The New Hinnom Nation

[Xanatos]

Wow, anyone else tried this nation out yet? Those Melqarts are crazy! Playing in SP with them to see how they work - with an e9 n9 bless on a sleeping pretender - if you take scales to counter the high resource cost (125!) on those melqart commanders, you have a veritable mini SC without equipment right off the bat..unequipped they can solo large provinces - they can self bless themselves and take everything on...having Fear+0 doesn't hurt either

with construction two items, with a melqart that got e2 with his paths, i have a 69 hp, 29 protection, 19 MR, 24 str, 15 attk, 18 defense size 6 supercombatant with Trample (Via boots), fear +0, and thats WITHOUT bless, or a custom sword/shield..

there is no stopping these things that early in the game..surely? Even an SC god might go down to these...

[MaxWilson]

Melqarts look pretty good, but then there are a lot of nations that can solo indies with an E9N9 bless. Yomi, Niefelheim, come to mind. Lanka doesn't solo them with commanders but Palankashas have the same effect (and are a lot cheaper). Frankly, it's hard to beat Niefel Jarls for naked soloing power (the huge chill aura is the key here), and the Dai Yomi is a much better endgame battlemage than the Melqart. Not to be putting down the Melqart--the extra horn attack helps--but let's keep things in proportion here. I.e. let's try not to get Hinnom/Ashdod nerfed unnecessarily.

Did you notice the Qedestim? "Although ordained as priests, their main function is another." Nice and subtle, there.

-Max

P.S. What's the encumbrance on your super-Melqart thug that tramples?

[Lingchih]

Yes, they are very good. But, they eat your population. Nuff said?

[Xanatos]

ya...im having to pump those e2 mages out to counter supply problems but i took growth to counter that as ewll.

[hunt11]

but that could be a good thing as well, make one massive sacred army composing of 100 holy troops, your prophet (a Melqart) and a couple mages. With this army you could destroy armies and SC with ease, and and country they take will be impossible for people to use because most of the people would be in one of your giants bellies

[Xanatos]

they eat population?

[hunt11]

any time you have more then 3 of them in a province, your population will decline, even in a growth 3 province

[K]

Xanatos said:
they eat population?



Yup.

I even got an event where a Melqart ate one of my Raephalites (your 125 gold Holy troops.) I thought dragons were bad when they ate blood slaves. Sheesh!

[Xanatos]

not seen that yet, did you take unlucky?

[Taqwus]

Yup. They eat pop. Somebody else noted that it seemed to be about 30/turn. All the Hinnom Rephaim -- the units and commanders -- do. Might want to put points instead into Growth and Order, at least if it's not a small blitz map.

Their appetites are more mild in Ashdod -- slightly more than their size suggests, but not pop-slaughtering, it seems.

[Xanatos]

i hadn't even noticed it with growth 1 on

[K]

Xanatos said:
not seen that yet, did you take unlucky?



Yeh. They have fortune tellers and province defense that can withstand barbarians, so it seemed like a no brainer.

[Kristoffer O]

Then you'll miss their best events http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Meglobob]

Xanatos said:
they eat population?



They do eat population and is it on the same level as LA Ermor destroys population?

I have already seen it mentioned 30 pop/turn for a single one and up to 500 pop/turn if you have a crowd.

Fairly big drawback in a big game. Does growth cancel it out or not?

[hunt11]

does anybody know any good area of affect magic weapons that they can forge

[K]

If they can get some Death boosters and combine them with Earth boosters, then they can make Shadow Brands.

[chrispedersen]

I have no MP experience.. but this nation looks too strong to me. And I actually think bless is just an incidental with this nation. A ridiculously nice incidental, but still suboptimal.

I'm starting an MP with this race, so I don't want to give away too many details. But from the way I look at things, the strongest unit is actually the size 6 tramplers at 75 gold.

Max out gold and production and you can make an army a turn that can take almost any indy.

[Agrajag]

Did you notice the Qedestim? "Although ordained as priests, their main function is another." Nice and subtle, there.


I also noticed how the Qedesim have 2 less morale than the Qedesot.
I wasn't sure why at first, then I realized I would probably have low morale as well if I were in their place >.>

(Oh, and I'm pretty sure Qedestim in the description is a mistake and it should be Qedesim. Makes more sense in Hebrew at least.)

[ano]

Description says that they eat population if they have no supplies to consume. Is it true?

[Twan]

IMO the nation is excellent, devouring population just forces it to be on the offensive all the time, and rely on thugs + chariots + indies more than the sacreds troops. But it's not a problem considering the quality of these ones. So the nation seem well suited for a medium bless good for thugs (like earth/astral 4 -or blood/nature allowing you reach high blood easily as it opens armor of twisting thorns-) and good scales (including growth 3).

Devouring pop consequences are the big thugs have to be sent to the front as soon as possible, and bloodhunting to be organized differently than with other nations, as all devour 20 pop (Kohen) or more, if you use 12 or so hunters on one province it would soon reduce populations under 6k. So for a good regular slave income you need to bloodhunt every province having sufficient pop with no more than one or two kohen with dousing rods, which mean you tax all your big provinces at about 70%, and you have more microgestion to do (carrying slaves to labs), but population reduction remain manageable with some growth.

Then, if Hinnom survive to endgame, I think it enters the totally unbalanced category, due to the monopoly on grigoris. Just think about it : since the nerf to tartarians, reliable unique SCs you can summon with blood (the only ressource you can gather in unlimited quantities, proportionnal to your number of commanders) become the most interesting, and no one is summonable by other nations without the risk of losing its price (if someone already have it). Of course there are still wished seraphs or pretender chassis to compete against them in the reliable SC category, but even if you have pearls they are far to be as cost effective - a wish for slaves give you the ressources to summon 1,4 grigori (already commander, so you also economize 20n).

Having monopoly on grigoris basically mean Hinnom can lose the race to endgame magic and still have 6 risk free first choice SCs. Or can win the race to blood magic, deny the other nations the fire devils and demon lords, and then have unlimited time to summon grigoris in addition.

I think for MP interest no endgame really good category of unique SC summon should be one nation only. It would be cool if grigoris could be linked with 3 other nations at least (as a national spell can be shared by 4 nations) so their summoning wouldn't be risk free. I think some thematic justifications shouldn't be hard to add in some existing nations backgrounds, or rival rephaim tribes should be added as new nations in a next patch.

[hunt11]

Twan you have some good points but their is one problem, who else would summon then. The grigori are Hinnom's forefather's so why would the grigori help anybody else

[Saulot]

I'm pretty sure a spell can only be shared by 3 nations. Though it can have multiple copies.

[Twan]

hunt11 said:
Twan you have some good points but their is one problem, who else would summon then. The grigori are Hinnom's forefather's so why would the grigori help anybody else



I imagine for example, that Grigoris mortal spouses can have their own story. As the Rephaim society is patriarcal with 100% of male commanders, it may mean the rephaim first mothers, who learned too much secrets from the grigoris, have been banished by their sons and founded their own society, teaching it how to call their lovers. It may be an amazon society (linking Grigoris and Sauromatia -and cannibal witch kings may have some logical affinities with rephaims mothers-) or perhaps they had new sons, another giant race more respectful to women (=Fomoria).

(my examples are not good, as these two are not blood nations, they are just examples made in the minute)

ps : yes it's 3 in fact

[Meglobob]

The problem is not enough viable/powerful, magically diverse (ie...anything other than death/astral) SC chasis for the end game.

A new spell was added this patch which is very nice, manifest vitriol, so why not add a couple of new lvl 9 spells to add non-nation specific SC's.

The benefits of doing so are:-

An end to tartarians, tartarians and nothing but tartarians. No point in nerfing them if there are no viable alternatives!

You can then have nation only specific SC's like the Grigori with no end game balance issues.

Freshen up the end game considerably.

Help blance nations with no access or very weak access to death/astral.

Help balance nations with no national only spells or weak national only spells.

Currently, Death, Blood have plenty of summonable SC's/thugs so they are okay.

Astral has wish and other powerful end game spells, master enslave etc... so that is ok.

Earth has unique artifacts, all the magic items so leave earth alone.

This leaves Fire/Air/Nature/Water very weak in the SC department having no really outstanding SC summon, I know there are elemental kings/queens but they are unique and very limited in number. Sadly the tarrasque does not cut it either.

[ano]

I completely agree with Twan. Nation specific endgame super-powerful summons may ruin the balance.
The only consolations is that Hinnom is rather bad at research and will face many problems on the way to Grigori.

[ano]

Meglobob, +1

[hunt11]

This is how I see the spell. The Rephiam are just paying for their grandparents to visit, it's just that their grandparents are very powerful demons, and they need to sacrifice virgins instead of paying for a ticket. Anyway the mothers of the Rephiam are nobody special, they were just normal female giants, and the fact is that the mothers would have stayed put after they gave birth anyway.

[mathusalem]

I agree with Meglobob too, Dom3 need more summoning chassis for end game.

[LDiCesare]

I made a small test where Hinnom's sacreds with a moderate bless (E6N4, earth was for the mages but it's not really useful) ate everyone else. I ran them into T'ien Ch'i with a F9W9 bless and T'ien Ch'i couldn't do anything against them. Considering I don't know how to play Hinnom yet and managed to get some respectable results wiht EA TC in MP, I tend to believe the nation is overpowered. Their sacreds and chariots are very very powerful, and with Growth 3 it took some time for the population to dwindle. And even then, population didn't fall low enough to be a concern.
I'd like to point out that the Ammi can be built without a lab, which is a little advantage compared to the rest, but it's really silly to be able to build a lvl2 mage without a lab.

[MaxWilson]

Taqwus said:
Yup. They eat pop. Somebody else noted that it seemed to be about 30/turn. All the Hinnom Rephaim -- the units and commanders -- do. Might want to put points instead into Growth and Order, at least if it's not a small blitz map.

Their appetites are more mild in Ashdod -- slightly more than their size suggests, but not pop-slaughtering, it seems.



Yeah, it makes it really annoying to take on LA Ermor because each warrior takes 9 supply. I've pretty much given up on keeping them supplied in my current game. My guys have an N6 bless so I'm just using indy priests and a shield wall of blessed Ahiman Anakites who are starving and disease-ridden (but still have good morale anyway after blessing, and regenerate so they still heal during battles).

-Max

[MaxWilson]

chrispedersen said:
I'm starting an MP with this race, so I don't want to give away too many details. But from the way I look at things, the strongest unit is actually the size 6 tramplers at 75 gold.

Max out gold and production and you can make an army a turn that can take almost any indy.



Most tramplers are very good for expansion. C'tis and Arco love their charioteers. Of course, the Avvite chariot has more hit points than a C'tissian chariot.

-Max

[Zeldor]

But hmm... aren't other charioteers size4, not6? That is huge difference in trampling...

[MaxWilson]

Meglobob said:
This leaves Fire/Air/Nature/Water very weak in the SC department having no really outstanding SC summon, I know there are elemental kings/queens but they are unique and very limited in number. Sadly the tarrasque does not cut it either.



Conceptually, I like the Tarrasque. I'd like to see it boosted. It's already a pretty serious combatant, but the lack of slots and magic means it doesn't make a good SC if you GoR it. It's a dragon, so what if it was made flying, and had N3E1 magic (when GoR'ed)?

-Max

[MaxWilson]

Zeldor said:
But hmm... aren't other charioteers size4, not6? That is huge difference in trampling...



Size 6 does let you trample twice as many units, and makes the trampling do a little bit more damage. That's the difference between C'tis/Arco's chariots and Caelum's/Kailasa's mammoths. I haven't noticed that chariots (or troglodytes) have any trouble at all walking all over indies, but it's possible that mammoths and Avvite chariots do better against national troops. I have limited experience with mammoths and none with MP so I'll decline to give an opinion there.

-Max

[LDiCesare]

MaxWilson said:
Size 6 does let you trample twice as many units, and makes the trampling do a little bit more damage. That's the difference between C'tis/Arco's chariots and Caelum's/Kailasa's mammoths. I haven't noticed that chariots (or troglodytes) have any trouble at all walking all over indies, but it's possible that mammoths and Avvite chariots do better against national troops. I have limited experience with mammoths and none with MP so I'll decline to give an opinion there.

-Max


Troglodytes tend to die a lot because of their poor protection and relatively low hp.
Avvite chariots tend to trample T'ien Ch'i chariots very well, and when you compare the prices, Avvite chariots are a really good deal.
Avvite chariots also happen to have javelins. I know that it may look silly, but mass a lot of them and see how much damage these deal, just before trampling...
Last, contrary to other tramplers, Avvite chariots have 12 MR (twice as much as elephants). They are basically cheaper elephants with better morale, better MR, more weapons, less hit points but more protection (unless you compare them to LA Arco's armored elephants).
I think noone in their right mind would pay 3 elephants if they could get 4 Avvite chariots. Of course they are more expensive resource-wise (29 instead of 20) but you don't need to supplement them with higher morale troops, and you can really afford a production scale with Hinnom.

[Twan]

hunt11 said:
This is how I see the spell. The Rephiam are just paying for their grandparents to visit, it's just that their grandparents are very powerful demons, and they need to sacrifice virgins instead of paying for a ticket.



Grigori descriptions say the gods have jailed them, they are trapped in chains and magical bonds etc... so it isn't that mundane.

It leads me to another idea to balance grigoris : a global other nations may cast to strengthen their bonds and make them not summonable as long it isn't dispelled - or a more funny one : a global making the call grigori 177b spell call gregorius like a puny wish -.

(or if wasting a global slot for that is too much, a generic global blocking all national summons above level x, or all endgame blood summons, or all unique summons)

[Kristoffer O]

THe avvite charioteers might need a cost increase. There are two horses after all http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif .

I don't their AP atm, but I intended them to be slower than normal chariots. Might not be enough, but it would be silly to have them slower than a running man.

I didn't think too much when I gave them their cost. I was more concerned about the larger giants and commanders of the three nations. Small giants look puny and do not appear as a balance threat when you glance at the sprite http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Over all I'm quite aware that there might be a lot of different balance issues with this nation, since it plays quite different from most other nations. I haven't played it competitively, and changes might be needed. It will definitely be a strong nation in SP, since the AI is unfit for taking on SC's (and strong bless troopps).

I do not know how the pop devouring will work out in an MP game, so I would like some feedback when there is some.

[Aezeal]

Well I think the combination of some of the strongest healers in the game with some of the better SC out of the box, best trample out of the box, best end game SC, mages able to easily get high numbers in certain paths and some lab free mages should give a hint about how balance will be http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

Hinnom score:
A for flavor and effort
and something lower for balance

[K]

Aezeal said:
Well I think the combination of some of the strongest healers in the game with some of the better SC out of the box, best trample out of the box, best end game SC, mages able to easily get high numbers in certain paths and some lab free mages should give a hint about how balance will be http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif




After playing them ofr a few days, I'd disagree with a few points.

I'd say that their mages are substandard. Getting high Blood is exactly the same as not getting a path when it comes to battle magic and non-summoning ritual magic, and the rest of their mages get a single 2 or 3 in other paths. This means they can't use any of the good multi-path spells.

They also have slow research because the numbers on the cost of your mages vs. the research use you get out of them means that often you will have turns where you either recruit troops or a mage. I think a lot of people will recruit indie mages for research just because it's so much more efficient.

While they have good troops, when you combine their large size(more units can attack them), their extreme cost in both resources and gold, and the fact that their blessable troops are capital-only, I'd say that overall the nation is less powerful than comparable nations like Lanka or Neifleheim.

[PyroStock]

Somewhat off the thread's topic, but I could never see the reasoning behind a chariot(size4) being able to trample a horse(size3)... but I don't have a chariot to try it.

[Lingchih]

I posted about this in another thread, but I had a bunch of the pop eating units sieging an enemy castle. They were eating about 500 people a turn, so when I finally took the castle, I only had a few old, skinny unappetizing peasants left.

[Edi]

Hinnom needs a lot more positive scales to work than many of the others. Production is practically required if you intend to use many of the troops at all. Growth is required or you will starve (and you likely will anyway). Order is required or you can't afford anything. Magic is good for research or you'll be recruiting indie mages right left and center to stay in the research game. Drain will kill you for lack of research.

Just try and put a bless strat on top of that...

[Twan]

You don't need a double 9 bless or a combat god with this nation, non sacred troops are good enough for initial expansion (then thugs are the main force).

A double 6 bless, or a single 9 or a triple 4, allow very good scales, considering you'll also take heat 3. And you have also fortune tellers recruitable everywhere to help support high misfortune if you want a better bless. Finally as you'll never have ressources or money to recruit 5+ sacreds a turn you can take a low dominion too (but an high one can be interesting to spread your good scales, and protect your nation only having bad preachers).

You can even use the national pretender chassis for flavour (who has pathcost 60) and still have an interesting triple bless for your thugs.

(I'm currently playing with : imprisoned Son of the Fallen, Order 3, Prod 2, Heat 3, Growth 3, Misf 2, Magic 1, dom 4, earth 4, nature 6, blood 4)

[MaxWilson]

Are fortune-tellers actually cost-effective? Don't they need to be in every province to reduce bad events there?

-Max

[Aezeal]

they do but you usually only really care about bad events in good provinces.

[LDiCesare]

Although they are capitol only, the sacreds have strat move of 3, and access to astral magic means Gateway is possible for them in the late game.
As for blood magic being inexistant in battle magic, that's not entirely true: Hellfire, Hellbind heart, the various Call Horror spells are all usable. Hellfire in particular is nice with a Blood 3+ mage.

[MaxWilson]

Kristoffer O said:
Then you'll miss their best events http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif



Has anyone figured out what this means? Don't spoil the surprise, but maybe someone could hint what scales I should be taking and whether "best" means "good" or "bad"? (I.e. best for the player or for the sadistic designers?) Someone did mention earlier that Azazel [rot13] fgvyy yvxrf gb cynl nebhaq jvgu zbegnyf, v.r. bppnfvbanyyl fverf n Arcuvyvz fcbagnarbhfyl.

-Max

[MaxWilson]

LDiCesare said:
I made a small test where Hinnom's sacreds with a moderate bless (E6N4, earth was for the mages but it's not really useful) ate everyone else. I ran them into T'ien Ch'i with a F9W9 bless and T'ien Ch'i couldn't do anything against them. Considering I don't know how to play Hinnom yet and managed to get some respectable results wiht EA TC in MP, I tend to believe the nation is overpowered.



What does EA T'ien Ch'i usually do against Niefelheim? It seems that the counters which work against Niefel Jarls are likely to work against Avvite Charioteers and Melqartim. (In a general sense. Frozen Heart will replace Incinerate.) Or is Niefelheim >> TC?

Edit: a thought. I suppose T'ien Ch'i probably uses Fire Arrows against Niefelheim, which isn't going to work well against Hinnom. Destruction/Iron Bane seems like a good idea, though.

-Max

[Baalz]

blood rain, leech, bloodletting, rush of strength, hellbind heart, summon imp (haven't really used hellfire much) and later go to hell, blood vengeance, rush of strength are all top shelf battle magic if you use them properly. Life for a life, sabbath slave/master, reinvigoration are all niche, but very useful. Several other blood combat spells are quite useful in small niches (call horror, hellpower, etc.)

How many other paths have that many good combat spells? Blood isn't used much in combat, not because of lack of good spells, but because of the pain of managing blood slaves. Heck, just look at how widely used the inferior (other than the need for blood slaves) versions of the spells I list above are:
terror/panic
strength of giants
drain life
charm (hellbind heart - much better because it's easy to spam with cheap mages)

[Aezeal]

I think it means that if you have luck and one of the 2 "useable" priests there will be procreation events.

[Xox]

Hinnom is strong. As strong as Neifleheim? I don't think so. And the color and theme is a thing of beauty. Good work guys.

Also the pop eating effect has complicated and long lasting ramifications that won't be clear til we have seen it go though at least a few mp games.

Every new nation gets attacked by people who want to nerf it. Even Bogarus got a lot of calls for a nerf when it first came out. And as far as balance that is just plain ridiculous, Beyond ridiculous with the likes of Ryleh and Ermor in the Late era.

Every new nation should not be underpowered and I think we have a wide spread here in these three new nations.

Also, if anything these conversations highlight the need for boosting some of the weaker nations who never win mp games like Arco all eras, early Ryleh, maybe abysia somemore, etc..

[K]

Baalz said:
blood rain, leech, bloodletting, rush of strength, hellbind heart, summon imp (haven't really used hellfire much) and later go to hell, blood vengeance, rush of strength are all top shelf battle magic if you use them properly. Life for a life, sabbath slave/master, reinvigoration are all niche, but very useful. Several other blood combat spells are quite useful in small niches (call horror, hellpower, etc.)

How many other paths have that many good combat spells? Blood isn't used much in combat, not because of lack of good spells, but because of the pain of managing blood slaves. Heck, just look at how widely used the inferior (other than the need for blood slaves) versions of the spells I list above are:
terror/panic
strength of giants
drain life
charm (hellbind heart - much better because it's easy to spam with cheap mages)



It's not that Blood doesn't have battle magic, it's that it doesn't have real battle magic. Combine the fact that even with flyers bringing in tons of blood slaves to battles you still have massive fatigue and a huge cost in slaves, it isn't good enough to qualify as real battle magic.

For example, compare ten other casters in a big battle and ten blood mages with slaves in a battle, and you'll see:

1. The blood mages cast about half as many spells per battle because they keep passing out.

2. The blood mages spent 100 slaves doing it.

3. Arrows and battle spells sometimes kill your slaves, thereby turning your blood mages into expensive infantry.

Now, that's not to say that there aren't niches. Claws of Coctyus and its fiery brother are one of my favorite things to do to another player's SCs and god (mostly for the morale breaking), but that doesn't mean it's a viable combat tactic for regular play.

[Aezeal]

it isn't?

[MaxWilson]

It seems to me that making heavy use of blood spells in battles is just begging for an Earthquake. In my limited experience with blood magic, when the slaves take damage (e.g. from my own Soul Vortex) they stop being usable for magic and become regular mindless chaff. I guess damage counts as defilement.

-Max

[Lingchih]

I've seen it mentioned to take misfortune and just use your fortune tellers to balance it out.

That's fine, but then you won't get the heroes, and these heroes are something special. They are basically gods themselves. The first hero I received was easily more powerful than my SC Pretender.

[chrispedersen]

Yes, you will. I have taken misfortune 3, and still manage to get the heros in most of the games before turn 30.

[Lingchih]

Hmm, that's odd. Base chance of a hero is 3%, minus 1 point per point of misfortune = 0% chance. I guess the figures I have seen are wrong.

[sum1lost]

Or chris could be confusing misfortune, since I almost never get more than 1 or two heros by then unless I specifically take a high luck

[Lingchih]

Or, even more interestingly, the fortune tellers could increase the chance of getting a hero. Now that would be intriguing.

[K]

Invading a high luck neighbor is just like having high luck.

[thejeff]

Is it? For getting heroes?

For most things, invading a high luck neighbor should be like having no luck, until your dominion takes over, but I'd always assumed the hero chance was calculated at your capital since that's where he appears.

[chrispedersen]

I've often wondered about this.
What is the purpose of having luck in each terrain, unless each terrain has a possibility of generating an event in that terrain.

Are there capitol only events?

So the question, more or less, are there capitol only events, or do things like temples/labs/capitol merely enable certain classes of events.

[Endoperez]

I think the game chooses a province and an event (perhaps not in that order), checks if they work together, and tries again until it finds a combination that works. So labs are only destroyed if there are labs, and you get something else if there isn't a lab.

[atul]

IIRC at least in dom2 forums it was said that the event frequency was dependant on capital dominion, but the exact nature depended on scales of the province (which was randomly chosen).

As it was, turmoil/luck nations had terrible day when invading order/misfortune lands. Ewww...

[B0rsuk]

Gem generating events seem to be tied to terrain type, among other things. "Huge amount of water gems floated ashore" happens in coastal provinces. Death in swamps, fire in wasteland... So there's a slight amount of extra strategy involved in your conquests.

[johan osterman]

Chrispedersen, I somewhat doubt you have gotten most heroes by turn 30 with luck -3. Since the heroes have worked this way since dom 1 and most other people seem to have impressions consistent with the way they are supposed to work I think you might have misremembered.

The appearence of heroes is based solely on homeprovince luck scale. Captured provinces won't matter. As someone said it should be 3% +/- 1 per scale setting a turn to get a hero.

Number of luck events are determnined by homeprovince scales and number of provinces, IIRC. The events are categorised as either bad luck or good luck events, the ratio of which are dependent on your home province luck scale. Once the general nature and number of events are determined the will be randomly assigned to provinces. There they will be randomly generated if the province does not have the requirements for an event the event will be rerolled. For the purposes of what events might occur enemy dominion luck scale in a province will be coniderewd unluck, unluck scales will still be unluck. So in order to get the 3000 gold event you will have the event occur in a province where you have your dominion and a plus 3 luck scale.

[Meglobob]

I have had Order 3 Misfortune 3 in over a dozen+ games and I have never had a hero.

Misfortune 3 = no heroes!

[hunt11]

my view is that the best scales for Hinnom is 3 in everything but luck and magic with a -1 for luck and 1 for magic, I know that any race would work well with those stats, but you get a lot better results out of Hinnom with these

[chrispedersen]

johan osterman said:
Chrispedersen, I somewhat doubt you have gotten most heroes by turn 30 with luck -3. Since the heroes have worked this way since dom 1 and most other people seem to have impressions consistent with the way they are supposed to work I think you might have misremembered.

The appearence of heroes is based solely on homeprovince luck scale. Captured provinces won't matter. As someone said it should be 3% +/- 1 per scale setting a turn to get a hero.

Number of luck events are determnined by homeprovince scales and number of provinces, IIRC. The events are categorised as either bad luck or good luck events, the ratio of which are dependent on your home province luck scale. Once the general nature and number of events are determined the will be randomly assigned to provinces. There they will be randomly generated if the province does not have the requirements for an event the event will be rerolled. For the purposes of what events might occur enemy dominion luck scale in a province will be coniderewd unluck, unluck scales will still be unluck. So in order to get the 3000 gold event you will have the event occur in a province where you have your dominion and a plus 3 luck scale.



You may be right. I have no idea what the total number of heros are. But in the current game, with luck -3, with less than 30 turns, I have two of the sons, the first and the 3rd son.

In a Gath Game, with -3 luck ... less than turn 40 .. I have 2 heros as well, although I cannot recall their names.

I do not mean to say that I am getting more than 50%. I do mean to say that having a negative luck scale, and -3 in particular does not seem to be precluding getting national heros.

I also do mean to say that I have observed this on enough games that I believe this is not statistically aberrant.

So, I don't know if its
a) because we do not know the mechanism for heros
b) perhaps its a racial feature of the new races

but I'm reasonably sure its not
c). I'm hallucinating.

I would further contend a couple of points:
I don't believe luck scales consider a ratio at all. I believe rather it represents each individual luck events chance of being good or bad.

However, the ratio of events will vary widely.

I do agree that luck, dominion, and scales, as well as the contents and territory type do contribute and/or unlock certain events.

Lastly: I have often wondered did fortune teller units reduce the percentage chance of bad events - or, did it represent the chance of cancelling a bad event. I tend to believe the latter.

To illustrate:
Suppose you have 10 fortune teller units with a cumulative 50% chance.

Suppose you have Negative luck, to the extent that you have a 33% chance good, 66% bad.

Does the fortune teller reduce the chance of bad to 16%.. or as I suspect if a negative event occurs, does it have a 50% choice of cancelling it.

The former makes fortune tellers much more important.
But I have to say in thinking about it.. with around 10 fortune tellers.. I don't EVER recall getting a negative event.

[johan osterman]

I didn't realise you were talking about the new Gath heroes specifically. IIRC these Gath heroes are not proper heroes per se, but commanders recieved as nation specific events. That is you recieve them as events rather than through the national hero mechanism. The reason this mechanic was used, once again IIRC, was primarily because there is a hardcoded limit to the number of specific heroes available to a nation and the number of lords of civilisation exceded the maximum number of heroes, so in order to have sons of each lord Kristoffer figured he would go this route. Still, perhaps the event is a bit to common.

I guess my english failed me. Because it was very much my intent to convey the idea that the luck scales result in a a percenage that an event is either is good or bad, not that luck scales determine a fixed number of good or bad events for each number of random events. Perhaps it was my use of the word ratio that muddled the issue.

The fortune tellers have a chance of cancelling events.

[Agrajag]

Maybe you should make Gath's hero events have a requirement of at least Luck -2 so there'll be no heroes with Luck -3 http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Kristoffer O]

Gath has a multihero, and an event that generates the same multihero (much the same as a priest with a group of militias).

No nation can get normal heroes with misfortune 3. If you do there is something weird with your game. The mechanic is widely known and has been since dom-ppp: 3 percent +/-1 percent per scale step.

Johan is a bit wrong on the hero limit. It was increased and there are no events in Hinnom that generates normal heroes. THe Gath hero event is to make sure they get a lot of these quasi-prophets/heroes.

[Kuritza]

Just ran a few tests with turmoil-luck for Gath, and all I got were there holy-2 self-made human priests...
Dice dont like me. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[PvK]

I ran a fair number of turns with six female Hinnom priests in the capital and Luck-2, Life-1, and didn't get any special events. I'm not sure what I'm fishing for, if anything.

[Meglobob]

I think there are 7 (or so) tainted offspring of the Grigori. They all have titles like Son of, they look like heros but you may get them via certain special events.

[chrispedersen]

Hmmm... interesting.

Well, sometimes scales unlock things.

Try +3 +2 +4 +1 X -2

Start with 10 territories or so. Run it for 30-40 turns see what you get. Now I'm *Really* curious.

You know what would be cool and self limiting?
heros that only appeared with an unluck scale = )

[Alderanas]

hah i had the great idea to make a big army of those giants that eat your population. they killed everything i sent them against but at the time i had forgotten that they ate the population. So when i tried to build the smaller giants they all starved. It was pretty much liking fighting the dominion of late age ermor.

[Loren]

Alderanas said:
hah i had the great idea to make a big army of those giants that eat your population. they killed everything i sent them against but at the time i had forgotten that they ate the population. So when i tried to build the smaller giants they all starved. It was pretty much liking fighting the dominion of late age ermor.



Yeah, I was just experimenting with the Himmon. I wasn't paying enough attention to the population eating and ended up with a depopulated capital. It doesn't matter, though--against the standard AI I so overwhelmed it that the game is near victory without my ever attacking any AI, only the independents. Against 9 AI's I took something like a quarter of the total map--and nobody took the water at all so I really had well over a quarter. I put very heavy PD on all border provinces, once the borders were drawn I recruited nothing but mages for research and a few priests to build temples.

One AI fell to another one, of the 8 that remained I've popped 6 by dominion and lost only three provinces during that time. (And one of those doesn't really count--it was vacant, I took it with a priest. An AI cast Ghost Ship Armada, the armada attacked.)

[MaxWilson]

It's been mentioned before, but if you want to up the AI difficulty a notch try Edi's Better Independents mod, which prevents the AI from recruiting most independents. The AI does better when it's recruiting national troops, not hordes of useless indies. Some indies are of course an exception.

-Max

[Edi]

The mod is not available currently. A better version will be available soon.

[dirtywick]

I may actually consider using the province attack rituals against Hinnom. Research Alt 4 and you can start bombarding their capital and fortresses with pop killing spells, and they'd probably have a really hard time recovering, rendering their troop production centers useless pretty quickly. Blight, E2D1 at 5 gems is probably the best choice if you have E/D mages, Wolven Winter at W3 for 5 gems is a little harder if you don't have access to water but not to boosters.

There's some other ones either higher up research or require a more powerful mage, like Black Death or Volcanic Eruption, but those probably come too late in the game to be a real strategy. Baleful Star and Melancholia though would be helpful to cast once on each city you're doing this on, if you can cast them. But I could see casting these spells with 5-10 mages (you can do that right?) for a few turns on key provinces and crippling the whole nation because they can't grow the pop back if they want to continue to use the fortress to produce troops.

Unless the mechanics work differently? I'm actually not so sure how pop effects production, I haven't played Ermor in a very long time. Supplies and income will be an issue if not so perhaps hitting their high pop lands instead would be better. Their capital at a minimum almost certainly will never recover, I don't know if that's worth pursuing though.

[MaxWilson]

Of course Hinnom can hit you right back with Rain of Toads, which is three times as good as Blight in terms of causing unrest to shut down production.

-Max

[Sombre]

They aren't really a great blood economy nation though, Hinnom. Their blood hunters are pretty expensive, cap only and eat the population.

[MaxWilson]

Edi said:
The mod is not available currently. A better version will be available soon.



Intriguing!

-Max

[Chris_Byler]

chrispedersen said:
You know what would be cool and self limiting?
heros that only appeared with an unluck scale = )


Kullervo, perhaps?

[JimMorrison]

T'ien Chi's Master of the Iron Crutch should be a Misfortune hero. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif

[dirtywick]

Yeah, that spell is pretty nasty. I don't think it'll hurt you as much as it hurts them, though. You can always patrol, lower taxes, and recover the population. They'll have a hard time doing all three because they need the income and growing the population back is tough. Patrolling with indies is an option for them.

Upon further thought stealth armies would hurt them too. Let them blow cash on PD, or better yet march large armies around and patrol trying to find you, killing their pop the whole time.

I don't know, I haven't really tried any of this. I played against them twice in SP. They were close neighbors both times so I eliminated them early through regular means. Just some ideas I'm shooting around.

[Sombre]

Hinnom's PD is pretty damn good. Certainly pisses all over other giant PD.

[Loren]

Sombre said:
Hinnom's PD is pretty damn good. Certainly pisses all over other giant PD.



I think it's better than anybody else's PD.


One question I have: What units exactly eat population and how much do they eat? I wish the text told us those things!

[Cerlin]

yes their light infantry is greater than some heavy of the age just armor wise.

[dirtywick]

Ulm's stealthy troops, with some mage support, seem to do pretty well against it. Then again, Ulm's stealthy troops are pretty good.

They're in my game now kind of beating the crap out of everybody else. I'll try some of my ideas out and see how they work.

[Alderanas]

I have only played them in EA but i think only the biggest giants eat the population in EA. I thought i read something about them not eating each other and everything else in one of the later ages but not really sure?

[Sombre]

In EA the rephaim all eat population and can also eat avvim and each other. My Baal ate a Melqart the other day. I think he may have gained power by doing so actually.

[Lingchih]

[/quote]
Kullervo, perhaps?

[/quote]

Umm, wrong mythos. But I still hope to see a Kailevala mod some day.

[Alderanas]

o yea they do eat each other which was quite annoying. I had a melqart with 4 experience stars from the arena and one of the baal ate him and didnt gain anything. I was a bit upset

[Kristoffer O]

He probably became more powerful in blood magic, unless you had empowered him already.

[chrispedersen]

When do they eat? I usually take growth 2.. and have yet to see it.

Butit makes me wonder about an interesting strategy.. could you send 4 wounded afflicted giants into the desert with one Bel?

Might that be a cheap empower?

[Sombre]

The rephaim constantly eat population but you don't get any message about it. They can also create events where they eat avvim or each other, merely by being in the same place. It isn't /very/ common though.

[Alderanas]

hmm ill have to check and see if he did become more powerful. I was thinking maybe he gained some health or strength from the other giant.

[chrispedersen]

Are you sure they constantly eat population, or do they only eat population if supply is insufficient?

I usually take growth with this nation - and I haven't seen pop decreasing...

[Taqwus]

...all the time.

Seriously. Try hiring a bunch of the researchers and keeping 'em in your capital.


(Recruitment pitch for Ashdod: "It's safe to come out now. Really.")

[Loren]

chrispedersen said:
Are you sure they constantly eat population, or do they only eat population if supply is insufficient?

I usually take growth with this nation - and I haven't seen pop decreasing...



I just played a game at Growth 3. Things were doing ok until some of those gluttonous heroes showed up. I didn't need them in battle (when I saw how powerful the initial expansion and PD were, I decided to win without attacking anyone) and left them in my capital. Pretty soon I noticed my capital population was way down and soon it was zero.

[JimMorrison]

Seriously. I have a test game running now where I don't use Melqarts/Repahiites. Pop eating is fairly manageable as their researchers aren't quite so flesh hungry, but even just 1 son added to a handful of mages started slaughtering my capitol pop en masse, even with G3 on.

My first test with G3, I could get to 3 Melqarts in my cap with before they negated the growth. I found it interesting that it seems that basically you can't do a sacred strategy and expect to see the real late game. You will either win before you are summoning Lords, or you will get your *** kicked for being too aggressive. Look at it this way, even a province with 10k pop at G3 will stop growing with a single Melqart in it. A squad of 3 Melqarts and 6-8 Rephaiites must move constantly, or begin systematically ruining your nation.

[MaxWilson]

Or of course they could park in one province and ruin *it* until you call them out for the war. You don't have to let them eat the whole nation.

-Max

[JimMorrison]

MaxWilson said:
Or of course they could park in one province and ruin *it* until you call them out for the war. You don't have to let them eat the whole nation.

-Max



But if there's no pop, there's no supplies, no? And if there's no supplies AND no pop, they will in fact starve....? I guess maybe if you pile them all in one place with 10 healers..... That doesn't seem right though. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif

[hunt11]

they do not need to eat, they just like to eat

[thejeff]

You could always throw a couple of supply items in, but more importantly, Commanders don't starve.


Though apparently these guys will eat each other...

[Zeldor]

Yeah, poor healers. No resources = no wood to cook them = raw meat = diseases = no healers & sick giants.

[JimMorrison]

Well, the Melqarts NNE, but is it worth going for an expensive dual bless, and then not using the incredibly strong Rephaiites as well?

< shrug > I am still confused how these guys survive once they've eaten every living thing in their vicinity. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif

[Taqwus]

That's why Hinnom has nature magic -- so they can easily Summon Animals for them to eat. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

[thejeff]

I haven't played with them, but it seems to me as long as you're actively expanding with them, they shouldn't be a problem.
Don't let them sit at home eating your people. Keep them invading your enemies. Eat them.

I don't think it's a nation suited to turtling.

[JimMorrison]

Well right, I wasn't trying to imply turtling per se, but their research capacity is rather mediocre, so as I said, it just seemed to me they aren't too well suited to the late game in MP. Basically looks like they either just bulldoze through and go for the mid game win, or they get countered or suffer ill luck, and stall out and eat themselves while other people start their endgame summons.

Anyway, just saying that's what I see in my SP test, that a dual bless leaves you with scales that are tailored for only one thing - a bless rush. Honestly I don't think Melqarts are the way to go for MP. The test I am doing with chariots had me expanding nearly as quickly, but able to actually get research moving, and having pretty strong scales since I wasn't using a strong bless, and could get by just fine with an imprisoned pretender. The problem with that being that their chariots, while stronger than elephants, are still easier to counter than Melqarts, so you are still ultimately taking a risk if you intend to go for a late game strategy with 3G and otherwise good scales, to push for Lords. Even with a Fountain of Blood, blood hunting is a bit cumbersome since your blood mages eat pop. It's a complicated set of checks and balances that seems far easier to manipulate in a sterile SP setting, than it actually will turn out to be in MP.

[chrispedersen]

Thats what I said all along Jim... = ) The chariots are the critical early game expansion.

I think you actually have to take a somewhat balanced approach here.

I do something like a 496 bless, with an oricle, leaving dominion at 4 - you can't afford to build more than 3 sacred anyway until way late at any location until well into the mid game.

The 496 build is cheaper than a 99 dual bless, and it lets you have good enough scales for both a + on growth and a positive on research.

With only a few commanders etc - and with a positive growth scale, I haven't seen any eating. But I happen to think this might be a cool new empower method.. so thats what I'm going to be experimenting with.

Sadly, I just resigned out of my test MP game, for personal reasons rather than game ones - but the giants were able to beat Vanheim bless rush even up.

Chris

[Ragnarok-X]

Which units actually eat pop off ?
Is it only the huge commanders or every single "stock" unit except the 3 cavemen types ?
Will they eat pop if you have enough supplies ?
To what extend will growth 3 counter the pop devour ?

Is the faction considered inbalanced ?

[Stavis_L]

Which units actually eat pop off ?
Is it only the huge commanders or every single "stock" unit except the 3 cavemen types ?


Rephaite Warrior (cap only sacred)
Kohen (priest commander)
Melqart (cap only commander)
Ba'al (cap only mage)

..and the various heroes. The rest are OK.


Will they eat pop if you have enough supplies ?


Yes.


To what extend will growth 3 counter the pop devour ?


Depends on how many you have, and how big the province is. Growth 3 gives a percentage growth factor, while the population decrease is a fixed amount per unit. A small population would be more affected (percentage wise) than a large one. See Edi's database (devpop column of non-combat bonuses) or the wiki for specifics (amount varies by unit type.) I'm not sure if the devpop values are directly correlative to population decrease, or if there is a scale factor (i.e. not sure if value of 30 for devpop = population decreased by 30 / turn.)


Is the faction considered inbalanced ?

It is by some, but the fact that devpop now increases unrest, and the starting army size has been reduced, has nerfed them somewhat. They're definitely still on the high side of the power graph, though (they just have some more disadvantages to deal with.)

[Trumanator]

Epic necro btw.

On topic- Balance wise Hinnom has been heavily nerfed by CBM, along with a number of other rather overwhelming nations.

[militarist]

I play Hinnom in one of current LLAmaserver games. I believe it is still very OP. Some nations have very good methods of fighting against hinnom, but not all. And if hinnom chooses allies and enemies wisely, he can achieve more then most of other nations I believe. Early game - amazing expansion. Endgame - amazing, middle game - amazing is you had good early game.

[MaxWilson]

And of course Ashdod is even worse, balance-wise. But the Zamzummites are too cool for me to resist, like some kind of cocaine... when I try to play LA C'tis or Agartha or Helheim, all I can think is something like "Hmmm, this would work much better if my Sauromancers weren't cold-blooded. I'd rather have Zamzummites."

-Max

[vfb]

lol, Max, you're the last person on these forums that I'd expect to imply that cocaine is too cool to resist!

[militarist]

Yes, Ashdod is crazy. I have these sacreds W9E9N6 in one of MPs. You can imagine how it looks like.

[MaxWilson]

lol, Max, you're the last person on these forums that I'd expect to imply that cocaine is too cool to resist!

You're right, I would have no problem resisting the lure of cocaine. That makes Zamzummites... worse than cocaine?!

-Max