Who's Making Honor Work?

[knighterrant81]

Ho

nor sucked at G&K but still had points. Still on rare situations could outweight tradition-liberty.

Now tradition fits into the game even better, and honor just rises difficulty by a lot. Early conquest is more of a problem than a benefit.

What many people doesn't see is not that honor has not benefits, is that other starts are simply better in nearly any situation. Cooking settings and choosing a honor-friendly civ doesn't make honor better.

Honor just need some actual support to what is designed for. What's the point of units and conquest if you can't afford any of that.

- Some free-to-maintain units could make a suitable economical boost to maintain an actual army (you still have to build those units).

- Having to garrison units for happiness is horrible (is your ONLY source of extra happiness in honor, so is mostly needed at all times), defeats the purpose of massing and upgrading an army. Place those bonuses in buildings instead and problem solved.

My vision of honor would maintain what it actually does plus:

- Four maintenance-free units (only the maintenance, not the units)

- +1 Happiness from stables and forges, +2 culture from walls, instead of stupid garrisons.

- Take back +1 happiness from walls (only from walls to have some early conquest margin).

Still tradition and liberty are much better for empire building, but this could lead into some situations it witch honor could be marginally BETTER than the other starters.

I think the *idea* of Honor is to let you rack up lots of cities. So Tradition = getting ahead using fewer cities with large populations, Liberty = getting ahead using more cities with smaller populations, and Honor = getting ahead by getting more cities that have already been built up by your neighbor.

If Honor was the *only way* you could reasonably expect to conquer cities, then it would be a really strong tree (definitely stronger than Liberty, anyway). However, its not too hard as Tradition or Liberty to conquer and hold several cities, which makes the benefits of Honor pretty moot.

Maybe, in addition to some of your suggestions (I particularly like the idea of a few free units, which is what makes Oligarchy so powerful), Composite Bows need to be nerfed in some ways - probably in offense, not defense (or the AI buffed in military, but that seems almost impossible with 1 upt).

 

[Matthew.]

Honor doesn't need successful, early conquests. You cannot look at the starting policies only in the context of the first 60 turns, but how they work in a full game.

All it needs to do is reward war-monger playstyle in the same way Tradition rewards tall players and Liberty rewards wide players. Whether you are taking cities on turn 70 or turn 180 is irrelevant as long as it is still rewarding players who put more of an investment into larger military and waging war.

Needing garrisons for happiness and culture--actually a punishment, not a reward. You need to invest hammers/gold into a unit to garrison, and then pay maintenance on that unit which becomes very expensive by late-game. If you want to reward players by keeping full garrisons, at least have them be maintenance free (Oligarchy).

Half cost on barracks buildings is worthless. You get early-game experience through barbs so you are, again, being punished by building and paying maintenance on buildings. If you want to reward players have XP buildings give 1 gold and cost zero maintenance similar to how Paper Maker works. Reward the player for putting forth the effort to build XP buildings by giving gold, not taking gold.

A measly 15% on melee production. Not only is the bonus small, but only applies to melee units. Reward players by giving 15% on all military production, or something worthwhile like 50% on melee units. No way 50% is too strong, as you still need to pay maintenance on the trained units and melee still has limited use in combat.

I actually like Discipline, Military Tradition, and the finisher. But it comes at the heavy cost of paying extra unit maintenance to keep full garrisons, and two worthless policies that punish you if you try and exploit them (building early barracks = building maintenance and pumping out melee = weaker army overall). Fix Honor by removing the punishments and it would go a long way to helping bring it up to par to Liberty.

 

[sadv]

I think the biggest problem with Honor is that it doesn't give you much in the way of free stuff or flat bonuses. Early on, getting small % increases to building units and combat strength is nothing compared to getting free buildings, workers, settlers, and flat benefits to production, growth, happiness, and gold.
The benefits from Honor aren't bad if you have a large military. But this won't be the case if you take it as an opening tree.

To fix Honor, it needs to give you more benefit during Ancient and Classical. For instance:


Opener: Two free warriors appear outside the Capital (or tech equivalent, no maintenance). Notifications will be provided when new Barbarian Encampments spawn in revealed territory. Gain Culture for the empire from each barbarian unit killed. Unlocks building the Teracotta Army wonder.

Having additional units to hunt barbs, defend, scout, and threaten CS with would give Honor a more dynamic opening. It would also give you some time to build your early buildings without being rushed into building military units just so you can take advantage of your policy tree. I also think the Teracotta Army is a more useful, and interesting, wonder than Statue of Zeus for an early warmonger.


Warrior Code: +2 Production when training Military units and when building Military and Defensive buildings.

15% production translates into 1 hammer for every 7 you have. Completely worthless until much later. It also only effected the production of melee units. A flat bonus is a lot more useful for cranking out early Archers and Catapults. Especially since your secondary cities will probably be lacking because you didn't go Tradition or Liberty. General moved to discipline.


Military Tradition: Military Units gain 50% more Experience from combat. Heroic Epic provides +5 Happiness.

A solid policy as is. Added the extra happiness because I have removed it from Military Caste.


Discipline: +15% combat strength for military Units which have another military Unit in an adjacent tile. Great General appears outside the capital. Great Generals are earned 25% faster.

Another policy with negligible effect early on. Added the General to make it more appealing


Military Caste: Provides a free military building (Barracks, Armory, Military Academy) in your first 4 cities. 50% of extra Unhappiness in occupied cities with a garrison is eliminated. (Half the effect of a Courthouse)

The original Military Caste was contradictory. Why would a Policy tree focused on war want you to tie up a bunch of your units in cities, most of which probably aren't under any threat? Giving you a free Barracks allows you to get your Heroic Epic without having to stall unit production. The second effect helps mitigate some unhappiness until you get a Courthouse up in captured cities.


Professional Army: Maintenance paid and Gold cost of upgrading military units reduced by 33%.

A policy which reduced building time of the Military line this late in the tree is kind of silly. You probably already have your Barracks and Armory in your production cities by this point. Reduced unit maintenance makes more sense.



Finisher: Adopting all policies in the Honor tree will grant Gold each time an enemy unit is killed and receive 10 Culture as plunder for each point of Culture produced in the captured city. It also allows the the purchase of Great Generals with Faith starting from the Industrial Era.

The regular finisher plus the opener from the old Autocracy tree.



I put too much effort into this.

 

[JeSuisNapoleon]

there does seem to be lot of dislike of honor. It must be the new expansion causing this. In GnK I always felt it lead to fun games with domination at the end.

It rarely makes sense to open with honor and then fully decorate it all the way. but if you do get it all decked out eventualy, you can go on to wage war very successfuly. the gold from units killed is superb.

Yes, you must garrison units, but those are going to be units you dont upgrade so the cost is low. I have warmongered and found my original warrior holding the fort in a captured city at turn 250. You can get free unit from CS's and those are FREE, so if you can get those, then that can allow for garrisons without dragging production (production which is cheaper, because you choose honor policies).

do I really pay a lot for unit maintenace for a warrior?

anyhow, if you can manage to get full honor and 2 or 3 autocracy policies, you cannot be stopped. It a cake walk from there.

 

[NukeAJS]

Turn 100 is way too late to start an early war. Since you're going honor first/practically first, you are basically all-in for an early war.

As Assyria, you're in a great spot for an early war. Just found that second city, bee-line mathematics ASAP, and start both of the cities on siege towers ASAP. When you get four siege towers or so, just go plummel someone's cities. The Assyria UA removes the opportunity cost of doing something crazy like bee-lining mathematics. If you do Assyria right, you'll have capped two capitals and you won't be behind in tech.

And the reason honor is weak is not because the individual policies are weak. It's a weak tree because policies that support large empires are in tradition and liberty. If you settle three cities and keep two capitals early in the game, you will crimp your growth because of happiness. Especially because you're probably going to have to bully a CS or two to keep your economy afloat and CSs are one of the tools a player can use to support a 5+ city empire early in the game.

So, if you do honor right, chances are you're going to fall on your own sword.

I personally think the the individual honor policies are just fine, but they need to be rearranged. Military caste is helpful for keeping happiness up, but it's on the wrong side of the tree and too far down. Professional army was better when walls gave +1 happiness -- basically a no maintenance happiness point that was nice because other AIs will hate you after wiping two civs off the map before turn 100 and a supported walled city is very difficult, if not impossible, to take.

If I were Firaxis God, military caste would go where discipline is. Discipline would have an additional -10% maintenance on all units. Faster barracks would be moved to the opener so it'd actually be useful for early game war. Professional army would get +1 happiness from defensive structures. Fortified borders in autocracy would make forts and citadels more effective and the happiness would be removed from defensive structures. It would also confer a defensive bonus to any eligible units adjacent/in a city with a castle.

The left side of the tree is just fine.

 

[NukeAJS]

Oh and honor is like piety. It's a lot better to take after you get a lot or complete tradition/liberty or if you sprinkle and extra policy here and there.

Culture hut -> tradition opener-> legalism (don't build a monument in the capital)-> honor opener-> monarchy-> warrior code-> military tradition almost always results in my best early game war mongering if I want to pick up honor. It is also the fastest you can get early SPs without the help of wonders/religion.

Lastly, it's nice to eventually get both oligarchy and military caste which results in a free two culture, one happiness, and a large army to deter your rivals/bully CSs for cash while paying nothing for those units in your cities. Oligarchy also makes any counter-attack/angry civs that DoW pretty much doomed to fail.

 

[Antarion]

That, i think, would be very difficult to implement. With AI's high sensitivity to war and city capture, and player's dependence on AI for trade routes (let's throw nerfed commerce into the mix too) a see zero reason to use early rushes (honor) as a base for economic/diplomatic development. The tree was bad in GK, now it is even worse, especially for high level play. No one in their good mind will use it in MP either.

Maybe we don't need honor at all, but rather an improved piety tree for more competitive religious starts?

Better to have one good tree instead of two mediocre ones, in my opinion ..

I cant express how wrong your Point is here. Honor is Great as First tree for total Map Control which means controling barbs, Safe Trade routes quick influence over City States and finally blocking enemies Off the best Places for settlements.

 

[JeSuisNapoleon]

Oh and honor is like piety. It's a lot better to take after you get a lot or complete tradition/liberty or if you sprinkle and extra policy here and there.

Culture hut -> tradition opener-> legalism (don't build a monument in the capital)-> honor opener-> monarchy-> warrior code-> military tradition almost always results in my best early game war mongering if I want to pick up honor. It is also the fastest you can get early SPs without the help of wonders/religion.

Lastly, it's nice to eventually get both oligarchy and military caste which results in a free two culture, one happiness, and a large army to deter your rivals/bully CSs for cash while paying nothing for those units in your cities. Oligarchy also makes any counter-attack/angry civs that DoW pretty much doomed to fail.

^ This pretty much sums it up. at least how I feel about it.
its a rough road to pile on honor alone, but getting it complete while detouring through tradition (or Liberty perhaps) can work very well.

you dont need all of tradition or all of lib. I have also just opened up Rationalism for the +15% beakers and nothing else, pouring the rest of my policies into autocracy for the end game.

with monty, you get double culture from UA + Honor, gold for units killed. Depending on autocracy you can get sick gold and culture in the end game from capturing cities. Near the end, happines does not matter as much because you will be stomping the AI so hard, and growth wont matter because you are less than 20 turns from victory

If you need to make peace, consider refusing to make peace with enemy-allied CS's, because you can keep killing thier units for gold and XP.