending on the situation. The reason why I delay honour to the 2nd policy is by the time of the first I am mostly able to avoid barbs and just scout out the area, and I am not yet sending out settlers, and so not yet focused on clearing and escorting. By the time of my 2nd policy I'm trying to get settlers and workers out and the barbs are probably chasing my workers into cities and hunting down my settlers. Honour helps a lot with all that both in terms of the combat bonus and in knowing WHERE they are.

Also --

If you take honour you should never clear barb camps. Never. One of the huge benefits is that culture, and clearing a barb camp cuts off your supply of culture. Instead you should be building units and camping out next to the barb camps, reaping as much culture as possible, and levelling up. At this point the more barbs spawn the better.

 

[joncnunn]

I found on flat region maps; you can feel free to clear the camps to your hearts content; just relocate your forces back home after clearing and it will respawn in pretty much the same place in a few turns anyway.

On more normal style maps, it will respawn as well if you leave the territory in fog of war, but much slower.

There's two good reasons to clear camps:
1. A city state requests it; the free city state influence is worth it
2. There are some camp locations that eventually do end up being too close after the barbs get knowledge of Caravels and start blockading sea resource tiles from fog of war.

 

[Matthew.]

Clearing camps can be ok, especially if Songhai/Germany and such. Like Jon said, they often respawn in nearly the same location repeatedly, as long as you keep retreating back to replace fog of war.

I often camp out with an archer unit as well. It really depends on the map, who my opponents are and how close, where the fog of war is around my cities, etc. If it is a good map to keep them respawning, I will clear as much as I can. If it looks like all barb camps are going to get wiped out early, I will try to find one or two in out-of-the-way locations to camp a couple of archers.

Edit: As for honor tree, I like to think of it as an investment. Tradition/Liberty starts are stronger, but the gold on kill, faster promotions, instant happy/culture in captured cities is worth it for domination games as long as you are willing to put up with a weaker start. I wouldn't open honor just for the opener though. The long-term culture per turn isn't that great and ends once barbs are wiped off the map. It's only purpose really is to let you get to Military Caste and get +2 culture per city without the need for monuments.

 

[Xiao Xiong]

I love when the barbs get ships! I park a galleas or a frigate in a city next to their camp and level up! You get a lot of culture for that too... having your city blockaded for the 1 turn it takes for the city in combination with a frigate to take it out is probably worth the culture you get.

Also.. and this really speaks to how horrible the AI is at combat... on lots of maps I have seen an incoming AI army get totally tripped up by barbs from a nearby camp and it's often bought me another 3-4 turns to reinforce before they can get their attack underway. A barb camp near any potential enemy hinders my defense, but not nearly by as much as it hinders the AI's attack, so I love having barb camps near my city.

 

[sufficiency]

Pretty sure it takes 5 turns to kill a non-camp barb with your warrior and even more with camps.... so even if barb's are streaming into your base nonstop it's still not as good as 3 culture per turn from tradition.

 

[Seabastian Civ]

I'll only open Honor first when I play raging barbs. Then its right into Liberty (usually because I plan to have a massive puppet empire which I acquire with those barb-honed units).

BUT the real perk is camping out right between a barb camp and a city state... waiting for the barb to take a hit from the city (and maybe its archer) then swooping in to finish the barb and claim the influence reward. A super easy way to get a religion founded, get some extra happiness for expansion, or grow that capital. Plus, once you're friends you can camp inside the borders and crush invading barbs.

 

[Xahz]

Edit: As for honor tree, I like to think of it as an investment. Tradition/Liberty starts are stronger, but the gold on kill, faster promotions, instant happy/culture in captured cities is worth it for domination games as long as you are willing to put up with a weaker start. I wouldn't open honor just for the opener though. The long-term culture per turn isn't that great and ends once barbs are wiped off the map. It's only purpose really is to let you get to Military Caste and get +2 culture per city without the need for monuments.

Unfortunately, getting a strong start is 70% of the battle on Immortal or Deity. Liberty and Tradition just offer so much more than Honor, it's really difficult to make a case for starting it outside of a few select civs. +1 happy on defensive buildings and +15% production training melee units are such crappy policies. The finisher is also extremely underwhelming compared to 4 Aqueducts or a free GP. It says something when I start a game as Songhai and think "Crap, I have to open Honor this game".

I think giving free units (each new city spawns with an Archer maybe?) or bonuses for offensive buildings (Barracks, Armory, Heroic Epic etc...) would go a long way towards making Honor more viable for the warmonger. It's just too hard to sacrifice a huge boost in early growth for some mediocre combat bonuses that, quite frankly, aren't even necessary to win early wars.

 

[revco]

Thanks again.
I just figured that killing 5 barbs covered the cost of the opening policy on honour.

Cicerosaurus....thanks for that. I didn't realise there was a mod for unlimited barb experience. I'll give it a look.

I always play standard size/speed pangea and have just moved up to king. Will try raging barbs after my current game. Got a great starting position with Rome and am doing well.

I normally end up going for domination wins as I haven't got into the habit of specialising cities yet, and don't really get the chance to win by politer methods.

 

[ShuShu62]

... the idea that the culture you earn from killing barbs will get you through another social policy tree faster isn't one of them. The math doesn't play out. You'll never break even, let alone speed up.

Actually... the math does play out... in the short run.
Of course, it plays out even faster with tradition's 3 per turn (kill a barb every 2 turns)

In the long run as that 3 for tradition or somewhat less per turn for Honor plays a smaller percentage in your total culture per turn, it becomes a decision you will pay heavily for if you are not choosing that tier for other reasons once you start pulling in double digit culture from other sources.

another way to view it... in 250 turns, 3 per turn will get you 750 culture, but the policy at that point will cost much more than 750. but after 30 turns, tradition has netted me 90 and single handedly purchased two policies for me. I am playing huge vanilla emperor, and was toying with just how fast I could generate culture for policies (tradition...Honor...Liberty)...and the policies come very fast early, but even with a culture focus, these trickling culture sources are no match for city state, city and puppet culture sources over the long run.

So yes if you are going down the tree, choose it ASAP, otherwise, avoid it.

 

[KerwiniusJones]

I've been playing alot of Aztec lately... and I've been going Honor Opener then Tradition. Since with my UA I'm already going barb hunting early anyways... the combat bonus and finding out where camps are is huge...

Also... people seem to apply the same logic to the Honor Opener as they do to the Tradition and Liberty Opener. It's never worth it to get just the Liberty or Tradition opener for the culture if you're not finishing the tree since they won't pay for themselves and they pretty much only offer culture (i don't think people would grab Tradition Opener just for the border growth) , but the Honor Opener does alot more than just give culture.

 

[Matthew.]

Unfortunately, getting a strong start is 70% of the battle on Immortal or Deity.

No argument there. Unfortunately Immortal/Deity games are rough on early domination with or without Honor. Even Liberty is heavily reduced in effectiveness, the GP the only thing saving it from falling into the same category as Honor.

The finisher is also extremely underwhelming compared to 4 Aqueducts or a free GP.

Don't be so quick on writing off the finisher. This is exactly what I meant by "investment". At 1AD, no, it isn't that great. But when playing aggressively in the second half of the game with Big Ben and Commerce, you are able to purchase a combat unit every two turns from clearing out AI spam. It is difficult to notice just how useful it is, because it isn't a steady static number, but I think if you were to add up all the gold gained throughout an entire domination game you'd find that it is a very significant amount.

 

[Matthew.]

(i don't think people would grab Tradition Opener just for the border growth)

I have

When playing around with domination games going straight to mustkets/cannons while ignoring amphitheaters/opera, border growth is extremely slow. But even then it isn't just for the opener. If I grab Tradition opener and still plan on Honor, I will get Oligarchy as well for the free garrisons.