HINNOM EATS EVERYTHING

[Baalz]

Well, those of you familiar with my other guides know I tend to fall a bit in love with a nation as I write a guide for it. That said, I’m just astounded at the strength that Hinnom can bring to bear. They are absolutely first class early, middle, and late game and have so many really good options that the biggest problem is remembering not to try and spread yourself too thin across strategies. With no chink in their armor that a pretender must fill, I’d suggest going with an imprisoned blood fountain with just enough blood to summon the Lords of Civilization and max out all your scales. Order for income, production for awesome troops, luck for awesome (and plentiful) national heroes, heat because it’s free, magic because you can, and growth because HINNOM EATS EVERYTHING and your population will be dropping wherever your big giants are. You’ll want a decently high dominion score to help spread that glorious dominion, and don’t forget you can blood sacrifice to push it even faster.

Expansion. I can’t think of another nation with expansion potential this good. The troops you *start* with are capable of taking out the vast majority of indies, from heavy cavalry to barbarians. With good scales, by the time you’ve captured a couple provinces around your capital you’re able to field 2 (!) expansion parties a turn from your capital. The chariots in groups of 4 will take out pretty much any non-barbarian human infantry, supplement this with groups of a dozen Dawn Guard to take out almost anything else. Under ideal province neighboring conditions you should be able to land 30+ provinces by the end of year one without even burning through an obscene amount of gold as each expansion party is relatively cheap.

Castles. Most terrain yields a terrible 1400 gold Tel City, but forests give you an 800 gold forest fortress. With your insane expansion you shouldn’t have a problem capturing several forests – this is pretty much the only place you want to build castes. Fortunately with your nitro-charged expansion and frugal spending you should be able to start putting up an 800 gold castle per turn roughly turns 6-12. You should have about 5 castles by the end of year one.

If you’re feeling frisky, feel free to roll over an opponent or two at this point. Between your chariot (size 6, high protection tramplers) and dawn guard (high hp, 16 defense, high strength, magic weapon wielding), 5 castles with production-3 scales should leave you able to steamroll most opponents. If you’re fighting somebody using a fire bless, look at using Rephaite Warrior as their fire resistance pretty much negates the flaming weapons. If you’re opponent refuses to acknowledge his death at the hands of your troops, your Ammi with a tiny bit of research and a few gems can lay down everything from fireballs and thunder strikes to paralyze and destruction. Just research whatever you need to put the hurt down on your opponent. Don’t feel remorse as you scrape your neighbor off the bottom of your boots, just remember HINNOM EATS EVERYTHING.

Research. All those castles going up have a tremendous advantage. Due to the fact that they lack any hard-coded magic paths, you can recruit Ammi without needing either a lab or a temple! That’s right, while other nations are spending anywhere from 1200-2000 gold for the cheapest mage factory they have available, yours cost 800. This is on top of your ridiculous gold income from your ridiculous expansion and ridiculous scales. Recruit them out of your new castles and move them back to your capital (or any lab).

Gems. With national mages and no boosters Hinnom can remote site search Every. Single. Path….except water. They also have pretty good manual site searchers in the Horite Shaman to prime the pump. Use shamans to lead your first few initial expansion parties, then as soon as you can, replace them with indie commanders and have them site search. This will give you earth, death and nature gems along with your capitol’s earth, fire, astral and blood income to start some heavy site searching. You can also do a little bit of manual site searching with the Ammis who get air randoms until you’ve got a few gems for auspex.

So, before hitting mid game you will likely have more provinces, income, gems, and research than any other nation. Potentially a lot more. Hit the construction research and start recruiting a Ba’al every turn from your capital and Kohen/Ammi from the castles you’re now putting labs and temples in (hey, spread that glorious dominion around!). Note, HINNOM EATS EVERYTHING, so you’ll want to designate a sacrificial province to keep your main mages at. As they start piling up the population will all be eaten, it’s a good idea to do this outside of your capital. It’s also a good idea to do this in a castle so that your enemies cannot force a fight on their own terms.

Once you hit construction-4 is when the real fun starts. All your Kohen will crank out sanguine rods and start blood hunting. Remember, keep just three per province because HINNOM EATS EVERYTHING. Your growth scales will help, but if possible you’re gonna want to target slightly higher population provinces for blood hunting than otherwise. Check out my guide to blood hunting as a section of my Mictlan guide, but remember to adjust your spending as you suddenly start massive blood hunting, you’re gonna go from having more gold than you know what to do with to a very frugal budget (and having more blood slaves than you know what to do with)

Do a bit of real quick alteration and enchantment research, and swing up for thau-3 and now those Ba’al are supertroopers indeed. You almost can’t go wrong with equipment, the extra gore attack means you don’t even really need the standard AOE weapons – a sword of sharpness and horned helm (second gore attack!) will often clear a whole tile as well as any frost brand. You’ll want some reinvig, and regen always helps, but in a pinch these guys can be sent out with just a few very cheap items. Earth Ba’als summon earth power, iron will, iron skin (invulnerability) and smash away. Fire Ba’als (the weakest) fire shield and eventually phoenix pyre (you’ve got national healers to fix the inevitable owies). Astral Ba’als can teleport with no boosters and drop luck & body ethereal. Any of these will easily solo anything short of a real army. Put some good equipment on them and they’re top shelf SCs. Heck, in a pinch, con-2 and thau-3 are enough to give you a teleporting thug who can take out plenty of PD! Just equip an astral Ba’al with an amulet of breathing to jump right in and start swiping some water provinces in that lake across the map that doesn’t have a water nation in it before anybody else can get there! Control a huge chunk of land *and* grab a big chunk of water because HINNOM EATS EVERYTHING.

Far from being one trick ponies though, Ba’als are also extremely powerful at home in a lab. Earth Ba’als will leverage your solid earth income and crank out first dwarven hammers, then blood stones. That’s right, as if Hinnom wasn’t already over the top they have probably the best synergy for gem producing items of any nation. Blood slaves are cheap and they’ve already have a strong earth income…doesn’t take much to see where that’s going. Additionally, take those blood stones you’re minting and stick them on Kohen who get an earth random. Now do a very cheap blood empowering (30 slaves) and set him to month casting of summon demon knight. Demon knights are very effective in groups of about 10 (particularly buffed with bloodlust, legions of steel, and weapons of sharpness), so once you get 4-5 of these summoners set up you’ll have a significant supply, and the earth gems will start rolling in.

On the topic of low level demon summons Hinnom also has a very effective national summon in the Shedim. What makes it so effective is the fact that unlike other low level blood summons, you summon 3 per casting so you don’t need too many dedicated casters. A single mage can mass 30 of these lightning throwing uber-archers in under a year, which is enough to absolutely decimate most armies, particularly buffed with wind guide and arrow fend (your opponent will likely be trying to “fire archers” with their own archers). It’s good you don’t need too many mages because getting them can be difficult, but a couple of your national heroes can cast the spell and there are worse investments with your auspex fueled gem income than a single empowering (with a little bit of work you can leverage this into robes of the magi as well). Unless you need flying commanders you can skip the Arch Devils….they’re inferior to the Ba’al you’re recruiting every turn. Instead, extra blood slaves can also be poured into ritual of the five gates, which is in easy reach for your Ba’al. But the real joy of all those blood slaves is....

Oh the Horror. Hinnom has some really nasty horror spam potential. Everyone knows (I guess) that horrors are scary, but I’m continually surprised at how many people scoff when I claim that lesser horrors are even better in most situations for the cost. Every astral Ba’al can send a lesser horror with no boosters, and they only cost 9 slaves (you’ll have plenty). A single lesser horror will, with good regularity (something like 70-90% of the time) take out medium to heavy PD – so long as you target the right PD. Any PD composed of troops dealing 13 or less damage (by and large humans wielding spears, which are hugely represented among PD) will have trouble stopping the lesser horrors. Ethereal + high defense + 15 protection + a life draining attack means they’re usually healing faster than spear infantry can damage them, and the fear aura (against PD’s generally bleh moral) means they don’t have to kill all that many. Use scouts to conquer the freshly cleared province, and I’ll let you in on a little secret. If you have a scout hidden in an enemy province, and you give him orders to attack a different enemy province, then horrors take out the PD in both…magic phase -> you’re the only one left in province A so you gain control, movement phase -> you walk into empty province B and claim it. Note: horrors stack extremely well, so if you need to take out something stronger, just send more lesser horrors.

But wait, there’s more! Lesser horrors are also very, very effective at taking out SCs. Go ahead and scoff, I’m used to it….until I start brining down kitted out angels and tartarians. How this works is like this – use horrors (or anything really) to take all the provinces surrounding the SC in the magic phase, this is usually very easy when the SC is on offense. Now, send 6+ lesser horrors in at the SC. The horrors have an AN attack so who cares about the SCs protection? They’re size 3 with 2 attacks, and are apparently scripted to attack large enemy monsters, so if you sent 16 of them the SC would be surrounded and attacked 32 times before he can buff – good luck with defense. Here’s the dirty little secret though – you don’t need to send 16 lesser horrors, 6 will do regardless of how tough the SC is because of the fear aura. Surrounded by 6 lesser horrors the SC will end up with a negative 10 moral or so and flee, with no place to flee to. Anything not berserking, mindless, or immortal won’t have a chance (and those that are will at most require a few more lesser horrors).

Ah, but the joy of horrors isn’t over yet. Every astral Ba’al can also cast call (greater) horror, blood rain, and teleport, and is tough enough to live through some archer fire. So, your opponent’s large army is marching into a heat 3 strong dominion (starvation, enemy dominion), you can pretty easily cut off escape routes (lesser horrors, teleporting SCs), and you can at will teleport in, reduce their moral by another 4, summon a couple very high fear aura guys (cast a couple horror marks first to make sure that *they* get attacked!), then either cast returning, or if the enemy army is particularly high moral maybe cast a couple bloodlettings before you go. If they retreat, they all die. If you’re particularly evil (like me) you’ll consider casting dark skies to make it practically impossible to invade you with non-mindless troops. SCs get eaten alive by lesser horrors and armies flee every time you fart. Blood sacrifice out of your copious temples and with your strong dominion your opponents will be worried about a dominion loss on top of everything else.

But wait, there’s more! Ba’als are uniquely suited to cast a spell that otherwise is very hard to use effectively – hell power. With enough hps to survive a couple AN hits from a horror, and readily available horror killing body guards (dawn guards – good attack skill, high damage, magic weapons), and enough blood magic to cast it without passing out, they can cast it with a fair amount of imperviousness. Hellpower + phoenix power + 2 boosters = 8F. Or 8E, or 8S. If you want to show off, toss in a crystal shield, robe of the magi, and ring of wizardry and scoff at your opponent pretender’s puny magic paths. Without being showy though, you’re talking aout 6f/e/s with no boosters. I’ll leave the effective use of this as an exercise to the student.

Honestly, I don’t even know how you can get to your best stuff without having already EATEN EVERYTHING, but if you’re just goofing around I guess you can get up to the Lords of Civilization. I think these guys are pretty self explanatory and have gotten enough attention already so I won’t expound on the obvious advantage these guys bring. On top of that, you’ll also now be casting infernal crusade and infernal forces, have the mages to single handedly cast master enslave, army of lead, and firestorm, have a very good gem income (in everything other than possibly water) and are running out of commanders to stick blood stones on. Oh, and you’ve got national healers if anybody gets an owie.

[Tifone]

Thanks for another guide, Baalz! Your "But wait, there's more!" always sounds like music in my hears ^_^

Wow this nation seems to get a lot of inbuild magic diversity... even with the obvious difficulty that HINNOM EATS EVERYTHING I think you mentioned a bit somewhere ( http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif ), it could be a good place to start for new players like me, who really like to try every inspiring spell around. ^_^

This time you focused a lot on the Horrors I see, even in my actual SP game playing EA Mictlan I appreciate their potential.

[calmon]

Fine guide Baalz. While i find all new giant races very good i agree with you hinnom is especially good!

One of the main power of fomoria, hinnom, ashdod and gath is the possibility to cloud trapez/teleport the strong and blessable SCs. Combined with a good combination of magicpathes from your mages. You are able to play a moderate/good bless strategy and have enough points for good/VG scales. Non-Awake pretender and Fire Scale helps much.

[chrispedersen]

Actually, this guide isn't up to Baalz usual incredible standards. Probably because of an embarrassment of riches.

There's a few other tricks that Hinnom is uniquely capable of pulling off; makes the casting of some other (underused) spells useful.

[hoo]

I sense a disturbance: a mixture of disgust, sarcasm and more than a few tongue in cheek comments.

well written in communicating some concerns.

[cleveland]

And let's not forget that each point of PD gets you 1 Avvite Light Infantry & 1/2 Avvite Swordsman...you know, same as those starting troops that are "capable of taking out the vast majority of indies, from heavy cavalry to barbarians." PD=2 gets you $160 worth of defenders.

I'd like to formally reprimand Baalz for making this vastly overpowered nation truly unstoppable with yet another of his fantastic guides.

I'd also like to formally recommend giving all Hinnom commanders a Shattered Soul, for the sake of balance.

[Tifone]

Actually, I've just seen the thread about the Lords of Civilization.


http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/eek.gif


I mean:


http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/eek.gif


Well, this nation seems to have everything, strong units, strong PD, strong mages with almost all paths avaible, and 6(!) uniques all-immune full-slots fortune-bringing super-stealth-seducers 5-flying-mapmovement late game SC summons nobody else can even Wish for (and they have inbuilt 17 MR, Fear between +5 and +10, up to 14 points in various magic paths, and one is a very strong healer...).

Mmh.

Even being the n00best here around, I would dare saying, obviously with absolute respect for the overall work of the devs... *maybe* this is a little unbalanced? I think Baalz should have better done a guide about HOW TO SURVIVE IF YOU MEET HINNOM. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/Injured.gif (and probably the other new nations as well)

[Baalz]

cleveland said:
And let's not forget that each point of PD gets you 1 Avvite Light Infantry & 1/2 Avvite Swordsman...you know, same as those starting troops that are "capable of taking out the vast majority of indies, from heavy cavalry to barbarians." PD=2 gets you $160 worth of defenders.

I'd like to formally reprimand Baalz for making this vastly overpowered nation truly unstoppable with yet another of his fantastic guides.

I'd also like to formally recommend giving all Hinnom commanders a Shattered Soul, for the sake of balance.



Doh! I totally meant to have a section on their PD. Using nothing but PD and your obscene income you can stop anything but the toughest raiders. The awesomeness of your PD is such that you hardly even need troops for defense, just moving some of your mages and SC to supplement your PD will be all you need for many situations.

Ps. I didn't want to go on at too much length about all the things they can do. I mean they're giants with practically every path available...what can't they do?

[Jazzepi]

Love.

Jazzepi

[Amhazair]

Edit: I apparently got things severely mixed up inside my brain. Disregard everything I now erase. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[DonCorazon]

Terrifying guide as usual. I always appreciate a glimpse into Baalz's sinister mind. I imagine the stock price of each nation Baalz' writes about shoots up after each guide.

Anyway, I have yet to even look at Hinnom in the game - never enough time for me - but having been the victim of horror spam now numerous times, I can say the description of it here makes it sound like with Hinnom you could just sit back and let the horrors do most of the work.

So I am always looking for better ways to counter Horror spam. To date it seems the best thing to protect your economy is to constantly have small, roving bands always on the move to recapture the spammed provinces before the enemy hidden scouts do.

I have not been the victim of mass horror spam on an SC - but would be curious to here thoughts on countering that as well...

Thanks for the guide.

[Baalz]

Well, as I'm in the middle of one horror spam campaign and gearing up for another maybe nobody should come up with counters? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Oh well. The most effective thing that has been used *against* me is to have a single cheapish mage with a couple bodyguards scripted to something appropriate sprinkled all around. The cost effectiveness of this varies a lot with the nation you're playing, but horrors have no elemental immunity, and even fall to poison so there's quite a few low level spells which will deal enough damage to stop them considering your mage will generally have several turns to blast them from short range. Even something silly like bonds of fire will hold them still for a round, chopping their defense and keeping them from life draining for long enough that the PD can whittle them down.

As to keeping them from eating your SCs...well, I've never seen anybody else do this so I don't know if anybody's come up with a counter yet (nobody's successfully countered me yet). Nothing obvious comes to mind other than keeping a significant number of bodyguards around...which rather defeats the purpose of a SC.

[Reverend Zombie]

I guess I've just been unlucky/unwise, but I've never had a lesser horror successfully beat ANY PD...

What's the upward limit on PD level that you've found a lesser horror can solo?

[chrispedersen]

Nah; Hinnom can do a horror spam, but you're far more likely to be trampled under the treads of his units in the early or mid game.

I think Baalz is right on several points; the most piquant of which is: sure you can summon LoC. But the odds are you won't GET to. And you certainly won't *need* to.

[DonCorazon]

Yeah, I have used LA TC Masters of the Way with frozen heart to cut down on horror spam but it never feels that cost effective even though they are only 100GP. Even worse using Ri with TNN to stop the burninator's minions.

[MaxWilson]

Baalz said:
As to keeping them from eating your SCs...well, I've never seen anybody else do this so I don't know if anybody's come up with a counter yet (nobody's successfully countered me yet). Nothing obvious comes to mind other than keeping a significant number of bodyguards around...which rather defeats the purpose of a SC.



Two things come to mind: 1.) The normal remote-ritual counters like Dome of Air. Not likely to be useful in all cases but will let him hold ground once he's taken it. 2.) In what sense do PD not make good bodyguards? I should think 10 PD, with the SC right in the middle of them, would break up the horror pack enough to significantly increase the number of horrors needed.

-Max

[Baalz]

Oh, I also wanted to respond to a couple people asking me why I didn't even mention a real blessing. Earth or Nature blessings would be the classical blessings to use for giants, and to be sure they're far from worthless. Thing is, how do you leverage them to make them worthwhile for the opportunity cost of chopping your scales back? The Ba'als certainly don't need the help - a blessing would be a mild bonus on top of all the capability you already have. So, for a blessing we're really talking about the Rephaite Warriors and the question is are they, with a blessing, enough better than your other options to justify lesser scales to get a bless. Your other option is pretty much the Dawn Guard who kicks teh Rephaite's butt on a gold for gold basis.

Ignoring upkeep and production you get 3 Dawn Guard for each Rephaite. The Dawn Guard are size 3 with a defense of 16 and a protection of 13, making them the flat out most survivable giant infantry in the game for the cost (they win handily 1:1 vs Jotun Hirdmen). 3 of them have 75 hitpoints compared to the Rephaite's 55 so they've just got all kinds of advantages in staying power over the Rephaite in most situations. On offense, the Rephaite gets one magic attack and one non-magic, both dealing good damage, whereas 3 Dawn Guard get three magic attacks dealing good damage.

So, what bless makes sense to sacrifice any of your scales for?

[Baalz]

MaxWilson said:

Baalz said:
As to keeping them from eating your SCs...well, I've never seen anybody else do this so I don't know if anybody's come up with a counter yet (nobody's successfully countered me yet). Nothing obvious comes to mind other than keeping a significant number of bodyguards around...which rather defeats the purpose of a SC.



Two things come to mind: 1.) The normal remote-ritual counters like Dome of Air. Not likely to be useful in all cases but will let him hold ground once he's taken it. 2.) In what sense do PD not make good bodyguards? I should think 10 PD, with the SC right in the middle of them, would break up the horror pack enough to significantly increase the number of horrors needed.

-Max



Horrors rout the PD in the first couple turns, which routs the SC. Depends on the PD of course...

[Tifone]

@ Reverend Zombie,

as I said, I'm trying the potential of Horrors in my actual SP game using Mictlan. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Maybe it isn't a very worthy example but trying to soften a Marverni army of about 80 mixed units + a "quite well organized" PD sending a lesser horror to the enemy province before my actual army of blessed Jaguar Warriors (they wouldn't have needed that help anyway), with my surprise the lesser horror was able to kill some of them and to rout everybody - so my army had only to fight the few units that were arriving for their reinforcement.

It isn't a great example, Marverni's PD is IMHO quite poor and their army did not have good mages, but as you asked which PD a lesser Horror was able to defeat, well this is one. ^_^

[calmon]

A moderate bless strategy without destroying the scales is taking an imprissoned E9 Cyclop. Go for O3S2F3G3L3M1 and dom 7. Just conquer some surrounding provinces and you've enough resources. Early game isn't significant slower because of sloth and later you don't miss production.

[Baalz]

calmon said:
A moderate bless strategy without destroying the scales is taking an imprissoned E9 Cyclop. Go for O3S2F3G3L3M1 and dom 7. Just conquer some surrounding provinces and you've enough resources. Early game isn't significant slower because of sloth and later you don't miss production.



Right, but my question is does the earth bless gain you more than my suggestion of a blood fountain with B7 (just a brazen vessel for Grigori), a dominion of 9, and production 3? You're giving up 2 levels of dominion, 10% of your income and the easy Grigory/Demon lords, and I maintain that you're not noticeably better at expanding or fighting other nations.

[chrispedersen]

Baalz is right. Hinnom doesn't need a bless strategy. With an awake pretender, you can take two provinces the *first* turn - and every turn there after - which is worth way more than an earth bless.

I disagree with him on DawnGuards. Sure, they're great units. I just like the Size 6 tramplers better. And since the tramplers have decent attacks, defense, morale and mr - they eat elephants for breakfast.

Oh: and I don't know if this has been discussed or not. But tramplers seem to ignore etherealness, luck, (insert spell of choice).

I particularly like hasting them.....

[calmon]

I really like the earth bless. Its also an option to cast forge of the ancient. On the other side a boosted Ba'al does the same here. Maybe some blood makes more sence for hinnom.

@chrispedersen
i don't think a awake pretender is good for any giant race. They have one of the best early game and don't need more boosts.

[sector24]

Great guide! Although, I do have 2 questions/comments.

1) You choose a blood fountain designed to cast LoC, but you later explain how it's unlikely that you even need it. Perhaps another pretender would be more useful, or do you use the blood fountain for something else?

2) Being first in every score graph makes you a prime target for getting ganged up on. Is Hinnom so powerful that you can ignore this or do you have to use Ermorian silver-tongued diplomacy, or do you have to kind of curb your expansion at some point to appear less powerful than you are?

[Renojustin]

From now on Baalz must write a secondary guide for every nation he has a guide for, entitled "How To Fight X."

[Baalz]

Oh, I make a bit of exaggeration for humor's sake. You're not actually going to be able to dominate everyone every time you play and win before the endgame. Hinnom's initial expansion is very, very good, but it's not really that much better than any of several nations who have very rapid early expansion. I think Hinnom will be a nation that people gang up on, just like LA Ermor and LA R'yleh - they're very strong early on but unstoppable if left alone. You'll need to play similarly.

[Taqwus]

...and you'll want to establish a solid advantage before your giants eat all your taxpayers. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

[Tifone]

So as far as I understood, the main "danger" for this nation you people talked about, is from alliances of enemies - which will hopefully stop its GREAT early power in order to prevent their UNSTOPPABLE (quoting) late power?

wowz http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/eek.gif

[Lingchih]

This makes me wonder even more how in the heck Hinnom got stomped in the Kingmaker early game by Lanka.

[Sombre]

Well in fairness Lanka is also a powerhouse and any nation can be tricky to do well with if you are new to it/mp in general.

[Lingchih]

Yes, it was a newb playing them I believe. He built all chariots and no giants.

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/confused.gif

[Baalz]

*sigh* and Hinnom, sight unseen was my original first choice for kingmaker. Instead I somehow got talked into taking MA Oceana. There's a swing for you...;)

[DonCorazon]

if it makes you feel better - i lost 3 rolloffs in Kingmaker: LA TC, then Ashdod, then Gath.

Thus I ended up as enraged Utgard.

[Amhazair]

sector24 said:
1) You choose a blood fountain designed to cast LoC, but you later explain how it's unlikely that you even need it. Perhaps another pretender would be more useful, or do you use the blood fountain for something else?


Well, his first consideration when choosing a pretender was to have massive scales. The two cheapest chassis to do this are the oracle and the blood fountain. It's then a choice whether you want teleporting master enslave action, which your national mages can pull off by themselves too (with some effort) or bloody blood summoning.

[WraithLord]

Awesome guide. I have tested Hinom in SP and came with close conclusions but your guide covered all the points I've misses, which is great http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

I've taken a W9, E4 bless with dragon and good scales, the bless makes Rephaim and Melqart expand like crazy.

I've used regular scouts/commanders for blood hunting and it worked well but I think using three Kohens with SDR will yield many more slaves.

Ba'al is ridiculous, I couldn't come up with enough ways to use them.

Your suggestion of using lesser horrors is very useful.

I think 1v1 this nation is top tier in game if not first place. How it would stand in MP is totally another issue though. I'm against changing something drastic in order to balance them, if anything the dawn guards could be made capitol only or the nation can get a 10-15% price increase across the board.

[Ming]

WraithLord,

If you make the dawn guards capital only, the optimal strategy for the nation becomes less complex. The power of the dawn guards make it possible to deviate from taking P3.

[WraithLord]

I'm afraid I'm not quite following. Dawn guards are resource intensive (in absolute terms - require 30 or 35 resources), so how come their power makes it possible to deviate from P3?- they practically beg for high production.

Another idea to reduce their strength is not allow recruiting of Ammi w/o labs.

[Tifone]

Mmh, Ammis not needing a lab to be recruited fits the rules perfectly i think... It's because they just have random picks right?

[Ming]

My reasoning is as follows:

IMHO the key advantage of P3 is to allow you to recruit as many capital-only sacreds as possible as you will very soon find that you'll run out of funds much faster than resources as you expand and build new castles. If one take a lesser production scale, one will end up with less of those awsome capital sacreds but more doom guards (recruited outside of the capital). That is not necessary a poor trade-off if the extra design points can be put to good use - partly because one will run out of supplies very quickly (not to mention pop loss) if one concentrate on the capital only sacreds.

[WraithLord]

@Ming, thanks for elaborating. I find your reasoning to make perfect sense hence I agree making dawn guards capital only is not preferable for balance purposes.

@Tifone, it does fit the rules.

I think maybe a possible balancing act, besides raising price across the board is to make this nation's temples cost more, maybe 50% more, maybe even a thematic reason for that could be found.

[Tifone]

Mmh, personally (and it could be weird I admit http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif ) I'd prefer something new and strange to balance Hinnom (of course if the devs decide it should be done), something like the Shattered Soul trait was for tartarians.

Hinnom already has the distinctive trait Baalz talked about http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif but it seems it isn't decisive to balance the great strength this nation has in... well, possibly almost any field. ^^

As I always say I wouldn't like this game to became PERFECTLY balanced - it would be boring as hell - but with proper use this nation seems able to steamroll almost everything ^^ My suggestion of a "Guide" or at least some tips about which weaknesses one could exploit (in the positive meaning) to beat Hinnom was not entirely ironic http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

[Ming]

Hinnom is NOT necessarily an easy nation to maximize its potential, precisely because it has so many awesome ways of overcominging its enemy. However, one doesn't need to unlock its full potential to do well with Hinnom. Even a simple strategy will work. I like Hinnom's complexity but dislike its being so powerful.

I think one way of reducing the power of Hinnom without changing its complexity is to drastically weakens its PD. It might be thematic too. A population that needs to sacrifice their own to pacify their rulers would need a lot of persuation to stand up and fight for them when they are not around.

[Ming]

Tifone,

High defense units could cause Hinnom some problems, especially since the Hinnom chariot is not as awesome as its stat might suggest. However, it is more an annoyance as opposed to a glaring weakness as Hinnom's sacreds have two attacks and Dawn Guards' doom sword provides an attack bonus.

The main weakness IMHO is that there are various pitfalls that a careless Hinnom player could fall into and shoot their own foot. In the hands of a good player Hinnom is difficult to counter. At least I have not found one yet (but I am working on it http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif)

[Xietor]

They were one of the 1st races to die in kingmaker. The problem with nations that are tougher than others is they better be tough enough to fight uphill(2 v 1).

[Ming]

Xietor,

I agree that 2 vs 1 is a VERY powerful way of nerfing a strong nation. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Baalz]

In case anyone is curious, I played a duel with QM yesterday, Hinnom vs Niefelheim. I used the build and strategy laid out here, which I think is pretty much a worst case scenario for Hinnom (well, anybody really) outside of being ganged up on. A good scales build optimized for long term potential set upon by a dual blessed Niefelheim at the hands of a very good player with nothing else to focus on. How many nations can do anything in such a situation other than rolling over and showing their belly?

I lost, but it was quite a squeaker and I don't think either of us would be sure which way it'd go if we did it again. Even with being rushed by Niefelheim in year one with heavy pressure kept up the whole game I managed to get up 5 castles (one was a freebie with the Castle Arcanum magic site) and had a reasonable chance of pushing back for a win until I conceded in the last half of year 3. Again, how many nations can you name that could do that well in this situation? As QM put it with only a little tongue in cheek, Hinnom is probably overpowered merely because they didn't insta-collapse in that situation.

Anyway, my conclusion is that in Hinnom you've got a nation that's in the same league as the very best early game nations - which steadily gets more powerful as the game goes on. I never got to lay any of the really nasty stuff in this guide down, being heavily raided so early I couldn't get a blood economy going, having no access to cold resistance my SCs were neutered, and blood stones don't really help much in such a game...

[MaxWilson]

Tifone said:
As I always say I wouldn't like this game to became PERFECTLY balanced - it would be boring as hell - but with proper use this nation seems able to steamroll almost everything ^^ My suggestion of a "Guide" or at least some tips about which weaknesses one could exploit (in the positive meaning) to beat Hinnom was not entirely ironic http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif



Isn't "How To Beat Hinnom With X" going to be heavily derivative of the Nation X guide? From Baalz' guide, I get that Hinnom has great expansion and good blood magic, with good Astral magic for endgame strats. Lots of their strength is the carryover from a good early game combined with the ability to do something with that strength later on (better than, say, MA Oceania or MA Man). They do have fairly weak mages--Baalz suggests Hellpower for getting around that and it's a good suggestion--and Dawn Guards are far from the only excellent recruitable unit, but if you want to beat someone playing Hinnom the way Baalz suggests you're going to need to leverage your own strengths instead of merely exploiting Hinnom's theoretical weaknesses.

Let's put it this way: Lanka and Mictlan can both use the Horror-spam tactic to kill SCs, and they can do it BETTER than Hinnom because they're better at blood-hunting. Does that make Lanka unstoppable? <font color="red"> Edit: er, wait. No they can't. I'm AFG but I think Send Lesser Horror requires S as well as B. If so the Send Lesser Horror tactic would be restricted to Bogarus, Abysia, and maybe a few others. (Possibly an Abysia/Lanka alliance?) Anyway, a lot harder than I thought.</font>

-Max

[MaxWilson]

Baalz said:
In case anyone is curious, I played a duel with QM yesterday, Hinnom vs Niefelheim. I used the build and strategy laid out here, which I think is pretty much a worst case scenario for Hinnom (well, anybody really) outside of being ganged up on. A good scales build optimized for long term potential set upon by a dual blessed Niefelheim at the hands of a very good player with nothing else to focus on. How many nations can do anything in such a situation other than rolling over and showing their belly?



Hmmm, interesting. Hinnom's heat preference undoubtedly helped hold off Niefelheim because all their sacreds are cold-powered--a different early-game power like Helheim might have fared better. And, Hinnom still lost.

Nevertheless, an interesting datum.

-Max

[MaxWilson]

Ming said:
I think one way of reducing the power of Hinnom without changing its complexity is to drastically weakens its PD. It might be thematic too. A population that needs to sacrifice their own to pacify their rulers would need a lot of persuation to stand up and fight for them when they are not around.



It might also be a good idea to reexamine the resource cost of Dawn Blades and/or the gcost of Dawn Guards w/rt similar units of other nations. The thing that comes to mind there is def 16 / base defense 13. I suspect they're pretty okay (Kala-Mukhas cost 65 and are sacred) but it's worth looking at, since I believe KO assigns unit abilities before gcost/rcost.

-Max

[Ming]

I just took a look at Hinnom vs. Niefel (inspired by Baalz's post). What struck me immediately is that Hinnom's starting army is roughly twice as strong (or at least would have cost about twice as much to recruit) as Niefel's! No wonder I have always found it worthwhile to gamble and sent Hinnom's starting army out on turn one (I use normal indie setting)! This is a very great advantage. Second, my inspection confirmed my suspicion that Hinnom's units do not seem to be particularly underpriced.

Based on the above I think

1. cutting Hinnom's starting army by half and

2. replacing its PD by 1 Horite per point from 1-19 and 0.5 Horite Champ + 0.5 Horite Hunter per point from 20+, as well as giving Qedesim as its additional leader at 20 instead of Kohen (Horites don't see much action otherwise as they are very expensive goldwise).

should be sufficient to cutting Hinnom down to size without changing its dynamics very much.

[Amhazair]

MaxWilson said:
Let's put it this way: Lanka and Mictlan can both use the Horror-spam tactic to kill SCs, and they can do it BETTER than Hinnom because they're better at blood-hunting. Does that make Lanka unstoppable? <font color="red"> Edit: er, wait. No they can't. I'm AFG but I think Send Lesser Horror requires S as well as B. If so the Send Lesser Horror tactic would be restricted to Bogarus, Abysia, and maybe a few others. (Possibly an Abysia/Lanka alliance?) Anyway, a lot harder than I thought.</font>



Mictlan has very nice S/B priests too. They do share the capital only recruitment with all their other high priests (W/B, N/B, F/B) but you'll probably have a fair number of them in any case.

[thejeff]

The other thematic way of weakening them might be to boost the HINNOM EATS EVERYTHING part. Especially the eating your own troops part.

I haven't played with them much, but it sounds like it's more of an annoyance than a real handicap at this level.

[Baalz]

thejeff said:
The other thematic way of weakening them might be to boost the HINNOM EATS EVERYTHING part. Especially the eating your own troops part.

I haven't played with them much, but it sounds like it's more of an annoyance than a real handicap at this level.



The biggest drawback is that all your blood hunters eat your population, which actually makes excessive blood hunting a good deal harder. I'll need to play around with them more, but my first impression is that this alone is enough to keep them from rivaling the real blood champions like Mictlan and Lanka...I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss it.

Regarding horror spam, EA &amp; LA Mictlan can do it with an astral booster - which generally requires con-6. MA Abyssia (don't remember off the top of my head the other eras) can do it with no booster on 25% of their cap only warlocks, the rest need boosters. There's an important opportunity cost here though, as demonbred are also cap-only so it's either/or and only a 25% success rate if you're hoping for horror spammers. Hinnom can cast it with 33% of their Ba'als, which you have absolutely no reason to not recruit every turn you can afford one. Bogarus I don't know off the top of my head, do they have a B2S3 reliable mage? Outside of possibly Bogarus, Hinnom has a much stronger lesser horror spam potential than any other nation, and a *much* stronger greater horror potential - B3S4 mages aren't easy to come by.

[WraithLord]

As much as I think of it the more I come to believe that the nation doesn't require balancing. Yes its powerful, no its not overpowered in the only sense that matters, MP - so If for example, in then next N EA games Hinom would have &lt;10% of the victories, I'd say its rather balanced.

I mean, given that there are what?- 17 EA nations? Normal win dist. should give each nation ~6% average wins. I'm willing to bet (based on intuition) that Himom will not start suddenly winning many MP games.

[AlgaeNymph]

Lingchih said:
This makes me wonder even more how in the heck Hinnom got stomped in the Kingmaker early game by Lanka.


Sombre said:
Well in fairness Lanka is also a powerhouse and any nation can be tricky to do well with if you are new to it/mp in general.

That, and being ganged up on.
Lingchih said:
Yes, it was a newb playing them I believe. He built all chariots and no giants.

My thought was "a score of armored tramplers, what could possibly go wrong?"

Lanka, mainly. I am, however, good at taking notes.

[Aezeal]

Why wouldn't those tramplers work against lanka though.. or rather why didn't they.. size 6 should work against most of those demons right?

[Falkor]

High protection doesn't help against Lanka's hard hitting demons and these chariots are relativly slow for effective trampling. And remember, it was not 1:1 fight. There was just not enough chariots to deal with all the demons and shapeshifters at the same time. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

[Aezeal]

another thing I'm wondering now I'm starting my first Hinnom game... are Melqarts so much weaker as SC (opposed to Baal? they have better combat stats and seem to need even less equipment than Baal.

[AlgaeNymph]

Aezeal said:
Are Melqarts so much weaker as SCs (as opposed to Ba'als)? they have better combat stats and seem to need even less equipment.

They also have bonuses to blood hunting *and* blood sacrifice. Checked it myself in the Dom3DB.

[Baalz]

Hmmm, not sure about the blood hunting bonus, but unless it's massive that's a pretty inefficient blood hunter. For anything other than fighting obviously the Ba'al is better, I suppose you can send them out with less equipment though with your large and diverse gem income it shouldn't usually be a problem to equip one Ba'al per turn. Ba'als can send horrors, have stronger fire/astral shields, teleport, and generate less fatigue buffing, and with a couple boosters can spam disease demon, hoard from hell, ritual of the five gates, forge blood stones, etc. Melqarts would be very good if you didn't have to choose between them and Baalz, um, excuse me, Ba'als, but giving up a Ba'al seems like a steep price to shave a few gems off the equip price.

[chrispedersen]

Plus Baalz can eat Mels.

[chrispedersen]

Having played large amounts of Hinnom and Lanka, the reason comes down to a number of factors.

1. Lanks often defend.

To defend against a trample, the defending unit makes a modified def roll vs. a 10. Most lanka demons will succeed at doing this. If they make, 1 pt of damage.

Even if they fail, the damage is 20 pts of damage ap. Which isn't enough to kill most of the lanka demons.

2. Hinnom movement rate is low. This directly affects the number of times the chariots will attempt to displace the lankas.

However, additionally, the huge disparity in movement rates between the charioteers and the donkey/tigerheads means that the donkey/tigerheads are likely to get first attacks in.

3. Lankas are Lethal.

Due to the lethality of the lankan attacks, iirc the Hinnom charioteers have around 24 hps VERY low for a size 6 creature. So, as Lankas often have a Water or Fire bless, and in combination with the size difference, the lankas take out the chariots before the chariots can trample a sufficient number.

However, battlefield spells that increase fatigue (heat from hell) and spells like haste that decrease movement cost should disproportionately help hinnom.

Still, you have better units against lanka.

[AlgaeNymph]

Baalz said:
Hmmm, not sure about the blood hunting bonus, but unless it's massive that's a pretty inefficient blood hunter.

The douse and sacrifice bonus are both 3.

[Edi]

Yes, they are. For reference, the SDR dousing bonus is 1.

[konming]

If developers try to balance Hinnom, I think a good way would be taking away S completely. Suddenly you cannot teleport or horror spam. Or do anything powerful with S. Their heroes would not have S either, leaving LoC much more important to summon.

[konming]

Another change would be giving all their units other than rephaim very low morale. After all, one will not be very eager to fight when his master just ate his family for breakfast. All regular troops will have a morale of 8 and dawn guard 10.

[Tifone]

Seems good and thematic suggestions to me, konmig http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/smirk.gif

If someone can even, and I'm not doing criticism, explain me without skinning me alive http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/stupid.gif why those angels of hinnom have 100% resistance to 3 things, are stealthy (very stealthy), and have a so high fear (I mean, they're kind of angels! The Moloch, the Manticore and the Dagon seem way more terrific to me, and they have Fear+0, not to talk about the Mother of Monsters, the Destroyer of Worlds and the Drakaina, who don't have it at all http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/skull.gif ), I would be grateful. Really, no criticism intended, and the Fear on those pretenders is ok as it is for me (well maybe the Drakaina IS a little horrific), I just think the Lords of Civilization's Fear may be a little out of scale http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

[Renojustin]

Well, they're kind of like Voltron. Voltron is loved by good, and feared by evil. So don't get on Voltron's - or the angels' - bad sides.

[Tifone]

Maybe, Reno, but even being a bad *** (as I am http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif ) I would rather fear a 5 meters tall woman with an anaconda's tail from which 6 half dogs bark their hunger for human flesh, than some angel (or even Voltron, if you wish http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif )

[JimMorrison]

Any woman who has barking dog head's hanging out of her, is bad news in my book. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/redface.gif

But if you're talking about the Lords of Creation, they're that bad *** because they used to be pretty much walking gods. They are immensely powerful, and now that they are tainted from imprisonment and reawakening, are quite psychotic as well. All those others are fairly tame compared to a pissed off and formerly imprisoned arch-angel. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif

[Tifone]

Ok, and being them so pissed off makes them 10 times more fearful then a gigantic lion with a poisonous scorpion sting, bat wings and an old (pissed off himself) man's head? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif

And even being them so pissed off, they can be very silent indeed if they are so stealthy http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Maybe (and I say, maybe) this nation is already very powerful to have those 6 very pissed off summons ^^

Nobody misunderstands me plz!! I like the flavour of the nation!! The flavour of the Lords of Civilization!! I am not a balance maniac!! 4 reelz!! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/rant.gif
I'm just saying for me, it would be good if some of the (IMHO very thematic) advices given by the people of this forum are implemented to Hinnom - a lower morale, a smallest initial army, no access to astral so if you want those bad-*** guys and the horror spam etc, you absolutely need a pretender designed in this way (it was rather surprising to me that Baalz said the thing you want the most from your pretender are scales... what? a nation that doesn't need the pretender for magic diversity, help in initial expansion by a SC, blesses? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/eek.gif)

Those are my opinions. I am ALWAYS opened to new points ^^

[MaxWilson]

Hmmm, that makes me think. Maybe Hinnom should have the option of taking one of the Grigori as its pretender? It would be especially nice if you could require it to be Imprisoned, but there's no way to do that outside of a very high point cost (which would still be circumvented with rubbish scales). 310 points and newpathcost 50 seems fair.

-Max

[JimMorrison]

Hehe Tifone, the thing about overall balance, is that it is very hard to manage a Hinnom economy in order to really exploit Blood income. Their Blood Hunters eat pop, and while it's not impossible to work it out, it is sufficiently difficult that I am sure it will take a lot of luck, and very good choices in MP to actually successfully summon Lords. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif

As to their fear, yes a Manticore is an enormous, hideous beast. It makes untrained men soil themselves. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif But it doesn't have laser beam eyes and lightning shooting from it's arse. &gt;.&gt; The Grigori are immensely powerful, and while mothers tell their children stories of Manticores to make them eat their vegetables, the prophecies of the return of the Grigori are so terrifying, that they are spoken of only in hushed tones. So while terrfying, the Manticore is just a mundane beast, and you have to assume something as powerful as the Grigori is more than that, like a 30 foot tall Darth Vader. You may forget to soil yourself, as you go mad and run away sobbing like a little girl. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/redface.gif

[chrispedersen]

Scratches head.

I still haven't seen any population getting et. Maybe I should look harder....

[triqui]

Sombre said:
Well in fairness Lanka is also a powerhouse and any nation can be tricky to do well with if you are new to it/mp in general.



It is. I would rate Lanka access to magic, sacreds, troops and thugs almost as high as Hinnom.

But Lanka has the worst PD in game, and Hinnom has the best one. So if lanka is a powerhouse, then hinnom is.... a superpowerhouse?

[chrispedersen]

Well, judging from my experience in mp - I was able to take out vanheim in an early rush - but it cost so much that my position is poor for the rest of the game.

You could do a lot to *fix* Hinnom merely by nerfing their starting troops. As is, they can take reliably take 2 with an awak pretender.

But I would rather hinnom didn't get fixed for awhile.
Cool to see it in play.

[Kristoffer O]

Good thread with nice input.

I've been a bit worried about the nation since I made it. I've not played extensively with it, so this thread is much appreciated.

I did expect the nation to need some post release fixings, but I was a bit uncertain what their strongest points were.

PD and starting troops are probably good initial nerfs that doesn't affect the thematics of a nation.

Keep up the discussions. I would like to know a bit more of the pop-eating as well. How much does it hamper the nation.

And Baalz, an Ashdod guide would be nice too http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif I fear they are more powerful, at least after the early game.

[calmon]

Hi KO, welcome back! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

I don't think Ashdod is more powerful.

Like Baalz said hinnom has some super specials like posibility to cast all site searching spells other than water. And this is really important! Ashdod miss blood, nature and air in addition to water.

Blood Magic is a powerhouse and ashdod doesn't have access to it. Its even possible for hinnom to produce blood stones.

On the other side you got things like +15% Forge Bonus which isn't that good. With dwarven hammers (you normally have when producing items and ashdod has easy access to them) you got only a marginal bonus for the low cost items. 5 gems items cost 3 in both cases, 10 gem items cost you 6 instead of 7 so you save 1 gem. In higher costs the bonus is more worth but the main items you produce are at 5/10 gems (pendant, amulet of am, brands, most used armors and shield, etc.).

Well you don't have people killing giants but it doens't hurt hinnom much atm.

Btw, the possbile build of Ammi (and ashdod raphaite sage) without any lab is because of the bug that every mage with only random magic doesn't need a lab. Its also an advantage for this nations. Maybe you can fix it http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Zeldor]

calmon:

It is WAD not a bug with mages with only randoms buildable without lab. I was asking about it several months ago with MA TC mage.

[Kristoffer O]

I think it begun as an oversight, but it can be fun so we're probably not fixing it.

[Baalz]

Kristoffer O said:
Keep up the discussions. I would like to know a bit more of the pop-eating as well. How much does it hamper the nation.




I think people are dismissing the pop eating a little too fast as trivial. I haven't played Hinnom in a competitive environment long enough for it to really be significant yet (you know the pace the PBEM games run at), but in the test games I ran to test out my theoretical strategies the population death from building up a stack of Ba'als in my capital was very noticeable and convinced me that it was something that I needed to keep an eye on. I get the impression most people are thinking "ok, I just need to stack my mages outside my capital, no big deal", and that's true for your capital, but what this significantly impacts is blood hunting. All your blood hunters eat population, which is a critical consideration for setting up blood farms. I haven't tested if there is much/any variation, but it seems like Kohen (your most cost efficient blood hunters) eat 20 pop per turn apiece. This means if you go with a standard 3 blood hunters per province you're looking at -60 pop per turn, which means that once you account for a few pop here and there lost to bloodhunting and associated unrest you're looking at the ballpark of -1k population per year in each of the provinces you're bloodhunting. That means if you target the provinces closest to 5k population (absent from this consideration the most cost efficient places to blood hunt) they pretty quickly drop under 5k and you start getting diminishing returns from bloodhunting (a 4k province will on average yield 4/5ths the blood slaves as a 5k province). Assuming you drop the taxes to 0% , if you bloodhunt in a 10k population province the "cost" in gold for your bloodslaves is twice as much as doing it in a 5k province. So, the impact of this on any major scale bloodhunting is to make the blood slaves more expensive and to make there be fewer appropriate bloodhunting provinces. To those thinking "well, ok so I bloodhunting in 6k provinces rather than 5k provinces", just think about how the population density usually falls out, what I think will commonly happen is the one 6k population province will be bloodhunted first, then for the second one the player is faced with a choice between a 5k one or an 8k one.

It's a subtle thing, but I think it really does add a decent bit to how much gold Hinnom "spends" to get blood slaves.


Kristoffer O said:
And Baalz, an Ashdod guide would be nice too http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif I fear they are more powerful, at least after the early game.



Sure, I'll put it on my list.

[Baalz]

Baalz said:
In case anyone is curious, I played a duel with QM yesterday, Hinnom vs Niefelheim.



I was playing around with this over the weekend to see what I would do in such a matchup in the future and came up with another couple things I thought should be added to the guide.

Hinnom lacks access to water magic, which makes fighting Niefelheim SC to SC pretty difficult, but even being giants your troops don't hit hard enough to bring down dual blessed Niefels. I actually think this matchup won't be all that uncommon for Hinnom, given the extra attention they'll probably be receiving. So, what to do....

Birch boots give 50% CR which is a great start and something to start using immediately at con-2. Elemental armor will get you the other 50% you need, but unless you get lucky with the 10% random on a Ba'al, you'll need to empower to forge it. This isn't so prohibitive as it sounds at first, you've got strong fire and earth incomes, and you can empower (different mages) with either of them to do this. Since Thau-2 and site searching are going to be very early targets, you should have a solid gem income. Elemental armor and birch boots make an excellent choice for Ba'al even if you're not fighting Neifel.

Next up, Se'ir. I glanced at these guys before writing the guide and dismissed them as OK summons in a nation with lots of excellent other options. They've got a claw, claw, gore attack and 16 str, 28 hp and 7 protection and you summon 8 for 33 bloodslaves. What I didn't realize was they also have +4 berserk, are holy, and are demons. If you have a blood bless (as I suggested), cast blessing, blood lust, then blood letting they now each have 3 attacks at 28 damage and 17 attack. They're size 3, and that right there should be enough to swarm over neifels in anything short of cold-3, but if you can punch up to con-7 you can also cast a very easily castable weapons of sharpness, and you've got air mages to cast arrow fend against the obvious counter.

Trust me, it's sickening how fast these guys carve through any human sized troops even without the weapons of sharpness. With it, I don't see them having much trouble taking out any SCs in the game.

[Sombre]

I told you man. Se'irim are amazing especially compared with the other national blood summon. They're completely nuts if you've gone for a bless strat too - with N9 for example.

[thejeff]

One of Hinnom's weaknesses is that, although they've got access to most paths, they've got very few multipath mages. Blood &amp; everything, but not much else. This limits boosters and SC items.

It's certainly not crippling, but it removes a lot of the standard SC gear choices.

[Ming]

KO,

I am relatively new here but I would like to take this opportunity to say (or rather, echo, as I am sure it has been said by others) that in all these years of gaming I have never come across a developer that is as responsive and as dedicated to his/their games. Thank you and congratulations for such a superb game.

On your question on Hinnom's pop eating, my limited experience is that with a Growth 3 scale and care in the early turns (ie. not hiring Rephaims at EVERY possible opportunity) the effect is minimal (virtually all provinces are still growing), although some micromanagement with placement might be necessary. So I equate it as the equivalent of roughly a 80 reduction in design points (you are still growing in the earlier turns and only plateau out in selected provinces later) , which is not much since they get 80 points back for favouring Heat 2.

[calmon]

I also want to add that Hinnom/Ashodod has answeres to most early/mid game tactics:

This counts for every giant race:
- Trampler: Don't work against giants in general
- Big Archer Troops: Archers love to kill with 1 hit because they scatter her arrows. Against giants there are a lot of hitted giants but to kill one you need mutiple hits. The target is big enough but also good protected and has a shield. (With Regeneration bless its really hard to do much damge.)
- Flyers: Giants normally don't use much archers and unprotected mages where flying units rock
- Awaken Awe Pretender: Giants have high morale and do a lot of damage. All things Cyclops (&amp; Co) with awe hate!

And some additionals for the Fire Giants only:
- Flaming Arrow/Fire 9 Bless: 50/75 Fire Protection helps a lot!
- Etheral Forces: A Standard Magical Weapons works perfect here

The only problems they have are typical giant killers:
- "death" spells like soul slay, petrify, etc.. But the weaker forms like mind burn, smite, etc. don't help much (because of high hp). And you've to fight against this weaker form in early game!
- Masses of barbarian type of units

I don't think the icy giants are that a problem in a non-duel MP game. Normally they tend to ignore each other in early/mid game just because of the fact they use different heat/cold scales which makes attacking very exhausting and the fact that there are generally weaker victims (with weaker early game)! In mid/late game niefelheim types tend to losing power, the fire giants not.

In sum. People tend not to go in war with you in early game. Which is the basement for your very good mid/late game.

In moment i'm in a small ea mp game with formoria (paladin on llama). Also inside baalz with Lanka and evilhomer with hinnom. It will bring up some additional experiences.

[Baalz]

Ming said:
On your question on Hinnom's pop eating, my limited experience is that with a Growth 3 scale and care in the early turns (ie. not hiring Rephaims at EVERY possible opportunity) the effect is minimal (virtually all provinces are still growing), although some micromanagement with placement might be necessary. So I equate it as the equivalent of roughly a 80 reduction in design points (you are still growing in the earlier turns and only plateau out in selected provinces later) , which is not much since they get 80 points back for favouring Heat 2.



Well, this actually illustrates my point quite well. If you a) feel the need to take growth 3 for *no other reason* and b) feel the need to limit/alter how many of your best units you recruit then the effect is significant. It's not a crippling thing, but it's not an insignificant one either. Without HINNOM EATING EVERYTHING, there would be no reason to take growth scales, and indeed death scales would be a reasonable choice - you can leverage your rapid expansion to shape your empire such that good bloodhunting sites remain outside your dominion. Kind of a pain, but that'd give you points to stack a nasty bless on top of everything else.

Even taking these precautions it still will impact the bloodhunting as I suggest, growth 3 in a 5k province will offset 30 population decline per turn, so you're talking about slowing the process I describe, not stopping it (unless you're bloodhunting in provinces &gt; 10k).

[Ming]

Baalz,

I was not trying to disagree with you. I don't always disagree with you.

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

I am just putting it into perspective and saying that it is no where near crippling. I agree with KO that weakening Hinnom's starting army and PD is already sufficient to bring it in line with other nations. No need to weaken it further.

[Ming]

Baalz,

BTW, look forward to reading your Ashdod guide.

[triqui]

I am just putting it into perspective and saying that it is no where near crippling. I agree with KO that weakening Hinnom's starting army and PD is already sufficient to bring it in line with other nations. No need to weaken it further.


I dont think that weaking Hinnom PD and army is enough to bring it in line with the average nations. Nor KO has said such thing. KO said that was an easy change becouse it does not alter the theme of the nation, while other changes might do.

Hinnom is a powerful nation even with a lesser starting army and a weaker PD. It's certainly in the class of nations KO has mentioned that require diplomacy (ie: alliances) to be controlled.

[Ming]

triqul,

Do not under estimate the impact of weakening Hinnom's starting army and PD. It obviously depends on how much they are weakened. If you take the example in my earlier post, I think it would be sufficient. Even if I were to be wrong, it would be simplest (and best) to weaken Hinnom's PD even more than to change other aspects of the nation's make-up.

[triqui]

Ming

What i mean is that, even having monkey PD, Hinom would be a major powerhouse in the game. They have very strong sacreds, very strong regular troops, powerful thugs (even SC i would say), powerful mages, access to blood, natural access to dwarven hammers and bloodstones, access to Astral magic... They have virtually no niche "weak".

I think without PD (or monkey PD, which is almost the same) they would still be Lanka-level nation. Which means a solid top 5.

[Ming]

triqui,

I do not disagree with you, except that being Lanka level is not overpowered. At the very least they have the company of Lanka - and probably also Niefel, Hellheim, Mictlan, etc. Furthermore, Hinnom is relatively weak against high defense, high damage troops (read Lanka/Kalissa etc. ). So they will be at their worst in a match-up against Lanka.

There are other reasons behind my suggesting a PD for Hinnom that is stronger than Lanka's (but still somewhat weak) in my earlier post. I'll elaborate on that and my other observations on Hinnom when I have more time.

[Ming]

triqui,

On re-reading your earlier post, I think we are more in agreement than we thought. My "in line with other nations" is NOT the same as your "in line with the average nation". What I meant was "in line with other STRONG nations".

[Baalz]

Ming said:
Furthermore, Hinnom is relatively weak against high defense, high damage troops (read Lanka/Kalissa etc. ). So they will be at their worst in a match-up against Lanka.




Well, I don't know about this. I suppose "weaker" might be a better term merely because they're giants and clobber high protection units, but I certainly would not say Hinnom is weak vs high defense units. Of course high damage troops are going to be more effective against anything, but again I don't think you can make the point that they're weak against them the same way, say MA Ulm is. As this is still a thread about Hinnom strategy lets see what Hinnom has to field against dual blessed Helhiem or Lanka.

First, I'm sure you'll concede that the two examples I chose are first rate dangers to most any nation. I don't propose that Hinnom can dominate this type of matchup in a worst case uber rush scenario, merely that Hinnom is no more weak against these types of troops than any other first rate nation.

Very rapid expansion buys you a lot of things right off the bat. First, obviously you've got great gold income. Second you've got flexibility in shaping how your kingdom forms up. Finally, you've got a very good ability to counter-raid any rush - neither Lanka nor Helheim's PD is going to be much of a speedbump to your chariots. This, combined with your very rapid castling up and research means it's very feasible to have some basic research done before you need to contemplate serious engagements.

Dual blessed uber sacreds are going to chew threw most anything, but Hinnom's troops will last longer than most and their PD much longer than most PD meat shields. Thus enters the other side of Hinnom's strength - they're strongly diverse battlemagic. As your strong research ramps up you'll quickly progress through (and cast all of these in large numbers) Fireball, Breath of the Dragon, Thunderstrike, Bladewind, Falling Fires, Destruction, Paralyze, Stellar Cascades. If you wan to get fancy with communions and Sabbaths you can lay down a torrent of evocations to make Arcoscephale blush, even pulling in the rarely used blood battlemagic like harm and hellfire. Once you get a chance to really ramp up your research you've got nothing to fear at all from ubersacreds - a small squad of research mages behind nothing more than PD will *DECIMATE* elite forces in anything less than overwhelming numbers by spamming leech.

[chrispedersen]

KO,

I've played 6 going on 8 or 9 mp games.

Hinnom is strong. Ashdod is average. Gath is weak.
The problem on the last two is simply resource cost.

As for pop eating - I use growth 3 almost exclusively for Hinnom - so I didn't even notice it for a looong time.

I have deliberately tried to provoke a baal into eating a melquart.. but despite acres of trying -- have only succeeded once.

[Lingchih]

Hmm. I think, having played them, that I would have to amend that.

Hinnom is strong. Ashdod is strong. Gath -dunno - haven't played them.

Ashdod seems every every bit as strong as Hinnom to me, since Ashdod, although somewhat weaker, does not have the nasty pop eating effect.

[Kristoffer O]

It's the Ophanim and other summons I'm mostly concerned about in regards to Ashdod.

[calmon]

Kristoffer, i wouldn't attend too much to the national lategame summons. They are a nice bonus when it comes into lategame (even if difficult to cast) but Early/Midgame is the very important part of the game and this is where the new giant races rock. They have all the giant early bonus and get decent mages for a good midgame.

[Ming]

Baalz,

I think you misunderstood my wording. "relatively weak" means weak relative to Hinnom's other departments, not relative to other races. Maybe "weaker' is indeed a better choice of word but I thought I have clarified that point in one of my earlier posts.

Please also bear in mind I am talking about a hypothetical Hinnom that has its starting army and PD weakened dramatically, not as it currently stands.

Give me some time and I'll cobble up a more detailed piece outlining my thoughts on Hinnom for you and others to take pot shot at. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Ming]

KO,

I have not tested this, but it seems to me that by the time Ophanim is available, Merkavah is not far behind and it is very tempting to wait and get Chayot rather than spending the gems on just Ophanim unless Ashdod is in the mids of a life and death struggle and cannot wait.

Chayots are awesome, but they are not unique and so other nations can get it through wish. So it should not be too unbalancing.

[konming]

Lord of Civilizations, on the other hand, cannot be wished. At least I do not know a way to wish for it.

[Tifone]

They are unwishable, you can find the reason on the 3ad about them http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

[Kristoffer O]

I'm less bothered by Lords of Civ than Ophanim, since I have nothing to compare them with. They are summoned as SC's without any gear. Seraphs etc needs some equipment to be efficient.

The difference between a LoC and a seraph is not that big. Just a pair of wings http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[konming]

I think by the time you summon seraph, gears would be the least thing you would worry about. Ophan is great against smaller beings, but against any other SC, it is dead meat, I mean wheel.:)

[Ming]

First of all, I wish to emphasise that this is not a guide to Hinnom, partly because I am relatively inexperienced in general and have no experience in MP, partly because it is too incomplete to be considered a guide. This is simply an attempt to put down my thoughts on Hinnom so that one can better understand my earlier comments on this nation.

Second, I want to say that I have learnt much on this game from this forum, not least from those who are patient enough to asnwer my stupid questions and point out the errors of my thinking. Sometimes I feel (usually when I am completely deluded) that I do have some understanding of MP in this game even though I have never played it because of all that I have learnt in this forum. Thank you to all of you.

Third, I wish to emphasise that what follows does not detract from Baalz's Hinnom guide in any way. Hinnom is a nation with many strengths. One would naturally find different ways to make Hinnom effective by virtue of focussing different aspects of its strength. This does not mean that one way is necessary better or that there might necessary be a single best way to play Hinnom.

A. General Comments:

A1. Hinnom is obviously a VERY powerful nation. However, one needs to be careful not to overestimate Hinnom's power. Hinnom can do many things well, however, it cannot do all these cool things well at the same time. So the total is less powerful than the sum of its parts. For example, one needs constr4 for blood stones and research in blood path to get the blood summons. If one does that one would (everything else equal) fall behind in other areas of research like Evo ot Thau compared to enemies that focus on them. On the other hand, if Hinnom wish to get access to falling fire quickly, it will need to delay its efforts on blood summons and/or blood stone manufacture. Indeed, one of the major risks in playing hinnom is not being sufficiently focussed to be effective.

A2. Hinnom's current starting army is about twice as strong as anyone else's. This is almost as good as starting with a free awake pretender. I think this goes a long way in making Hinnom overpowered.

A3. Hinnom's PD is the best in the game. This is similar to A2 above.

A4. Hinnom is relatively forgiving to a players' strategic mistakes simply because it is currently so powerful. Otherwise Hinnom is actually quite difficult to play well. There are many ways of making mistakes (eg. hiring too many Rephaim in the early game) and a players needs to be disciplined and carefully weigh his many viable options to be fully effective. For this reason its effective strength is usually weaker than its theoretical strength.

B. Pretender Design

In my view Pretender design is critical to a nation. It often defines a nation and can make or break it. I have found the following design to be sensible but please remember it has not been tested in MP.

B1. Magic Path
If one wish not to hire too many Rephaim in the early game than some bless is essential to make every one of them count. A fire bless is needed to make it more effective against high defense enemies. Earth and nature blesses are needed to survive (and prevail) while greatly outnumbered. so F4E4N4 would be a minimum. N6 would be nice if one can spare the design points, but it is more a luxury than necessarity.

B2. Scales

B2(i) Sloth 1 Growth 3. You can consider this a crop-out. Sloth 1 helps to ensure that you don't get too many Rephaims out too early and G3 mitigates the impact of pop eating later on. Together they almost (but not quite) eliminate pop eating as a handicap.

B2(ii) Heat 2 should be the standard although Heat 3 can be considered.

B2(iii) Magic one is minimum (and maybe the best choice) as Hinnom's cost effective researchers are all R4 only.

B2(iv) Order and luck is somewhat interlinked and is a difficult decision. Luck 3 is very tempting because Hinnom's heroes are almost as strong as some SC pretenders. However, that might not leave enough points for high order (which would reduce your lucky events anyway) and one really is relying on one's luck. Ultimately I think it comes down to player preference. Personally I would have order3 luck 3 and forget about N6. Maybe that is only because in one test game I was so lucky to get 2 heroes in successive turns in the first year!

From the above I use a Dom5 F4E4N4 O3S1H2G3L3M1 imprisioned Scorpion King but it is by no means definitive. I am sure other choices would also work. Lord of Rebirth is definitely a contender as it opens up the death path.

C. Early game strategy

I would focus on Hinnom's non-blood strengths in the early game and would be using very few (if any) blood hunters in the first year. Its research speed is already below average and no need to hamper it further by diverting mages to blood hunter (not to mention having more pop eating Rephaim!). Send the starting army out blind on turn one and get a leg up on early expension. Avoid farms on this turn so as not to run into a hord of knights (you might still win but it is not worth the losses. With sloth 1 you need resource more than gold at the begining anyway). You can either make your scout into a prophet straight away or wait until you have a Baal. Either way you should have a second army out taking indies without loss by turn 3 and a third one by turn 5. Use indies as screens against the really tough indies and/or combine your armies to minimize loss.

It is important that you try to keep losses of your sacred troops to zero (or close to it). With sloth 1 scale you only get 3 or 4(if you are lucky) replacements per turn. While a dozen sacred troops behind a 20 PD beat back repeated attacks of 100-300 strong without loss against the AI in a test game, such would not be possible against your wily opponents. Against human opposition you would need to back them up with battlefield magic ASAP. This is another reason why I would de-emphasise blood magic in the early game.

Build 800G castles quickly to speed up your research. You can recruit Dawn Guides, which is a very effective unit is its own right, to suppliment your sacreds in these castles. For 40G you get 14 attack, 16 defense, and 24 damage. This is one of the best non-sacred troop in the game and the reason you can afford to take sloth1.

Don't forget the Avvite horn blower either. you won't have a large army and breaking down castles will be a problem without these (That was the mistake I made the first time I tried Hinnom). Have a handful of them following your conquering army around to shorten the length of sieges significantly.

That's all folks (read Baalz's guide for comments on the other areas of playing Hinnom).

[chrispedersen]

I agree about the O kristoffer. It was a clearly stellar unit, and I love forging.

Both times I played national strategies to try and get 'em, because the strategy was so clearly effective in SP.

But I was eliminated before I was able to summon. I started out thinking ashdod WAAAAY strong. I still like em. Lots of fun options.

I still think that if you make it to mid game - then you become strong. But this is one of the races, like mictlan, where the strengths and weaknesses were not casually obvious.

[chrispedersen]

Ming said:
A2. Hinnom's current starting army is about twice as strong as anyone else's. This is almost as good as starting with a free awake pretender. I think this goes a long way in making Hinnom overpowered.

A3. Hinnom's PD is the best in the game. This is similar to A2 above.

A4. Hinnom is relatively forgiving to a players' strategic mistakes simply because it is currently so powerful. Otherwise Hinnom is actually quite difficult to play well. There are many ways of making mistakes (eg. hiring too many Rephaim in the early game) and a players needs to be disciplined and carefully weigh his many viable options to be fully effective. For this reason its effective strength is usually weaker than its theoretical strength.

B. Pretender Design

In my view Pretender design is critical to a nation. It often defines a nation and can make or break it. I have found the following design to be sensible but please remember it has not been tested in MP.

B1. Magic Path
If one wish not to hire too many Rephaim in the early game than some bless is essential to make every one of them count. A fire bless is needed to make it more effective against high defense enemies. Earth and nature blesses are needed to survive (and prevail) while greatly outnumbered. so F4E4N4 would be a minimum. N6 would be nice if one can spare the design points, but it is more a luxury than necessarity.

B2. Scales

B2(i) Sloth 1 Growth 3. You can consider this a crop-out. Sloth 1 helps to ensure that you don't get too many Rephaims out too early and G3 mitigates the impact of pop eating later on. Together they almost (but not quite) eliminate pop eating as a handicap.

B2(ii) Heat 2 should be the standard although Heat 3 can be considered.

B2(iii) Magic one is minimum (and maybe the best choice) as Hinnom's cost effective researchers are all R4 only.

B2(iv) Order and luck is somewhat interlinked and is a difficult decision. Luck 3 is very tempting because Hinnom's heroes are almost as strong as some SC pretenders. However, that might not leave enough points for high order (which would reduce your lucky events anyway) and one really is relying on one's luck. Ultimately I think it comes down to player preference. Personally I would have order3 luck 3 and forget about N6. Maybe that is only because in one test game I was so lucky to get 2 heroes in successive turns in the first year!

From the above I use a Dom5 F4E4N4 O3S1H2G3L3M1 imprisioned Scorpion King but it is by no means definitive. I am sure other choices would also work. Lord of Rebirth is definitely a contender as it opens up the death path.

C. Early game strategy

I would focus on Hinnom's non-blood strengths in the early game and would be using very few (if any) blood hunters in the first year. Its research speed is already below average and no need to hamper it further by diverting mages to blood hunter (not to mention having more pop eating Rephaim!). Send the starting army out blind on turn one and get a leg up on early expension. Avoid farms on this turn so as not to run into a hord of knights (you might still win but it is not worth the losses. With sloth 1 you need resource more than gold at the begining anyway). You can either make your scout into a prophet straight away or wait until you have a Baal. Either way you should have a second army out taking indies without loss by turn 3 and a third one by turn 5. Use indies as screens against the really tough indies and/or combine your armies to minimize loss.

It is important that you try to keep losses of your sacred troops to zero (or close to it). With sloth 1 scale you only get 3 or 4(if you are lucky) replacements per turn. While a dozen sacred troops behind a 20 PD beat back repeated attacks of 100-300 strong without loss against the AI in a test game, such would not be possible against your wily opponents. Against human opposition you would need to back them up with battlefield magic ASAP. This is another reason why I would de-emphasise blood magic in the early game.

Build 800G castles quickly to speed up your research. You can recruit Dawn Guides, which is a very effective unit is its own right, to suppliment your sacreds in these castles. For 40G you get 14 attack, 16 defense, and 24 damage. This is one of the best non-sacred troop in the game and the reason you can afford to take sloth1.

Don't forget the Avvite horn blower either. you won't have a large army and breaking down castles will be a problem without these (That was the mistake I made the first time I tried Hinnom). Have a handful of them following your conquering army around to shorten the length of sieges significantly.

That's all folks (read Baalz's guide for comments on the other areas of playing Hinnom).



Sorry ming, Overall I disagree quite a lot. Some points:

A2. Agree completely.
A3. Close enough I won't argue.
A4. Agree

B1. The correct number of sacred to build in the early game is ZERO. These units cost WAY to much for rapid expansion.

B2. Scales.
+3 +3 +3 +3 (-1) (+1 or +3).

Hinnom needs production for ALL its units. Very resource intensive. And it needs $. In contrast, it really doesn't need design points very much.

Heat. Go all the way to +3. Sure, it will hurt you (a little). It hurts everyone else more. Secondly, hinnom will almost always have weak dominion. So it wont hurt you that much.

Luck. Misfortune 1. Or even two. Your primary researcher has the ability to cancel negative events. Use it.

Sure, Hinnom national heroes are incredible. Sure, you cut the chance from 3% to 2%. Who cares? You don't *need* them. They're cool, they're neat they're eye candy till the late game. And by then you'll have them.

Magic - player call.

B2. Hinnom has access to most paths. It lacks water, has poor death access. I prefer looking at a dormant rainbow pretender, something like 2 2 2 4 4 0 - with 4's in death and nature, to be able to cast globals. I prefer crones and enchantresses.

C. I ignore blood hunting completely early game. Don't exacerbate pop eating problems, plus it is a question of focus.

Research path:
Con 2; for thistle maces. Enchant -3? For haste. Haste REALLY increases the effectiveness of your tramplers. After that my personal preference is con 4 to start SC contstruction and thau-2, for communion. Probably then blood, just for aid to communions.

I predominantly just use blood in crafting. Hinnom can be perfectly ok in blood hunting - its just a question of *focus*.

I would include 1 hornblower in most units - as I believe they provide a standard bonus. But they really are unnecessary, if you follow my construction plans. 30 or so tramplers, with a few dawn guard mixed in have sufficient strength to seige a lot of castles the turn the province is taken.

However, I do agree that you cannot build enough castles. Baalz missed iirc that you get cheap castles on both hills and forests.

Yes, you need them for building commanders (usually researchers) - but you also need them for income.

Oh, and don't forget to build around 3 acha at some point. Set to heal, they will cure most afflictions in the province.

The tramplers are fairly fragile - so I keep a steady stream of moving wounded ones back to a healing station and advancing fresh ones to the front. No dead heading that way.

Don't forget to use PD. Many people tap out PD at 20 or so. With the giants, in choke provinces, its cost effective up to 30 or 35.

Lastly, you have a Giant priest.. named Karen or Karel something like that. Usually a MUCH better buy than the commanders.

You don't care about leadership - you're going to be ferrying 10-20 troops not 100's.

But the advantage is they have strat move 3 - perfect with the tramplers 3!!!. And they preach and blood hunt. What more could one want. Never without a useful order.

Just one thing. Be careful on scripting. They have a censer or some such thing which causes disease. What you DONT want is that unit getting anywhere near your expensive, units.

So script Holdx5 and cast spells. And keep him (and his disease clouds) well away.

Voila.

[MaxWilson]

Hinnom's death access is just fine because they have D1 mages, which is enough to cast Dark Knowledge, and Death is an easy path to bootstrap into. Without D1 mages it would be a pain though.

The censer on Kohenim causes fatigue damage, which can make them surprisingly effective against unsuspecting SCs.

-Max

[Ming]

Chrispederson,

Thank you for the comments. I am not surprised that you disagree with my take on Hinnom. Hinnom is such a nation. I feel that there are many different ways (well, more than one) to make it work. You prefer to concentrate on chariots and I prefer to use their sacreds. Time will tell what might work best. I like Hinnom's sacred troops because they are cheaper to maintain and effective immediately (IMHO chariots need haste to be effective), much less likely to get afflicted, and probably lower loss rate too. Also, Hinnom's sacred troops are effective in groups of 5 or even less while chariots probably need groups greater than 10 (especially without haste).

I feel more strongly about your point that Production 3 being a must. P3 will only help you in the first few turns, especially if you concentrate on chariots (you'll run out of gold much quicker than resource). Everything else equal, P3 does makes you expand faster innitially but probably only marginally and Hinnom will have one of the fastest expansion rate even without it. Expanding TOO fast is not necessary a good thing even in SP. I suspect it is very much a double edged sword in MP (correct me if I am wrong). So P3 is not an unreasonable choice but definitely NOT the only choice.

Thistle mace is Constr4 and haste is Ench4. To have both researched is probably beyond early game. So you need to be confident that your chariots are effective in the early game without the assistance of haste.

You could be right about not choosing Luck 3 though. It could be more emotional than logical on my part (getting two heroes in year one in a test game can foul up one's logic) and the points might be better spent elsewhere. However, please bear in mind that luck will also give you more gold and Hinnom can use all the gold it can get even with sloth 1 (more so if you concentrate on chariots). This is also why I am not sure if heat 3 is decisively better than heat 2 or not.

BTW if you use Kohen to lead your chariots you definitely should be blood hunting occasionally in the early game - on occasions when you Kohens have nothing better to do.
http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif

Kohens eats pop too (I think). So if you need it to take advantage of the chariots' map move of 3 that is a cost you need to consider (Hinnom's sacred troops can be led by indie priests and so your castles can concentrate on researchers).

[chrispedersen]

I've played probably 60 games, with Hinnom, 2-3 mp. I'm very confident the chariots are a great unit, SP or MP.

I *love* bless strategies. To my mind, they are the most fun, and I always start any race with a predisposition - hey.. how can I make a bless work with this nation.

Don't get me wrong - Hinnoms sacreds are solid units. But with morale checks for groups of units under 4, and openended die rolling on individual direct damage spells, you could flee due to one unit being killed.

I don't like the very small forces you would have going a sacred route. Plus, sacreds require a priest which each construction thereof, is one less researcher.

[Ming]

chrispederson,

Let us just agree to disagree and leave it at that.

You certainly have more experience than me. So I won't tell you not to use chariots - you may know some tricks with chariots that I am not aware of. However, I certainly do not find them particularly effective without haste.

BTW, have you tried using Hinnom's sacreds the way I described? Against indies the chance of losing a F4E4N4 blessed sacred troop is quite small if you are careful. If you start with 5 you need to lose 2 to risk being routed. That is a very unlikley event. (The greater risk by far is to lose your priest commander due to flanking - which can be minimised by having some indie bodyguards and careful placement).

Furthermore, Hinnom can get access to blade wind (conj3 and evo4, with falling fire not far behind at evo5) or wooden warrior (alt5, with protection, body ethereal and luck en-route) with less research points than haste (constr4 and Ench4). I am not sure if chariots + haste is necessary better than sacred troops + wooden warrior or sacred troops + blade wind.

Finally, using indie priests to lead Hinnom's sacred troops do not reduce the number of researchers. Using Kohen to lead chariots do.

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/smirk.gif

Anyway, happy gaming!

[thejeff]

The problem with taking sacreds for early expansion with Hinnom isn't that they don't work. It's that they don't need them. As Baalz suggested, I tried a scales build in SP, expanding with groups of 4 chariots and a couple groups of 12 Dawn Guard. Once I had a couple provinces under my belt I could start a new group or 2 every turn. I think 26 provinces by the end of the first year and that mostly because I'd run out of room.
Use the Dawn Guard for anything that looks extra tough, but 4 Chariots can take cavalry or barbarian provinces, usually without losses.
You'll need to combine those expansion parties once you start fighting other nations, but against indies there's no need.
I used indy commanders and my starting prophet. All my capital recruitment went towards research. No need to wait on building a temple to recruit indy priests or use Kohen.

If I was going to consider a bless, it would be for mid/late game Baal use, not expansion.

[konming]

Yes, I agree with thejeff. There is not much need for the sacred. They hardly bring anything that chariot and dawn guards don't bring, even with substantial bless. The only case you might want the sacred is when you face super blessed F9 troops. Also each rephaite warrior devour as much population as a ba'al. (source:dom3db). This, my friend, is really bad.

However, I do find the single path mages somewhat lacking in the mid and maybe late game. You cannot forge most useful stuff, and level 2 is not really that great for many single path spells.

Also they are easy to lose focus. If you go blood, you probably will lose the artifacts war. On the other hand, you need evo to help your troops, thu and conj to site search, alt for useful spells for your SCs. The choice are many and hard. It would be challenging to play them well.

[Baalz]

Level 2 F, E &amp; S lets you self buff to level 3, level 3 lets you cast all the main line battle spells - falling fire, blade wind, soul slay, etc. Level 2 Air lets you spread some air gems around and lay down thunder strike - a tad expensive, but certainly worthwhile in the right situation. N2 gives you everything from haste to panic to charm (with a booster). I find their battlemages very worthwhile and quite flexible.

For multipathed forge mages, yes this can be a bit of a uphill struggle, though you're site searching the crap out of everything and it's early age so you shouldn't have too much trouble finding tons of indie mages throughout your abnormally large empire. Also, empowering is a real option with your solid income of every type other than water.

[Zenzei]

While not the most awesome thing Hinnom can do, the Horite Shamans can forge shadow brands with a single D-booster, which I think helps a lot when making Thugs/SCs.

[konming]

Baalz, does it make sense to make an imprisoned rainbow pretender? This way, you get a lot of magical diversity (in terms of artifacts forging and some summons) at the price of losing some dominion strength (maybe reduced to 6) and 2 to 3 levels of luck? If temple check is indeed only determined by initial dominion strength, then this would be bad.

[Baalz]

That's not a terrible idea Konming, though I want to reiterate that the blood fountain pretender is not a "throwaway" choice picked solely for the price, he brings a couple nice things to the table.

Higher dominion than you'd otherwise get. Remember, aside from being an awesome dominion you'll want to spread, being heat-3 it's also a strategic weapon against everybody but Abyssia. Helherdlings fare a lot worse with extra encumbrance...

The ease of casting the lords of civilization combined with the fact you're already hitting the blood research hard means it makes sense to push for blood-9 fairly early. You can start deploying these guys earlish late game rather than late end game when seraphs and tartarians are common.

A blood bless has very good synergy with Se'irim who are a fantastically good alternative to what your enemy is probably expecting you to throw at them. The thought of facing these guys buffed with any combination of will of the fates, army of lead, fog warriors, air shield, weapons of sharpness.....the mind boggles.

[Ming]

thejeff,

I understand your point, but fighting against indies only last 5 turns or so (at least in the maps that I play in). Investing in troops that only do well in those five/six turns is in my opinion false economy.

I have found that 4 chariots only work against the weaker indies (and scouting reports are not 100% accurate). For others you'll need more and even then you will occasionaly take losses. With Hinnom's sacred troops you can start a new exploration group every turn too if you take production 3 [but that is a P3 vs S1 issue and not chariots vs sacreds. Anyway that'll only give you an extra 2-3 provinces on balance before coming up against other nations in the maps I play - so you could say my comments are based on very different map set-ups - as I find crowded maps to be more challenging in SP. So from my experience the faster expansion is not necessary sufficient to compensate for the extra 160 design points difference between P3 and S1]. So the saving from using chariots is not great. On the other hand you can only recruit a limited amount of sacred troops every turn and they are extremely cost effective in the long run. So it pays to start early.

[thejeff]

You are playing very crowded maps then. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif Since you're only going to have a difference of a few provinces anyway, expansion against indies can be largely ignored, which might make a difference.

Dawn Guard mixed with Chariots seems to slaughter AI nations as well as sacred troops, and can be raised in closer forts and in greater numbers as you expand.

And claiming a 160 pt difference (P3 -&gt; S1) for using chariots ignores the points used to get that bless. Hardly a fair comparison.

Once you've expanded a bit, it's hard to get replacements from the capital to the front and you risk disaster if you do manage to lose a lot of your built up sacreds. Might not happen in SP, but is pretty much guaranteed in MP.

Which brings me back to my earlier suggestion of gearing any bless towards SCs rather than the troops.

I haven't played too much with the sacreds. How much have you noticed them eating population or other troops?

[Ming]

thejeff,

It seems our biggest difference could be due to the maps we play in.

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/smile.gif

As to your other points, please note that recruiting sacred troops from your capital does not exclude you from recruiting dawn guards (or even chariots http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif) from your other castles. So it does not affect your ability to fight far from your capital or when you take losses on your sacred troops (although you should try to minimise the latter as much as possible). I am often forced to fight with armies without sacred troops at some provinces, but the sacred troop armies does give you a significant if not decisive edge.

Also, the points used to get a bless is effective throughout the game but the points used to get P3 is only meaningful in the early turns. So the 160 point difference vs better early game expansion is not that unfair. Furthermore, the F4E4N4(6) bless is not bad for the SCs even though it might not be the best (as I was looking for a bless that work with both an not just optimised for SCs).

Finally, with growth 3 scale, the pop eating is not noticeable until late in middle game - but even then the pop is still growing virtually everywhere. I did not notice any troop eating although it might have happened occasionally. The picture might be different if you use P3 instead of S1 as you would be recruiting on average an extra sacred troop or even two per turn.

[AlgaeNymph]

Quick question: what kind of forts can Hinnom build in other provinces besides forest ones?

[Baalz]

Mostly an amazingly expensive 1400 gold Tel City, though somebody mentioned that hills sometimes yield hillforts.

[chrispedersen]

That was me = )

[SlipperyJim]

Thanks for the guide, Baalz!

I've been trying to figure out how to play Hinnom, and your guide has been most instructive. You also caused me to giggle so much that my co-workers began to look at me funny. Truly, HINNOM EATS EVERYTHING!

My current problem (as Baalz mentioned) is an excess number of options. There are just too many things I can do, so I want to do them all! Focus is important. Since I'm playing SP, I'm not worried about losing the game, so now it's time to have some fun. I really want to get all of the Lords of Civilization into play....

I followed this guide almost to the letter with only one exception: my Blood Fountain was sleeping, not imprisoned. Honestly, I had enough points for everything I needed anyway, so why not get my pretender into play two years earlier? But that's a minor change at best. Even with an imprisoned pretender, I'm sure that HINNOM would still EAT EVERYTHING. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[chrispedersen]

Sauromatia, Lanka, and Vanheim I'd say are the three nations to look out for, as hinnom.

[Evilhomer]

I ended up playing Hinnom recently and it seems even Lanka has trouble dealing with Hinnom. Lanka attacked me around turn 15 but managed to accomplish almost nothing doing so. Perhaps if the player playing lanka had opted for a heavier bless the fight would have been more even, but the fight still seems in favour of Hinnom.

Only nation I see taking out Hinnom in an early fight 1v1 would be Niefelheim (maybe blessed helheim as well due to high defence).

[MaxWilson]

Why not Ashdod with a good bless? Ahimans are actually better than Palankashas on a per-gold basis (though maybe not on a per-resource basis).

-Max

[Baalz]

Evilhomer said:
I ended up playing Hinnom recently and it seems even Lanka has trouble dealing with Hinnom. Lanka attacked me around turn 15 but managed to accomplish almost nothing doing so. Perhaps if the player playing lanka had opted for a heavier bless the fight would have been more even, but the fight still seems in favour of Hinnom.

Only nation I see taking out Hinnom in an early fight 1v1 would be Niefelheim (maybe blessed helheim as well due to high defence).



Yeah, that was actually me playing Lanka (with a water bless FWIW). Hinnom's PD stopped a largish raiding party of water blessed Palashankas by itself, there was no way to raid EH with anything short of a powerful army, and *his* powerful army while taking significant casualties didn't have any real problem. I tend to agree with EH that 1 on 1 the only real threat to Hinnom, and that's really just early on as Neifel doesn't grow in power over time like Hinnom.

[konming]

A group of 8 W4E9N4 blessed oriopata easily dispatched 26 Hinnom PD with no problem or casaulty.

[MaxWilson]

E9 is probably the key there. I bet the W9 Palankashas fatigued out.

-Max

[Loren]

The Lords of Civilization have a corrupt order. I tried it for no visible result but when I later attacked the province the defenders instantly routed and I couldn't find a commander amongst them.

Did it make the commander leave? Did it send the commander to my capital like seduction would have? (Had that happened it would have died.)

[Baalz]

Corruption is a gender neutral seduction. It doesn't do anything if there are no commanders in the province. Haven't done too much testing, but seems to work much more effectively than seduction, I think it worked like 6/6 times against crap commanders when I tested it out.

[Ming]

Baalz,

Hinnom PD only have one 11 attack each vs 16 def for W9 blessed Lanka elite with no experience star (15% hit rate), which should give Lanka enough kills to rout the PD before fatigue becomes a significant factor. You must have been unlucky or greatly outnumbered (2:1 or more) to fail in your raid ... or was it the great bows and banishment that caused the damage?

Oriopata is definitely much more efficient in this match-up due to its higher defense and E9 makes it even more so.

Personally I would rank Sauromatia as Hinnom's #1 threat, followed by Niefel (this is largely based on other people's opinion and my analysis of its troops only as I have not played Niefel myself), then Helheim (also based on analysis only), followed by Kalissa, Formoria, and Lanka. Everybody else (that I know - have only played about half of the EA nations so far) will have major problems facing Hinnom.

[chrispedersen]

A water blessed (only) Lanka is insufficient against hinnom. You need to boost D/T. F/W bless, F/D Bless should be sufficient.

Also, many nations stop in the 20~ range with pd. With Hinnom, even with the expense, I believe its cost effective it even up to 30~ish.

I've played hinnom vs each of the races as myself.
Sauromatia *easily* takes hinnom. After that theres a big drop off.

[SlipperyJim]

Ming said:
Personally I would rank Sauromatia as Hinnom's #1 threat....




chrispedersen said:
Sauromatia *easily* takes hinnom.



Despite having played Dom3 for years now, all of my experience is SP, and I still consider myself a relative n00b. With that in mind, would anyone care to explain how Sauromatia is such a deadly threat to Hinnom?

I've played Sauromatia once. If I recall correctly, their two main strengths are excellent archery and deadly cavalry. Sauromatia's priests stink, and their magic is limited (but nice). Hydras are powerful, but hard to use. When I played Sauromatia, they seemed like a powerful -- but not overwhelming -- nation.

What makes Sauromatia the ideal Hinnom-killer? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/confused.gif

[Renojustin]

I was about to say, there's nothing Sauromatia can do against Hinnom that other nations can't do about twice as well. Good call, Jim.

[MaxWilson]

Maybe it's the poison archers? That's what came to mind for me, although it seems to me that giants have less, not more, of a problem with poison arrows because of high HP.

-Max

[Renojustin]

Right, giants walk right through poison arrows. And that's without regeneration.

[JimMorrison]

Nono. If you have enough Androphags, unless the quantity of giants is overwhelming, it becomes a huge issue fast.

It has to do mainly with the "poison damage on hit" mechanic, where even all the arrows that do not do damage, add poison damage to the target.

That combined with the fact that there is only 1 giant per square, and not many of them altogether, means that they will all be taking a lot of hits in each volley.

For example I'm playing a game as Fomoria right now, and I DO have an N4 in my bless, and a few dozen Androphag Archers almost stacked enough poison on one of my forces to rout it by the time I got through their blockers. It was enough to kill 2/8 of my commanders, and similar proportion of my other sacreds in the force, and I haven't been losing many men otherwise. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif If the person hadn't gone AI, and I was facing a human player, I'd be in some trouble from those guys.

[MaxWilson]

So it's because all the poison hits the same giant, thus negating the high-HP advantage (3x HP, 3x the poison arrows)? Hmmm, okay, that's plausible.

-Max

[JimMorrison]

Precisely. You get 100 Androphag Archers in one place (not entirely hard to do, only 6 resources apiece) and you need a LOT of giants, or a LOT of chaff to be able to get them before you take some painful losses.

Now, you could always go 8N-10N on your Hinnom bless. Not sure if that is considered optimal from other considerations, but if you regen 10/turn or something, then those poison arrows really need to work hard to overcome that.

[Ming]

I wasn't thinking about the poison archers actually when I made my comment. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Hinnom has ready access to poison ward (Ench4) which would protect it from the poison arrows.

I was thinking of the likes of Oiorpata. They are only slight;y worse than a Van but cost 50G. Fortunately (for other nations) both poison archers and oiorpata are capital only, forcing the Sauromatia player to make a "hard" choice. The Warrior Queen could also cause Hinnom problems and is recruitable everywhere. It is against these troops that Hinnom might find its chariots useful.

Even though I believe that Sauromatia is Hinnom's #1 threat, I believe Hinnom as it stands would still have an edge against Sauromatia (but I could be wrong). The picture might be different if Hinnom's starting army and PD is nerfed.

[konming]

Pison archer/hydra combo is painful, esp. with a few poison immune warrior socceress mixed in.

[Baalz]

Heh, no, there's no way androphag archers are a big threat to Hinnom for one reason - they've got recruitable SCs with easy poison immunity. Maybe you'll blunt the first attack, but at the point they start being a real annoyance Hinnom will just teleport a poison immune Ba'al (after perhaps stalling a bit for the research) in on any concentration of androphags. Or they can cast arrow fend. Or catch you with a hasted chariot charge squishing straight through to the archers. Hinnom has a *whole* lot of flexibility - don't count on them marching straight towards you with stuff that didn't work in the last fight.

[JimMorrison]

O.o I never really saw Oiorpata as worthy of a big bless (partly because of cap only). Is it mostly due to the obscenely large charge attack they can get off once in the battle if you W9 them? Seems like it would be easy enough to have a screen of lance breakers in front of your actual giants, if you knew who your opponent was. It's much harder to effectively protect yourself from 100 Androphag Archers. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif

[Ming]

JimMorrison,

A strong bless would benefit non-capital leaders as well as capital-only troops, making it worthy of consideration.

Baalz,

I think a Hinnom-Sauromatia match-up would be very interesting, as both nations have many options (but Hinnom has more) and they need to keep shifting and second-guessing the other player. However, Sauromatia has a weaker start which could prove decisive.

[konming]

I think all these things are concerned with early game. Sauromatian has many tricks early, hydra/poison archer, blessed sacred, skelly spam. But when const and alt catch up, Hinnom's SCs will beat Sauromatian quite soundly.

[Ming]

Konming,

No disagreement here. Hinnom is strong early, mid, and late game. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

[chrispedersen]

Gentlemen,

A few comments. You are not taking into economics.
Hinnom units are expensive in gold and resources. Hinnom *needs* to start off (in my opinion) with something like a
+3 +3 +3 +(x) -(y) and +z.

With your heavy units costing from 75/29 to something like 150/88 - you will be building something like *3* chariots the first turn- or possibly 3 dawn guards.

Typically you will be building 1-2 more units on the second turn.

Sauromatia has the same dumps as you do - plus he can afford to dump on production.

Ignoring starting forces, for a moment, and just look at turn production.

Which wins: 3 chariots or 1 hydra and some archers?
3 dawn guard or 6 Oirpata?

So on a turn by turn production Sauromatia takes hinnom. Even with even blesses, which shouldn't be the case due to design costs.

Sauromatia has a window of opportunity which lasts pretty well into the early game.

[konming]

That means you need to attack indies instead of sauromatian in the early game.

[MaxWilson]

I'm confused. If you're comparing resource cost, shouldn't it be 3 chariots to 87 hydras? If you're comparing gold cost, shouldn't it be 7.5 dawn guards to 6 Oirpata?

-Max

[chrispedersen]

its your likely production, Max.

You are going to be limited by *either* gold, or resources, or holy.

[MaxWilson]

Sure, but why skew both comparisons in favor of Sauromatia by using it as the baseline?

-Max

[Renojustin]

Sauromatia build is extremely tight on points among other things and is very unlikely to have anything other than Sloth scales.

In addition, read my guide for poison bow archer counters. The only way you're going to have significant trouble with them with Hinnom is if you're attacking them. And that's only in early game before you can leverage your poison-immune SCs. So early game defense is a strength of Sauromatia... it's just what happens when the irresistable force meets the immovable object.

At least there's one nation that Hinnom simply can't rush off the map initially... they have to actually wait till turn 15.

[chrispedersen]

How do you think I'm skewing the comparison? Average out 10 turns of production, if you wish. Show me a hinnom build I'll show you a sauromatia build that takes it.

[sum1lost]

How about you show a sauromatia build, and he shows you a hinnom build that takes it?

[JimMorrison]

I think we could do this all day long.

ROCK!

PAPER!

SCISSORS!


Curses! You have outplayed me again!

[Itchykobu]

On the subject of Hinnom eating everything...I am finding this to be painfully true. I started an 8 player game against CPU, and Hinnom started on the other side of the map from me (EA Agartha). After I destroyed Mictlan other nations started agressing me, namely Ulm, Atlantis, and Caelum. I was establishing a defensive front against these three when I decided to check the score graph. Imagine my displeasure when I found that I was in second place on all graphs....Hinnom was in first. This would normally be no problem...except that on all graphs they were 4x higher on the charts. So, the other CPU players were just going belly-up under Hinnom's power. Suddenly (like, within the course of 1 turn) Caelum and Atlantis disappeared, and in their place the legions of Hinnom stood. I got powered back to almost my capitol. Unfortunately, I had gone Ageless Olm E6W6 and could think of no solid way to stop the tide of destruction. In a tremendous effort I did a TON of alchemy and empowerment to get a D9 Oracle of Death. Using the Oracle I cast Utterdark and cut Hinnom's armies in half....my pale ones gained the upper hand in combat against Hinnom's national units. Not deterred, I saw an immediate spike in Hinnom's use of blood mages and demon summonings.

I am slowly turning the tide in my favor, using alchemy to generate income (see, it's not a useless mechanic to convert fire gems to gold!). I've cast frozen seas to cut off Hinnom's ocean assaults and establish choke points. I've empowered tons of oracles and olms to cast upwards of four Ghost Riders and 5 Earth Attacks per turn to break Hinnom's undead/demon sieges on my choke points.

My major obstacle now is a demon army led by a huge nephilim prophet that keeps casting spells to make his entire army ethereal, while I churn out as many barathrusian elementals and Umbrals as I can per turn.

Early summer, year 28, and I can't get Hinnom to break....

[MaxWilson]

I'm really impressed that Hinnom's AI switched to blood mages under Utterdark. Nice job, JK!

Sounds like a fun game.

-Max

[Itchykobu]

Yeah, wasn't expecting demons with power++ in darkness to appear.

Fun game? Yes. Devoting wayyyy too much time to trying to end it? Definitely.

Can't wait to try a new nation/map!

[JimMorrison]

Hey if it's taking you that long to kill him, consider powering up a Blood economy of your own on the side - very cost effective once it's started. Then you can get your own Fiends of Darkness and whatnots, really fun stuff. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Though Earth Elementals and Umbrals are pretty nice already. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif Did you try Magma Babies on him at all? Many demons are actually fire vulnerable, and those Babies have insane damage output.

[Itchykobu]

Wow,yeah. I had stopped doing magma babies before the utterdark because Hinnom was employing a lot of fire and tramplers...but now that it's mostly dead and demons I should whip out a few more fire factory earth readers. Only downside I can see is that the Hinnom pretender is a phoenix http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/rolleyes.gif

[Epaminondas]

I think people are dismissing the pop eating a little too fast as trivial.

Agreed. I've found the population eating feature crippling, even with plus 3 growth scale.

[Epaminondas]

KO,

I am relatively new here but I would like to take this opportunity to say (or rather, echo, as I am sure it has been said by others) that in all these years of gaming I have never come across a developer that is as responsive and as dedicated to his/their games. Thank you and congratulations for such a superb game.


I echo your sentiment.

[K]

I think people are dismissing the pop eating a little too fast as trivial.

Agreed. I've found the population eating feature crippling, even with plus 3 growth scale.

How?

You can sit the pop eater researchers and ritual casters in a small single province and let them eat it to 0, and for armies on the move it tends to be negligible since you move quickly through your own territory (especially considering that you can Teleport and are designed for SC tactics).

[Lingchih]

I think the pop eating is more of just a pain to manage, than a real crippling problem. You have to continually manage where your big guys go, and make sure they don't stay in one place too long, unless you intend to deplete it.

[Baalz]

As I mention above, the real impact of the population eating which you can't manage away is that your blood hunters trash your blood hunting provinces much faster than other nations. This is more than compensated by Hinnom's other advantages, but it's not totally negligible.

[archaeolept]

"crippling" might be a bit strong, but it is a very serious drawback for Hinnom. Sure, in happy-happy theory world, aka sp, you can move the rephaim to isolated desolate spots. In a real game though, things aren't so easy, if there is any sort of struggle. You need your armies where you need your armies. I had a significant force bottled up due to a siege. Population there used to be alright...

now, if only I had read the post about moving them somewhere else before they were besieged, I'm sure everything would have been a-ok.

[Poopsi]

how bout making them starve if they are at a 0 pop place?

[Nikelaos]

alternatively to all th bad press, the pop eating thing can be used to your advantage, sieging an enemy fort even if you don't take it you will cripple the economy of the fort so it can't output a good number and quality of troops.

[BesucherXia]

how bout making them starve if they are at a 0 pop place?

They eat human not for living, just for enjoyment.

Just compare to the demon units which have tags "need not eat" and meanwhile "gluttony" (e.g. dai oni). They do consume supply which bring other units problems, but if there is no supply for them to waste at all, they will not starve neither.

[Poopsi]

But it´s an alternative. That way they wouldn´t be truly "not eating". They would not starve while there was population, or supplies, but they would still need to eat.

[JaghataiKhan]

Nephilim do not require food due to their supernatural angelic heritage, but eat for fun. You miss the point, they can live indefinitely without food, they do it for thematic cruelty.

[Tifone]

I didn't have time to run a test but I'm wondering... do the popeaters increase unrest where they are? It would feel weird if people searching some random virgin to sacrifice drive the people mad, but giants eating indiscriminately all the people just for fun don't.

[JaghataiKhan]

I didn't have time to run a test but I'm wondering... do the popeaters increase unrest where they are? It would feel weird if people searching some random virgin to sacrifice drive the people mad, but giants eating indiscriminately all the people just for fun don't.

Hinnom have the pop eating ritualized and under control with a blood cult, with people delivered to the Rephaim as they are God Kings with divine status. Sorta like offering food to the gods.

[HoneyBadger]

Well, the solution ofcourse is that, when they run out of Pop. to consume, they don't starve, they just start eating each other.

[Bwaha]

Yes, I lost a size six chariot due to snacking... As an experiment I gift of reasoned one of their archers, Heh. I then kitted him out. Quite amusing. Is using a bow while you have a shield a bug? next I just gor a chariot, much less for gems spent.:D

[Tifone]

Hinnom have the pop eating ritualized and under control with a blood cult, with people delivered to the Rephaim as they are God Kings with divine status. Sorta like offering food to the gods.

Baah, if so, Mictan would have "ritualized" the blood slaves centuries ago :D

[Endoperez]

Baah, if so, Mictan would have "ritualized" the blood slaves centuries ago :D

Actually Mictlan has "ritualized" blood slaves centuries ago, but only at their central temple. You know, the site that produces 3 blood slaves per turn. ;) :p

[JaghataiKhan]

Hinnom has the similar stuff at the city of Incest, Gomorrah.

2 Sites, Sodom and Gomorrah would fit their devilish, blood glut status...

[JR77]

I didn't have time to run a test but I'm wondering... do the popeaters increase unrest where they are? It would feel weird if people searching some random virgin to sacrifice drive the people mad, but giants eating indiscriminately all the people just for fun don't.

Just an update to this thread, since many people still think Hinnom is over-powered. The cost of key troops has been increased in an official patch, as well as reducing the starting army and, indeed, now the pop-eating cause quite a bit of unrest!

This is discussed, IIRC, in another, newer short guide to Hinnom, which has yet to be linked to the strategy index.

Edit: The new Hinnom guide is here: http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showthread.php?t=43369

[Executor]

Hinnom is still overpowered and that's a fact.

They still have Melqarts that can take out any indie province most of the times even without a bless, which isn't hard to make with the heat free points.
They still have 7 magic schools, everything except water.
The pop eating problem can easily be solved with moving the pop eater to a low level pop province instead of keeping them in the main fort. No pop no unrest.

Troops are still great for the price you pay, Dawn Guards, good stats and magic weapon.
Still have the super deadly chariots that are better than any other tramplers IMO.

Money isn't hard to come by with the great scales you can take even with a good bless.
Expanding is still extra fast with fielding an expanding party every turn.

[vfb]

What I wouldn't give to have some peasant-eaters! Send them to the gold mines, and when all the serfs are toast (or porridge), crank the taxes up to 200.

[Baalz]

Yeah, I have to agree with Executor, a little bit of the heat came off of them with the patch but they're still incredibly powerful. Very strong units, fast and cost effective expansion units, strong and very diverse mages, very strong recruitable SCs, very strong research, strong blood economy, very strong national blood summons, no need to take anything other than very good dominion....basically almost everything I lay out in this guide is still valid.

[P3D]

And I disagree that Hinnom does not need the bless (30% more Dawn guards just won't make the difference compared to E9N4+) but it was debated to exhaustion in the other thread.

[Executor]

It's a matter a personal flavor I guess, myself, I'd just take a minor bless E4N4 or something like that and extra scales with mid-high dom, about 8.
But there is more than one way to play any nation so I don't see the point in arguing what the best way is.

I've made some very unortodox builds that proved to be much more efficient than the more logical ones.
Personal favorites were Sauro with S3 T3 G0 L3 M1 C1, more or less, and
C'tis with S3 T3 D2 L3 M3 H3, more or less.
Yeah, everyone was saying wtf? until the point they started losing.

Hinnom is still overpowered compared to other nations, that's just how I feel about it. And I don't really like them for one, had a game with them, had a stellar start, got bored with it, got a sub, won't play them again for sure.

[ano]

What I wouldn't give to have some peasant-eaters! Send them to the gold mines, and when all the serfs are toast (or porridge), crank the taxes up to 200.
Or just pillage.

[vfb]

You're better off taxing at 200 and patrolling, than pillaging, since it takes a while to kill everyone. Pillaging (temporarily) destroys your income from that province because it causes more unrest than death, I think.

[Loren]

Still have the super deadly chariots that are better than any other tramplers IMO.

Yeah. I decided to give them a try again. (Note: CBM 1.5) Large map full of Normal AI's. I basically conquered the map with nothing but chariots. Not only that but I never built *ANY* building--this made it hard for a while, there was actually a time where I didn't have dominion on my own capital. I also never picked a fight.

At the time I declared it a win I had 2/3 of the map (and most of what I didn't have was water), climbing dominion, the largest army (as I said, pure chariots), IIRC 4 juggernauts/turn of recruiting and all 5 globals. All border provinces were PD 125.

[JR77]

... very strong research ...

I do not really get this one. IMHO this is one of their weak points, but I guess you are thinking of bee-lining const 4 then 6 for skulls and lanterns? That would take quite a while unless you use a sagy pretender (but that is probably a good idea if you want any research done with these guys).

[chrispedersen]

No,

Hinnom doesn't have to build a lab to build a mage. So you stick a fort in a hill or forest. Costs you 800.

You then turn around and move him to a location with no population with a fort/lab so he can research.

It isn't the lack of the cost, although that helps - but the faster scale up is invaluable. In the right terrains you just drop a fort, next turn you have mage support.

[JR77]

I know this is the case, but that requires the right terrain, as you mention, and they still have an awful research-to-gold ratio. And even with good scales, I would think that money would be an issue, if you want to max recruitment of expensive chariots while building forts and recruiting mages. Unless, of coures, you have a vast area of independent farmland to expand into, but that just happens so rarely to me :).

I agree that they are very powerful, and perhaps one of the more straight-forward nations (in some areas), but I do not think they are "over-powered" to the extend that they should be banned. Also, being able to steamroll a bunch of normal AIs is not really the test for over-powerment imo. I would rather hear how people have fared in MP.

I have not had a chance to play them pre-nerf, but I can see how that was way too powerful...

[chrispedersen]

Well JR

I took a look at them again - because of our upcoming game.

Try this - make a two player game, map albatha. Try stopping Hinnom as EA Arco. or EA Tir. With fixed starting positions, after turn 3 or so - Hinnom is only prevented by taking (turn number) territories per game turn by geography.

While the death dominion of LA ermor may make you choose to attack elsewhere just because you get so little income from it - and the water terrain of LA-Atlantis may stop you - neither of these nations would be in a position of stopping you from conquering anyone else.

The game becomes - who can *not* lose to hinnom.

[JR77]

OK, I just chose Hinnom, because I had a little experience with them and like their flavor. I will switch to another nation for our MP game :)

Lets continue this discussion in the MP game forum.

[Baalz]

I know this is the case, but that requires the right terrain, as you mention, and they still have an awful research-to-gold ratio. And even with good scales, I would think that money would be an issue, if you want to max recruitment of expensive chariots while building forts and recruiting mages. Unless, of coures, you have a vast area of independent farmland to expand into, but that just happens so rarely to me :).

I agree that they are very powerful, and perhaps one of the more straight-forward nations (in some areas), but I do not think they are "over-powered" to the extend that they should be banned. Also, being able to steamroll a bunch of normal AIs is not really the test for over-powerment imo. I would rather hear how people have fared in MP.

I have not had a chance to play them pre-nerf, but I can see how that was way too powerful...

Hmmmm, at the risk of sounding pedantic, did you read the guide that starts this thread? Gold is not an issue if you manage this right, nor is terrain in the vast majority of cases because you can expand insanely fast with modestly priced expansion forces. That means your income climbs much faster than your expenses and you can capture whatever territory you want. FWIW, my experience is not against the AI, and my assertion that you have very strong research is empirically proven.

Ammi are 125 gold for 5 rp (in magic 1) is far from awful, that's actually very good. Even if you manage to scrounge up a better research mage the cost of a lab + temple = another castle, so Hinnom is instantly cranking out twice as many mages as anybody using holy mages. About 60% more than anybody with non-holy mages. In the MP game I based this guide on I just checked where I was at on turn 24 - tied for the research lead with a few SCs fully kitted, 22 blood hunters pulling in about 150 slaves per turn, and cranking out bloodstones. That's quite a lot of forgings (sanguine rods, SC gear, bloodstones) along with a large chunk of bloodhunters for this stage of the game, yet I'm still one of the research leaders. Granted, this is just one game, but I think it's a better illustration than rolling over the AI.

[JR77]

That is is indeed a better illustration, but also, that game was pre-nerf iirc. If it is the consensus of the community that they are still too powerful for MP I just hope they get nerfed additionally either in an official patch or in the next CBM. To me, it is just a too fun nation to be completely left out...

Btw I am a great fan of your guides and writing in general - even if you have to risk sounding pedantic at times ;)

PS In my limited knowledge, Hinnom is not the only nation that can pull the no-lab mage building of. One of the Marignon's can as well, right?

[Sombre]

There are a few - MA Jotun for instance.

[Executor]

Yeah, LA Marginon, chartmaker, however those mages are just used to be bought to make a lab since they don't require one for themselves and they are very bad. The real power is in Goetic Masters.

Sauro can do that also with Soothsayers and it's far better for them since they don't need a lab for mages you're gonna build like Marginon.

[Baalz]

Ah yes, I was trying to address the question of why I thought Hinnom had strong research which I don't think the nerf impacted other than possibly indirectly due to potentially less gold being available for mages. At any rate, I think it's pretty clear that Hinnom should be one of the research leaders due to having reasonably efficient research mages while cranking out twice as many as most comparable sized nations. There are a few other nations that have mages recruitable without a lab, but as far as I can think of right now the only one which is comparable is MA T'ien Ch'i's Minister of Magic (which I highlight as a very strong research engine in my MA TC guide). Most of the other mages which can be recruited without a lab you don't really want to recruit even for research if a lab is available, there's just better options available.

[vfb]

MA Mictlan Priests are great without a lab, just 60 gold for 3RP (neutral scales). Of course, you need some nice mountains to put up your fort in, so random maps are out. You want a temple anyway for more eagle warriors.

[thejeff]

Well, I have long had a soft spot for the Vaetti Hag as a useful mage recruitable without a lab. 3-4 rp for 55 gold without a lab. Not quite as useful as the Ammi, but much cheaper and they can handle all your S, D & N(with a booster) site searching spells and blood hunt.

[Redeyes]

Not to forget that Ashdod and Gath can do it too.

Ashdod does it (arguably) better than Hinnom.

Gath's option is extremely cheap - but requires a temple which costs 800 gold form them.

[chrispedersen]

Most of the other mages which can be recruited without a lab you don't really want to recruit even for research if a lab is available, there's just better options available.

Hmm.. we're hijaaking a thread. But I like the idea of a national remote summon mage spell, for a slow moving weak nation, in order to allow them to build a lab....

[Gregstrom]

EA Arco's philosophers?

[thejeff]

Technically, but they're capital only so it doesn't really matter.
And technically they're not mages...

[P3D]

Hinnom won't be a research lead, as the IIRC 125gp is not that good a price for 4/5RP even without a lab.

About Gath, the best option for research IMO is the S1N1 Sybil for 80gp, not sacred so won't need 80gp temples, and have 5% Fortune telling to offset Misfortune scales somewhat. The 50gp sages are a bargain, but S1N1 just offers more combat potential late game, spamming S2/S3/N2 spells by the dozen (Rev. communion, LotNS), and if you were not recruiting Sybils you won't have the numbers.

[Executor]

Fomoria has the worst battle mages IMO.
Sure, the Kings are great, but you don't risk them that much in battle with their insane cost of 500 and the very limited numbers.
You save them for SC usage but again risky since they have one vital flaw.
And your common mages are just crap. Fomorian druids suck badly!!! A1 WDNA 1 random. The only half usable ones are A2.

[statttis]

Fomoria has the worst battle mages IMO.
Sure, the Kings are great, but you don't risk them that much in battle with their insane cost of 500 and the very limited numbers.
You save them for SC usage but again risky since they have one vital flaw.
And your common mages are just crap. Fomorian druids suck badly!!! A1 WDNA 1 random. The only half usable ones are A2.

What? Fomoria has awesome mages. Fomorian Kings are one of the strongest units in the game, whether for SC duty of casting. Fomorian druids don't have much magic but are still good for so much. Can't get no respect :hurt:

[happygeek]

Hey this is all fascinating. Sorry for being so new, mind if I ask? I havent played Hinnom more than 3 turns in SP (just started now to see what it's like), what I cant figure out is
- where does it say that population dies because of the units? I cant see that tag on any of the units. Just the gluttony. But I thought that is only for supplies?
- Baalz writes that they have all paths but water, and can site search all but water. I just clicked through all commanders to make sure, and I cant find Death. Am I missing something?
Looks fun, if a bit overpowered in MP, I will try some giant fun in SP!
Thank you for your help

[Executor]

Fomoria has the worst battle mages IMO.
Sure, the Kings are great, but you don't risk them that much in battle with their insane cost of 500 and the very limited numbers.
You save them for SC usage but again risky since they have one vital flaw.
And your common mages are just crap. Fomorian druids suck badly!!! A1 WDNA 1 random. The only half usable ones are A2.

What? Fomoria has awesome mages. Fomorian Kings are one of the strongest units in the game, whether for SC duty of casting. Fomorian druids don't have much magic but are still good for so much. Can't get no respect :hurt:

Yes the Kings are good. But you'll only be using them for heavy lifting due to very limited numbers. And their SC usage is limited too due to morale.

I'm talking about the druids here, their mage majority. They are crap.
A1D1 gives you nothin'
A1W1 gives you nothin'
A1N1 gives you... guess...

A2 is useful, but you still need storm to make use of them.

I don't like Fomoria generally. I feel you have to rely on luck too much to get the magic schools you want.

[Baalz]

Hey this is all fascinating. Sorry for being so new, mind if I ask? I havent played Hinnom more than 3 turns in SP (just started now to see what it's like), what I cant figure out is
- where does it say that population dies because of the units? I cant see that tag on any of the units. Just the gluttony. But I thought that is only for supplies?
- Baalz writes that they have all paths but water, and can site search all but water. I just clicked through all commanders to make sure, and I cant find Death. Am I missing something?
Looks fun, if a bit overpowered in MP, I will try some giant fun in SP!
Thank you for your help

Those little cave man dudes have D1, forget their name.

[Micah]

A1D1 gets you...half a fomorian king. A1W1 gets you lightning or frozen heart damage for versatility via storm power/lightning bolt, orb lightning, or frozen heart, or half a formorian king. A1N1 gets you half a fomorian king...every pair of druids you set to researching covers the RP you lose by sending out a king to do the heavy lifting, and given that you should be getting a king every turn after you can afford it there's plenty of room for your poorly-pathed druids to pick up the research slack. And of course with a storm power buff all of the druids can spam lightning bolts all day long, especially if you have the sense to give them an E bless.

The only time morale really comes into play is if you're facing stacked fear units, which is a fairly uncommon situation...if it does come up you can always throw a berserker item on them if you need to.

Yes, they're not the most stellar battle mages, but when all they have to do is compensate your research so your killer flying SCs can go break some heads they hardly need to be.

[Baalz]

Plus (not sure if this is what Micah meant by half a Formorian King) A1 + an air gem = mist form. Assuming you've got an E/N bless druids can make very decent thugs if you can manage vine or golden shields.

A2 = mistform without a gems, cloud trapeze
W = breath of winter, quicken self - I'm thinking used in small groups, devastating in the right circumstances with that 21 strength and stacking chill aura. Also, can you say 150 gold niefel slayer?
N = resist elements, resist poison, resist lightning combine with frost brand & dragon helm for 100% resistance to whatever it is you're fighting.
D = Not so much a thug, but with a skull staff can drop winds of death & wailing winds which are two very underrated spells IMO. Can also summon Morrigans, which are some of the best things D gems can go to.

Doesn't sound like a useless unit to me...

[Micah]

Baalz - I just meant that sticking 2 druids on research duty covered the RP you lost by sending out a king, so you can actually stick the majority of your kings out in the field once you transition your research onto the backs of your druids instead, and since the kings can teleport it doesn't become a logistical challenge catching them up with your current war front.

Great uses for the druids, but I don't see Fomoria having to resort to using them since they should be fielding a steady supply of kings that would put most of that gear to slightly better use than the druids, but I'm kind of a princess for using the best available units I can get my hands on and not dwelling much on lower-level thugs. =)

[vfb]

Also, AD wielding a skull staff can also cast Wailing Winds in CBM, with 2D gems. Before you get to summoning Morrigans, an AD plus a lightning rod can summon 4 Corpse Men monthly from very early on in the game, which are pretty decent in CBM.

AN = Rainbow Armor forger, and in battle with an N gem can Summon Sprites, which are good against SCs. Ranged 100 AN stun damage! 12 Sprites per cast, 20 shots per sprite, to defeat high MR.

[Baalz]

Hehe, but I think you can make very cost effective thugs with pretty cheap equipment assuming you already sprang for a nice blessing so they make sense if you're running short of kings to equip. I think golden shield + fire plate + horned helm should give you a pretty serviceable thug for 12 gems which can erupt in numbers out of any of your castles. They might even make sense *instead* of Kings in some circumstances as you can field 3+ for the cost of each king, so they'd be a better bet for a broad blitz expecting to encounter mostly PD in dozens of provinces.

[MaxWilson]

A1D1 lets you pull off the same Mirror Image/Mistform/Soul Vortex combo as a Rakshraja. The downside is that 1.) You need gear + gems to do it (1 air gem, 1 death gem, skull staff) and 2.) Fomorian Kings do it better with less gear.

Pathboost gems and SCs actually go together really well, since SCs typically don't have enough paths to blow all their gems uselessly on the first couple of spells like battlemages do, so there's less need for the logistic hassle of a separate gem carrier/scout. Plus, gems stack with path boosters, and they also don't take up any slots.

-Max

[Executor]

I'm talking about Fomorian Druids as battle mages.
There just isn't a whole lot they can do on their own. The enemy is just gonna kick your *** if you don't have any Kings to support your mages since the enemy will have better battle mages most of the time.

[Baalz]

I don't know, I think there's actually a pretty decent range of things you can do if you're thinking boosters and gems. Sure you don't have the obvious goto spells some nations have and some nations will be fielding more directly effective mages, but then again you're fielding giant troops with Morrigan support so your mages don't have to be as directly effective. Sure, you're gonna want Kings where you can, but for smaller raiding/skirmish parties a druid or two can be just perfect. They can also take care of support spells for bigger fights leaving the kings free to be SCs or cast the real big spells (darkness, wrathful skies, etc).

A2 - storm power (or gems) & thunderstrike obviously, also they're tough enough to drop mistform then blast orb lightning from among the front line or even lightning resistance and shock wave.

W - with a water bracelet (or W gems) you can drop freezing mist, which is very, very good in combination with undead troops, skellispam, etc. or even just leveraging your much higher hitpoints and regen. Can also drop quickness & quickening which is iffy for your encumb-5 giants, but very, very nice for Morrigans. If you're in the water (which you should be) you can drop shark attack, friendly currents & grip of winter.

D - With a skull staff already mentioned wailing winds & winds of death. Also, terror, shadow blast, disintegrate, and skellispam (which tends to be a good counter to giant-slaying things).

N - healing mists works well with your giants and VBF mentioned fairies. Swarm is a staple spell, and panic stacks well if you're dropping terror with wailing winds along with something having a fear aura....like Morrigans. With a couple bigger boosters you're looking at mass regeneration and relief - both great spells for your giants.

[chrispedersen]

Nah you don't need a lot of equipment to make druids effective.
Just storms and storm power.

[archaeolept]

Hmmmm, at the risk of sounding pedantic, did you read the guide that starts this thread? not pedantic, but not especially relevant. The guide was for pre-nerf Hinnom. I'd take claims of their being vastly over-powered more seriously if those complaining had actually won games with them (against reasonably good opponents). The nerf hit them hard, making them only over-powered. They are certainly not as excessive as Ashdod, and probably no more dangerous in EA than a standard Niefl bless.

[Baalz]

not pedantic, but not especially relevant. The guide was for pre-nerf Hinnom. I'd take claims of their being vastly over-powered more seriously if those complaining had actually won games with them (against reasonably good opponents). The nerf hit them hard, making them only over-powered. They are certainly not as excessive as Ashdod, and probably no more dangerous in EA than a standard Niefl bless.

In Darkparadise I not only won, I completely dominated to the point that in year three I annihilated the second place power (Sauromatia) over two turns before simultaneously declaring war on all remaining players including (all viable positions) Micltlan, Neifelheim, TC, and Lanka (played by K). That, BTW, included posting this guide around year two so everyone in the game knew exactly the strategy I was pursuing. To be fair that was pre-nerf, but I don't see anything in the nerf that negates the fact that Hinnom is strong or very strong in every aspect of the game leading to a cumulative effect of being more than very strong because a lot of it is a multiplicative effect.

When you're among the leaders in province count because of your initial expansion it stacks with your strong scale income and broad ability to site search leading you to likely be leading in gold, gems & research. Your strong giant troops leave you no need for short term magic research goals, start immediately for your optimal medium/long term goals. You've got a strong blood economy and immediate access to massive blood stone forgings and good national summons. You've got top notch SCs along with standard troops & PD strong enough to fight all but the best elites with no support...but then again you've got 2x as many mages as anybody else so then there's no reason they have to.

Yeah, early game Hinnom is comparable to Neifelhiem, the difference is Neifelhiem fades in power as the game progresses and people manage to field counters, while Hinnom starts at the top of the power distribution and steadily gets more powerful (blood stone forging since year one, blood economy, strong research with diverse mages, strong gold & gem income, arguably the best end game summons available to anybody)

[Calahan]

It might be useful to list exactly what got changed in the 'nerfing patch' so that people can compare Hinnom before and after. I'll have a stab here now, but I may need some help with this as I never really looked at Hinnom pre-nerf, and don't currently have any pre-nerf patchs close at hand to check them out.

The Bold Text is taken from the patch history notes....

- Hinnom PD reduced
My quick test shows you currently get.
upto 20PD...
An Avvite Commander
1.5 Avvite Light Infantry for every 2 points of PD
1 Avvite Swordsman for every 2 points of PD

...above 20PD...
A Kohen
1 Avvite Heavy Archer for every 2 points of PD

What was it before the patch?

- Hinnom start army reduced
You currently get...
6 Avvite Light Infantry
6 Avvite Swordsman

What was it before the patch?

- Hinnom Popkillers give some unrest

- Avvite Chariot -> 5
This guide says they used to be size 6.

- Dawn Guard -> 45gp
This guide hints at them being 40gp before.

- Melqart Blood -> 3
??? Guessing it was 4?

- Ba'al Blood -> 2
?? Guessing it was 3?

- Ba'al eat Melqart event reversed.


Please feel free to comment on, or correct, anything I have listed above. And please forgive my blindness if any of the missing info is somewhere in the guide.

If we can nail down exactly what got changed, then we can work out exactly what change is supposed to have turned this super nation into merely an overpowered one.

[MaxWilson]

W - with a water bracelet (or W gems) you can drop freezing mist, which is very, very good in combination with undead troops, skellispam, etc. or even just leveraging your much higher hitpoints and regen. Can also drop quickness & quickening which is iffy for your encumb-5 giants, but very, very nice for Morrigans. If you're in the water (which you should be) you can drop shark attack, friendly currents & grip of winter.

D - With a skull staff already mentioned wailing winds & winds of death. Also, terror, shadow blast, disintegrate, and skellispam (which tends to be a good counter to giant-slaying things).

W - Frozen Heart is very good for a W1 spell.

D - Skelly spam from a D2 mage isn't really worth doing--too much fatigue--especially if you need to blow 7 D gems on a skull staff for it. You'd get a better skelly density out of a regular old skull talisman on an indy commander.

Note: I don't mean that casting "Raise Skeletons" once or twice might not be worth doing, but in my book it's not "spam" unless you're actually able to spam it... 30+ skeletons every turn is skelly spam, 5 skeletons every 8-9 turns is not, and 5 every 8 is what you get from a Fomorian Druid w/ skull staff.

-Max

[Executor]

Frozen heart is a great spell, although you probably couldn't script too much of it's due to short range, and I don't know if the AI would cast it on it's own.

I'm looking at my old game with Hinnom,
I think Hinnom had 8 - 8 starting army before the patch,
Baal had blood 3 and random 4.
Actually I think Melqart had an increase in blood by 1.

The funniest part was the fact that you could use unequiped Hinnom scouts to take out 1PD of many nations, still can. :)

[statttis]

Druids are great for casting frozen heart because they can safely be put up front. With 30hp and a E/N bless they're not easy to kill.

Hinnom still has probably the best starting army in the game. I took the starting army + first turn recruitment and expanded forever without losses.

[Edi]

Hey this is all fascinating. Sorry for being so new, mind if I ask? I havent played Hinnom more than 3 turns in SP (just started now to see what it's like), what I cant figure out is
- where does it say that population dies because of the units? I cant see that tag on any of the units. Just the gluttony. But I thought that is only for supplies?
Gluttony is just for supplies. Popeating does not have an icon, but they do eat population, as per description text. It is one of those special abilities that doesn't have an icon, just like increased chance to escape from Inferno, Kokytos or the Void, stormflying, and a number of others.

[JaghataiKhan]

popeating also bring unrest I presume? Or are they different factors?

Unruly human slaves, why don't you stay obedient and let me eat your babies?!

[MaxWilson]

Yes, popeating causes unrest. I can't remember if it was always that way or was added as part of the Hinnom balance patch.

-Max

[Edi]

I think it always caused it. In any case, popeating and causing unrest are separate attributes of a unit. I.e. having the popeating ability itself does not cause unrest but the units that have it also have the other ability.

[happygeek]

Hello again, one more newbie question from me here -- those Melquart individuals. They are certainly bad right out of the box. I am just curious as to one thing: What do you do with their Blood Magic? I mean, you don't use those guys for blood hunting, sacrificing, or summoning, but for killing stuff on the battlefield. Right? So what's the magic for -- can you do anything with blood magic? And how do you keep a giant out on or behind the front lines supplied with virgins to do it if you do?

And one last question: Trampling. Is there any risk to it? Do you trample OR use your normal attack, or both?
Those Melquarts already have armor and a magical attack out of the box, I was wondering if giving them Boots of the Behemoth are a good idea or not. (As opposed to say boots of reinvigoration or strength or something else.)

Thank you

[chrispedersen]

Hello again, one more newbie question from me here -- those Melquart individuals. They are certainly bad right out of the box. I am just curious as to one thing: What do you do with their Blood Magic? I mean, you don't use those guys for blood hunting, sacrificing, or summoning, but for killing stuff on the battlefield. Right? So what's the magic for -- can you do anything with blood magic? And how do you keep a giant out on or behind the front lines supplied with virgins to do it if you do?

And one last question: Trampling. Is there any risk to it? Do you trample OR use your normal attack, or both?
Those Melquarts already have armor and a magical attack out of the box, I was wondering if giving them Boots of the Behemoth are a good idea or not. (As opposed to say boots of reinvigoration or strength or something else.)

Thank you

The usual method of keeping front line mages supplied with blood mages is scouts that are loaded with blood, travel with the army, and sneak so they are not involved in the combat.

As for Boots of the Behemoth....You probably could make it work.. but why? You already have size 5 trampling troops, that don't take up a commander slot.

As for trample / attack.... you attack something your size or greater. you trample those smaller.

[happygeek]

Thank you!

[/QUOTE]

As for Boots of the Behemoth....You probably could make it work.. but why? [/QUOTE]

Won't I get to kill more stuff per turn that way? Don't I get to trample a smaller enemy as long as I have MP left over? With a sword, I can only make one attack per turn, but with boots, don't I get to trample a bunch of little guys and then smash them with my sword? I mean: for very little investment (boots), won't I be gaining a large array of choices -- turning a very robust individual which would normally do well against a small number of large or robust troops but would be relatively ineffective vs. a large number of small, cheap troops into a unit which could do well vs. both?
In other words: To your question "why?", I ask: "Why not?" What is the drawback to trample, what do I lose?
thank you!

[Executor]

Yes you'll be able to kill more troops per battle turn with trample, but you'll build up fatigue too much too fast, hit over 100, fall unconscious and get yourself killed that way, and that's not very effective.

[chrispedersen]

Thank you!



As for Boots of the Behemoth....You probably could make it work.. but why? [/QUOTE]

Won't I get to kill more stuff per turn that way? Don't I get to trample a smaller enemy as long as I have MP left over? With a sword, I can only make one attack per turn, but with boots, don't I get to trample a bunch of little guys and then smash them with my sword? I mean: for very little investment (boots), won't I be gaining a large array of choices -- turning a very robust individual which would normally do well against a small number of large or robust troops but would be relatively ineffective vs. a large number of small, cheap troops into a unit which could do well vs. both?
In other words: To your question "why?", I ask: "Why not?" What is the drawback to trample, what do I lose?
thank you![/QUOTE]

Well, Executor's answer is pretty succinct, but I'll try to give a gentler version of it.

MP: you have to make pretty close to optimum choices. The level of competition is much stiffer than SP.

Yes, you can use BOB boots. Unfortunately to make it really work you then need at the minimum an amulet of resilience and probably an earth bless.

So thats 15 gems, and two commander actions and two slots on your melqart.

In the end, the games are usually decided by mages and SC's not armies. So the ability to kill lots of army men is less important than having a MR in the 28's, and a protection in the 25+s.

So the long answer is - yes you can. But then you'll have to take extra actions to equipment him for the late game.

So if you are taking non optimum actions while your opponents are not - you're at a disadvantage.

[happygeek]

I see. Thank you. I didnt realize that with the fatigue, guess I am not sure how trample works. Good that there is a downside too. Thank you all.

[Executor]

Basically you multiple your base encumbrance by the number of squares the commander runs over, the more action point you have the more squares you'll run over, but, the more squares you run over the faster you'll accumulate you fatigue.
Example, your enc. is 5 (the base enc. of a Melqart), and your run over 5 squares of troops, that's 5*5=25 fatigue for just one turn. So reinvigoration doesn't help much here, as you'd need a lot!
Defense also matters a lot with trample, so does protection. You have it described in the manual how it works.


The Behemot boots are best used on low encumbrance and high AP units.

[MaxWilson]

The best thing for an SC to do with blood magic is Blood Vengeance.

-Max

[SlipperyJim]

The Behemot boots are best used on low encumbrance and high AP units.

Don't forget zero-encumbrance units. One of the "quirks" of Dom3 is that units with ZERO encumbrance will never gain fatigue from combat. Casting spells will still cause fatigue, but they can fight all day log without getting tired. And it doesn't make any difference if you load them up with heavy armor and shield, either! As long as the critter has a base encumbrance of ZERO, it will never gain fatigue from combat.

The vets all know this fact (I think it's part of why Tartarians are so popular), but newcomers might miss it.

Zero encumbrance + Boots of the Behemoth = fatigue-free trampling goodness :D

[happygeek]

But it says that armor adds encumberance to combat in the description? Has that been changed?

[thejeff]

As he said, a "quirk".

No change though. It's worked this way at least back to Dom2.

Armor adds to combat encumbrance for anyone with a base encumbrance above 0. It adds to spell casting encumbrance for everyone, so don't load your self-buffing Tartarian down too heavily.

[MaxWilson]

And it also decreases AP, so if you throw the Monolith Armor on a Wraith Lord just because he's 0-enc don't expect him to move very fast.

(I believe the reason almost everybody knows about 0-enc units not being affected by armor enc is because it's one of the between-turn "Helpful tips.")

-Max

[Beasley]

Great guide. Reading through the initial posting, Baals get described as "top-flight" SC's, but I really wonder. Primary issue is encumbrance, but I suppose you could overcome that with reinvig spells or items. Morale, on the other hand, seems like a real issue at a measley 16. Seems like they'll break more often than not if they're not ultra-quick in taking out the small armies they're facing... What do people find? Never played them post-nerf, so can't rightly say.