When, if ever, is it ideal to adopt Honor?

[Athenaeum]

Adopting Honor before completing Tradition would delay Tradition completion, so I don't see a good use there unless you're trying to early rush.

Mid-Late game and onwards, if you're going military, you're probably better off adopting autocracy tenets than going back and doing Honor.

Obviously you want to focus on Rationalism as soon as the Renaissance era comes around.


So besides cases in which you want to early rush people, and if you have a couple extra policies to spare post-Tradition and pre-Renaissance, what other scenarios would it be ideal to adopt Honor?

With Sweden, for the Great General you can give to a City-State?

With Zulu (once again for [semi]-early rush)?

With Aztecs to enhance barb killing for culture?

 

[reddishrecue]

Honor has improvements for military units. If you're going for a domination victory you can get honor to have better units with higher experience. Also, if you finish off the honor tree, you get paid per unit killed which pays off.

 

[phillipwyllie]

...what other scenarios would it be ideal to adopt Honor?...

For me if you open Honor you should complete it and that means DomV. If I had a spare policy that would go in Commerce.

...and if you have a couple extra policies to spare post-Tradition and pre-Renaissance, what other scenarios would it be ideal to adopt Honor?...

What about post Ideology/World's Fair. Sometimes when pursuing a SV and I'm left with 1 policy in Rationalism and 1 away from SS Pioneers I might dump the the entire WF buff into Honor. The next policy will complete Rationalism and the Sydney Opera House will "finish" Freedom. I can then kill everyone since the units I'll be building will be XCOM and Stealth Bombers, might as well get some gold for my "troubles"

 

[joncnunn]

Can't think of a single instance in which it's actually ideal to adopt Honor in SP.

If planning on conquering and keeping in place, full Tradition first works much better for this.
Followed by filler policies with economic bonuses while waiting to be allowed into Rationalism.

The tactical AI just isn't good enough to need any combat bonuses against it.

For the massive clear and refound in the correct locations approach to conquering, full Liberty first works much better for this. Again followed by filler policies with economic bonuses while waiting to be allowed into Rationalism.

Unless playing Poland, you'll definitely have founded an ideology by the time you are one policy away from completing Rationalism, and if you are going for domination, Autocracy works better.

 

[Gen.Washington]

I went honor in my recent wide science game, one of the policies gives you 1 happiness for each defensive building and is pretty handy, I went from 2 happiness to 100, but other then that I don't find honor super helpful.

 

[Browd]

You must not be playing BNW. In BNW, Professional Army no longer provides happiness from defensive buildings: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=541110

 

[Gen.Washington]

True.

 

[Delnar_Ersike]

Warrior Code gives a +50% Great General production I believe (it's missing from the page Browd linked), so it's good for Mongolia (unique GG) and China (boost on top of existing GG boost) as well, with Sweden also being able to make use of the benefit.

In multiplayer, Great Generals are vital to breaking stalemates and holding positions. If you anticipate a lot of wars, 2 points into Honor for the filler trees between starter tree and Rationalism may be more useful than 2 points into Commerce.

 

[Browd]

Delnar is correct. The linked article has been corrected.

 

[consentient]

Honor Finisher generates an absurd amount of gold. Honor is great for Domination victories.

 

[MarauderCH]

I take it with Tradition when I plan a later game Domination game. I fill out Tradition first and then fill out Honor as needed around other policies I want to take. If I am going early game domination, I don't take tradition. The only civ I open tradition early with is the Aztecs. This doubles the culture you get from killing barbarians. I also have raging barbarians on. This balances out the cost of taking the Honor policy fairly good.

 

[reddishrecue]

Ranging barbarians is also a good time to take out honor.

 

[ShakaKhan]

When, if ever, is it ideal to adopt Honor?

When you're playing slightly below the difficulty level you can handle and you're not concerned about achieving a victory condition at the absolute maximum speed and efficiency.

 

[Novu]

Play Korea and the Free general is worth it for the +2 science after using the general to build a citadel. The +2 science per turn is worth it when when your capital is only 4 or 5 population at the start of the game.

 

[LordBalkoth]

Novu's advice is terrible, it's not worth delaying Tradition finisher by *two* policies for that 2 science.

Honor Finisher generates an absurd amount of gold. Honor is great for Domination victories.

This is only true on higher difficulties in single player. I've had games where the honor finisher was giving 300+ gpt, was crazy. I stayed in wars solely to earn massive gold.

 

[Acken]

I'd take the opener only if I'm going to get the rest or at least one of the two branch.

 

[Redaxe]

It's probably worth it for Sweden so you can get more great generals to gift to citystates.

 

[InFlux5]

I wish Honor was better so there was more strategy in the early/mid game. (I guess I could say the same about Piety....)

My problem with Honor is twofold. One is that barbarians are just not enough of a presence to make the adoption benefit that useful. Second is that too many of the bonuses apply only to melee units. This is an annoying restriction that makes me avoid the tree pretty much all the time. (Why shouldn't my mounted and ranged units benefit from my militaristic ways?)

 

[Redaxe]

I wish Honor was better so there was more strategy in the early/mid game. (I guess I could say the same about Piety....)

My problem with Honor is twofold. One is that barbarians are just not enough of a presence to make the adoption benefit that useful. Second is that too many of the bonuses apply only to melee units. This is an annoying restriction that makes me avoid the tree pretty much all the time. (Why shouldn't my mounted and ranged units benefit from my militaristic ways?)

Yep and on Diety the barb camps get cleaned up by the AI very quickly.