Your opinion on Honor vs Liberty (Diety)

[omnishakira]

Hi,

I cant decide which one is the best to take on diety. I don't go on CiV forums very often and I wonder what policie is the best on diety... is it something ''solved'' by the community or are they both kinda equal ?

I feel like liberty is good at first but really sucks compared to honor later in the game

I'd like to have opinions from the community

Obv I exclude barbarian oriented UA civilizations from the debate. I'm talking about maps that does not require ships to attack any Civ (pangea, terra, lakes etc)

 

[DevilHell]

Hi,

I cant decide which one is the best to take on diety. I don't go on CiV forums very often and I wonder what policie is the best on diety... is it something ''solved'' by the community or are they both kinda equal ?

I feel like liberty is good at first but really sucks compared to honor later in the game

I'd like to have opinions from the community

Obv I exclude barbarian oriented UA civilizations from the debate. I'm talking about maps that does not require ships to attack any Civ (pangea, terra, lakes etc)

Well Honor is for aggressive, most early expansionists.
Liberty is for peaceful expansive Civs, but I think it really sucks, the settler thing doesn't cheer my up that much, nor the 25% working rate, those things don't really matter on quickness (again, for me)
3 production isn't to much but it helps.. again, depends on what you wanna do.
Happiness per trade route hummm not worth it
33% of culture whtvr da fuq and golden age.. May be useful, and of course, the great person at the end of the tree, worth it??
Based on you said pangea terra or lakes I would choose Honor non doubting

Edit: advantages of Honor, production of military units 15% more, free general ---> those 2 facts define an early war , 10 % stronger for adjdacent tile unit it's something
50% more experience from combat, plus barracks armory whtvr da fuq the other 2 are called gets your units on top military
1 happiness 2 culture per garrison well that's bs but 1 hapiness from every wall castle arsenal military base O.o, buildings that don't cost mantainance providing hapiness, with an avergae big empire helps ALUT to expansion, and the 33% reduced cost of upgrading military, early acquired might be the best of all
Don't forget culture for killing barbarians what would make you go barb hunting.. and the gold for enemy units killed I would say helps a lot

So compare

 

[Tabarnak]

Liberty is nice to get a tech advantage and attack with superior units. Like you said, on water maps, honor is extremely powerful. Highly promoted frigates are just OP.

I think honor is great for civs with nice early UUs. Honor is more situationnal. Liberty is more general. Liberty is the best tree to achieve the fastest climb for science, culture and diplo victories. But you will also find that Liberty is also used for fast domination games under levels below deity.

That said, honor is more powerful vs Liberty at deity than any other levels, mainly because you can fight an astronomic amount of units through the game and promote them like mad.

 

[omnishakira]

I think barrack is kinda worthless when u have the +50% exp / plan to adopt it

 

[EEE_BOY]

1. Depends how close your first target is
2. Depends on UU is in Medieval, if yes, liberty finisher for a timing attack

 

[JeanBaptiste]

Why not both?

 

[Resonance]

I struggle with implementing honor as first policy tree for deity warfare. It is all about speed then and I feel like I just don't have that with honor.


From my experience, the AI is strongest in the late medieval/early renaissance era. Generally I try to strike before that period for example with a sword rush turn 50-60ish, or I try to outpace at least the slow AI's and hit them with rifles/cannons around turn 110-130. In between I find myself in defensive wars without substantial gains.
The main reasons for this are castles, resulting in Str30+ cities, and the fact that though the carpet of doom is not yet there the AI still has to many strong units on the field that need killing. Cities in bottleneck locations are out of reach for me in that period, and the stalemate is broken by cannons or later units only.

This results for me in taking liberty first almost always, and implementing honor as a second tree (rationalism opener in between) for happiness reasons. Stuff like the 4 city swords strat is significantly slower with honor. You have fewer cities, fewer workers, fewer improvements and lose out on 10 happiness from ND. Seems not worth it to me, but maybe I am overlooking something.

 

[Arilian]

I think libery is just 100% more OP.
Having one era tech advantage is mutch better than anything in honor.

 

[Hvuchew]

If you go with Aztec and take Honour - the culture gain from the wins will help you catch up with the policy delay. And if you manage to leave alive some barbarian camps around - your culture will simply fly on the early stages. AI can become a free donor of culture for you.
And let’s not forget the gold - once you finish the policy tree you can just place DoW with AI (not that any of the AI’s will wait too long before attacking you any way) and barricade one city - the income will flow by itself.

Even if you are a bit behind in science – you can manage before you expand / take over some AIs. On Domination – you can even afford to be behind the strongest AI until the very end – and catch up then.

 

[GrandAdmiral]

I cant decide which one is the best to take on diety. I don't go on CiV forums very often and I wonder what policie is the best on diety... is it something ''solved'' by the community or are they both kinda equal ?

I feel like liberty is good at first but really sucks compared to honor later in the game

You usually go liberty and maybe pick up some of honor later. Starting full honor isn't as common and is usually done under certain circumstances. There's probably more people pulling off tradition on diety than honor. For someone new to diety, going full honor is going to be more of a challenge.

Liberty doesn't suck later in the game, it just doesn't have as many big numbers in the tooltips, so the benefits are hard to visualize. You have to consider things like your tech lead, the wonders it may get you, and the result of constructing certain buildings earlier. With liberty you can maximize RAs and reach the game changing and game finishing units first. Getting UUs, cannons, artillery, and stealth bombers first doesn't suck late game compared to honor.

Liberty is for peaceful expansive Civs, but I think it really sucks, the settler thing doesn't cheer my up that much, nor the 25% working rate, those things don't really matter on quickness (again, for me)
3 production isn't to much but it helps.. again, depends on what you wanna do.
Happiness per trade route hummm not worth it
33% of culture whtvr da fuq and golden age.. May be useful, and of course, the great person at the end of the tree, worth it??
Based on you said pangea terra or lakes I would choose Honor non doubting

A free worker and settler is huge on diety. If you're not seeing much benefit from it, then your build order probably needs some improvement. The free great person comes when the most important wonders are available so it's very strong. If anything liberty is OP compared to the other starters. Liberty is not exclusive to peaceful civs by a long shot. It's actually a more common starter for current domination victories than honor.

 

[Arimae70]

Why not both?

Exactly my thoughts - Honor is the 2nd tree I finish right after Liberty. Usually play Mongols

 

[JeanBaptiste]

Exactly my thoughts - Honor is the 2nd tree I finish right after Liberty. Usually play Mongols

Yep. I usually start off though with the Honor opener (and then in to Liberty) since barbs are more of an issue early game. The exception would be if I'm rushing towards the GL and need the free worker asap.

 

[omnishakira]

havent tot about doing both

I always use 1 of the 3... using 2 of them never occured to me. Do you complete them both ? Do you fully complete 1 b4 adopting the other ?

 

[RedRover57]

On Deity I think I would only consider starting with Honor when playing the Aztecs, or maybe Germany. Liberty is just too strong. If you are going peaceful and tall you can start with Tradition on Deity, with the right map, but even then Liberty is still usually better for the faster start.

 

[DaveMcW]

is it something ''solved'' by the community or are they both kinda equal ?

Yes it's solved, Liberty always wins.

At least until the next patch.

 

[Tabarnak]

Yes it's solved, Liberty always wins.

At least until the next patch.

I'm really looking forward something more balanced. It was almost done before the last major june 2011 patch until they screwed Tradition and nerfed happiness.