No more MP for Hinnom?

[Omnirizon]

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[Zeldor]

Yeah, it happens in every game they are in. I support banning Hinnom till they get fixed. EA could use a lot more balancing though.

[archaeolept]

haha. what were you guys doing?

a good mictlan build could probably take down Hinnom :)

[Meglobob]

The polls not very good, it only has 1 option, ban Hinnom, Gath and Ashdod. No choice.

DarwinsZorro is not really a true and fitting test, as to wether Hinnom is too powerful for MP. As most/all of the players (including me) have been complete and utter cowards and not even seriously tried to stop Hinnom. He has had virtually zero resistance and the other nations have just fought each another or gone AI as soon as Hinnom attacked them. We are for one reason or another a pretty apathetic bunch in DarwinsZorro!

Having said that Hinnom may be the La Ermor of the Early Age, if you know what I mean.

[K]

In Hellscape, Hinnon is behind Neifleheim and a number of other nations and we are on turn 38. I've heard it's been hard fighting, but they don't seem too dominant.

Of course, I've been in my own wars so I don't know the exact details.

[HoneyBadger]

If I were rebalancing Hinnom, I'd give them twice as much Misfortune as every other nation-since they're intended to be a nation of Nephilim-thus offensive to Creation itself, and would naturally suffer a lot of bad luck.

That would also make them unique among nations.

[archaeolept]

1. Halve Hinnom's starting army
2. Change their preferred temp to heat 1
3. Change their PD to horites.

that's really all you need to balance them. W/ that, they're certainly no stronger than a number of other early era nations.

[Sombre]

I don't mind Hinnom being powerful, but it is a bit silly they seem to be the best at a LOT of things. Like having by far the best PD for instance, for a nation that is already awesome. I mean I like them having great summons and great heroes and I don't want things like that removed (of course, the summons could be upped in cost a little), it's just that they have all of these things on top of each other, just piling up into a scary nation.

I was of the opinion that Ashdod was actually better, but I think Hinnom edges it due to its furious early expansion.

Regardless, I generally seek balance from CBM, not vanilla. I wouldn't like to see Hinnom banned in some MP games but I could understand why it would be. I still don't think it's anywhere near so dominant and crazy as LA Rlyeh though.

[DonCorazon]

Honestly, I think the only reason Hinnom is behind Niefel in Hellscape is because Fomoria and Mictlan have been trying to beat down Hinnom for most of the game. Despite our full-fledged efforts, we are losing the war. I am not sure anyone is attacking Niefel. Even with those odds the 2 of them, Niefel and Hinnom, are pretty close. So I would tend to agree that if you want a more balanced game, you might want to avoid using Hinnom or pray that its neighbors gang up on H right out of the box.

[Xietor]

They were crushed in Kingmaker. Among the first 2-3 races killed out of 63. If you have a tough race, it is the other players duty to double team it.

In kingmaker lanka and kailasa took them out with little trouble.

[Gandalf Parker]

Those charts do look extreme but no more so than any winning nation late in the game. And "fixing" the number one nation only creates another number one nation. But if the experts say that its best at too many things then it probably needs some action.

I havent seen any sign that any of those nations do better than usual as AIs or on really large maps or the small-map blitzes on my server. It might just be a problem for mid-sized MP games.

[Lingchih]

They were crushed in Kingmaker. Among the first 2-3 races killed out of 63. If you have a tough race, it is the other players duty to double team it.

In kingmaker lanka and kailasa took them out with little trouble.


No. Lanka took them out alone. Kailasa was not involved. And it was only because Hinnom was VERY badly played that they lost.

[Baalz]

A few anecdotal "Hinnom didn't do so good in this game..." is even more pointless than a single "Hinnom crushed everybody in game x!". A weaker player is always a possibility, as is just plain terrible luck and either of those factors trumps anything else. Personally, having helmed Hinnom into a crushing victory I have to say they're even more ridiculously over the top than LA Rlyeh. LA Rlyeh's biggest advantage is being the only water power of the age combined with a nation very much geared towards late game power. Several powers could certainly give them trouble 1:1 early on even in the water, it's just too inconvenient and there are easier targets so everyone leaves them alone until it's too late. Thing is, Hinnom's PD serves the same purpose. It's fricking daunting to attack them and there's always easier targets. But with Hinnom they're not only a powerhouse if left alone, they outexpand everybody else in the first place- not only in provinces, but in gems (best site searching of any nation with no other early need for gems or mages), forts (800 gold forts with no need to put up labs or temples) and research (recruiting their best research mage with no lab!)

I gotta say though, the thing that really brings them from extremely powerful into "too powerful" is the PD, combined with generally good gold flow. They can stop anything short of a very powerful army by spending less than 1000 gold on PD...

[Tifone]

I would feel endlessy uncomfortable in voting for the ban of the hard work of the devs out of the MP world :o The nation is very nicely thematic also.
But maybe some things could be adjusted... Hinnom is a powerhouse in early game (starting army, PD), and middle game (none of the giants' traditional weaknesses, incredible research potential with mages not requiring labs to be recruited), and late game (Lords of Civilization, access to almost every path). Seems really hard to stop in the hands of an expert

[Zeldor]

Lingchih:

Kailasa had some battles against Hinnom and also Midgard attacked Hinnom, so it was 3:1 with Lanka doing most of the job. And Hinnom player did many many mistakes.

[Hadrian_II]

They were crushed in Kingmaker. Among the first 2-3 races killed out of 63. If you have a tough race, it is the other players duty to double team it.

In kingmaker lanka and kailasa took them out with little trouble.


No. Lanka took them out alone. Kailasa was not involved. And it was only because Hinnom was VERY badly played that they lost.

Hinnom tried to invade Kailasa, and kailasa was able to crush the invasion force. After that Lanka and Midgard double teamed Hinnom and it fell fast. So it was actually 3v1 and i dont think that this is any indicator of how strong hinnom really is.

edit: somehow i did not see zeldors answer when i wrote this post:o

[Zeldor]

Hadrian:

I still think you could maybe even win that 3:1 with more tramplers. Especially considering Lanka had long term bless, not rush one. But still, 3:1 to get one nation does not sound like balanced. I wish I had a bit stronger early game nation in that moment :(

[Hadrian_II]

@Zeldor:

I tried to say, that when you go 3v1 against a nation, every nation will crumble fast, so it does not say anything about the power of hinnom. And i did not see any big effort on our side, as hinnom fell like a stone without much losses to the attackers.

[Zeldor]

Hadrian:

From what I remember you almost killed entire Lankan army with your chariots, if you had just a bit more of them [and maybe PD to back them up, it was probably storming your capitol], you'd win and regain most of lands.

[Gandalf Parker]

But KO has said that a nation needing 3 nations to beat it is within the games concept of balance. So it would not be considered "broke". Thats not to say that he might not agree to even things out a bit but in Dominions as long as there is a rock-paper-scissors answer for something then is no desire to try and achieve a chess-game everyone balanced with each other type of leveling.

I may have to play abit and see if the PD here can lead to actually balancing some of the "low" nations by making their particular skills more useful.

[Zeldor]

Gandalf:

But there are way too many nations like that in EA that need more than 1 nation to beat - Hinnom, Lanka, Niefel, Mictlan, so where can you get enough nations to take them down? And which first? You take down one, another gets enough time to gets way too powerful.

[Gandalf Parker]

Actually the more nations you add to a list like that, the more it becomes something that doesnt need to be fixed. If it was just one that automatically held a top level then it would need to be tweaked.

You also seem to be looking at only one part of the game. Mictlan for example is one of the nations most listed as the number one failing in AI.

[calmon]

Mictlan for example is one of the nations most listed as the number one failing in AI.

Maybe just because the fact the AI can't handle the EA and LA mictlan inexisting normal dominion spread.

[Gandalf Parker]

Right. Thats the problem.
I was just pointing out that a "major failing" in one area doesnt always mean its broken. tweaking a nation needs to be done carefully to not fix something in one area and break it in another. I wouldnt consider it to be a good fix if Hinnom were balanced perfectly for MP play on average maps but it broke it for small and large maps, or for AI, or for solo play.

[Edratman]

This thread is a pleasant change of pace. First time in close to 2 years that there are a lot of complaints about a nation being too strong. It is always, "XXXXX" is too weak.

[Xietor]

I disagree baalz. The fact that they were smoked in Kingmaker shows they can easily be taken down 2 v 1. There were decent players all around.

You have to use diplomacy in MP games. Otherwise stick to single players. If you are in a game and LA Ermor is eating your neighbor, and you do not help him, then he gobbles you next, do not complain that LA Ermor is too powerful.

You should have got off your arse and ganged him. All races are not equal. Mp games require diplomacy to bring down overpowered races. The fact that your style is to sit and build up rather than fight early wars is irrelevant.

Situations often dictate strategy. The motto for weaker nations is," United we stand, divided we fall." If you are one of these antisocial guys that do not like diplomacy, then you are likely not going to a be a very good at playing dominions in the multiplay context.

If a race cannot beat 2 on 1, it is not overpowered.

[Sombre]

If a race cannot beat 2 on 1, it is not overpowered.

And what is the reasoning behind that seemingly arbitrary statement?

[Zeldor]

Hinnom can beat 2:1. It can beat 5:1 some nations. Saying fight is easy when you have nation able to fight anyone early on. There are many nations that won't survive 20 turns against almost any opponent if not diplomacy. That is not a balance.

[DonCorazon]

I disagree baalz. The fact that they were smoked in Kingmaker shows they can easily be taken down 2 v 1. There were decent players all around.

You have to use diplomacy in MP games. Otherwise stick to single players. If you are in a game and LA Ermor is eating your neighbor, and you do not help him, then he gobbles you next, do not complain that LA Ermor is too powerful.

You should have got off your arse and ganged him. All races are not equal. Mp games require diplomacy to bring down overpowered races. The fact that your style is to sit and build up rather than fight early wars is irrelevant.

Situations often dictate strategy. The motto for weaker nations is," United we stand, divided we fall." If you are one of these antisocial guys that do not like diplomacy, then you are likely not going to a be a very good at playing dominions in the multiplay context.

If a race cannot beat 2 on 1, it is not overpowered.

X, I disagree as to the assessment of Hinnom's impact on an MP game. Here is a quote from Niefelheim who in Hellscape is just slightly more powerful than Hinnom at the moment, though my money is on Hinnom to win this game:

It would appear that both Lanka and Pangaea are trying to put out the Abysian flames, and Hinnom is being attacked from all directions, whilst Rlyeh is surely planning a military campaign of its own with all that army building up.

And while the entire world is at war, the blue flames of Niefelheim grow stronger and await the right moment to fulfill their destiny and became the rulers of this world!!!

Wait...

EDIT: Muahahahahahahaha!!!!
That's better.

So basically, Hinnom has been ganged up on by its two neighbors, Mictlan and Fomoria. Both of the attackers have been beaten down and lost any chance of winning the game. In the classic prisoner's dilmena we were damned if we attacked and damned if we didn't. Meanwhile, Niefel has turtled his way into a respectable position. But I predict as soon as Fomoria and Mictlan crumble, Hinnom's graphs will jump as they do in Omni's first post.

The point of this cautionary tale is, at least in Hellscape, Hinnom creates what I'd call an unfun dynamic as the nation forces its neighbor's into a losing binary outcome. And anyone who doesn't neighbor Hinnom, is clearly going to turtle. So you can almost predict the outcome of a game up front.

Anyway, I don't feel very strong about it because I don't mind losing and I do like variety, but I would caution people that the MP game experience with Hinnom is not as interesting.

[K]

I disagree baalz. The fact that they were smoked in Kingmaker shows they can easily be taken down 2 v 1. There were decent players all around.

You have to use diplomacy in MP games. Otherwise stick to single players. If you are in a game and LA Ermor is eating your neighbor, and you do not help him, then he gobbles you next, do not complain that LA Ermor is too powerful.

You should have got off your arse and ganged him. All races are not equal. Mp games require diplomacy to bring down overpowered races. The fact that your style is to sit and build up rather than fight early wars is irrelevant.

Situations often dictate strategy. The motto for weaker nations is," United we stand, divided we fall." If you are one of these antisocial guys that do not like diplomacy, then you are likely not going to a be a very good at playing dominions in the multiplay context.

If a race cannot beat 2 on 1, it is not overpowered.

There is also an element of "right tool for the right job."

In this very thread we have a Hinnom invasion army being beaten by Kailasa. That is just stupidly surprising in my book based on the relative strength and cost of their troops, but after some thought I worked out a few early game scenarios where it could happen. Mostly, they revolve around Kailasa's unique strengths and Hinnon's particular weaknesses.

A nation's overall strength is determined not just their potential strengths, but the numbers of tactics and strategies they are were able to develop over the course of play to meet the different situations they will encounter.

[Gandalf Parker]

Well it is easy enough to restrict a game so that certain nations cannot sign up to play. Thats an option and I would have no problem seeing it happen.

I dont think Id like the idea of some sort of mass effort to make it a "rule" and try to enforce it on others.

But if enough people running games locked out certain nations on a regular basis then thats one of the best ways to get the devs attention.

[BesucherXia]

In my opinion, if a nation can always win its duels easily and thus must be countered by alliance, it has greatly limited our diplomacy and strategy choice and made the fun fading.

And vice versa if a nation can only survive relying on diplomacy, that's what I think unbalance, and that's why some nations have been boosted by previous patches.

[Gandalf Parker]

Fine as long as its not fixing it just for you and messing it up for others. Believe me. Im on the beta team. If I pushed to fix things that applied only to the way I play Dominions then it would have a horrible impact on many of the other players here. But I wouldnt do that.

Discussion is good. We might be able to come up with some careful tweaks to suggest which everyone can be happy with.

[Zeldor]

Most concerns are about early game. Later you can diversify. But if you are able to get much bigger for less design points then you have it easier in late game. Hinnom gets free points from heat. More free points for not needing bless or awake SC. And has great PD to beat most attackers and makes them require a lot of research and mage power to get through real hinnom armies [backed by PD]. And you have recruitable SCs. On the other hand we have nation that need to waste [yes, waste] 150 points for awake SC to have a CHANCE of SURVIVING [not dominating or making a rush] early game. They usually also need a lot of research [so even with awake SC they cannot match any bless nation or Hinnom], normal PD, normal troops that get trampled or easily killed [especially under enemy H3 or C3 dom]. And they need to summon all thug and SC chassises as additional cost to kitting them [and they have worse site searching abilities]. Of course that nations can be fun, but you take lottery. And I don't want to depend on luck, not my design, if I survive 20-30 turns [not even talking about chances to win the game].

[Xietor]

In Kingmaker lanka and kailasa crushed hinnom. of course they rushed him early. both of them.

[AreaOfEffect]

I agree that it is difficult to determine the relative strength of a nation based purely on sparse instances of victory or defeat.

It has been implied that their is either a "right tool for the job" or a "rock-paper-scissor" approach. In order for either of these to be true their has to be an exploitable weakness to Hinom. So I ask, what is a weakness of this nation and how easy is it to exploit, as well as how easy is it for Hinom to compensate?

(I will say one thing. Thematically, I find it hard to believe that a Chariot of that size plus giant sized armor requires so few resources to build. It's only a point more then an Arcosephalian Chariot.)

[WaltF4]

In this very thread we have a Hinnom invasion army being beaten by Kailasa. That is just stupidly surprising in my book based on the relative strength and cost of their troops, but after some thought I worked out a few early game scenarios where it could happen. Mostly, they revolve around Kailasa's unique strengths and Hinnon's particular weaknesses.

Which particular national strengths and weaknesses would you be exploiting in the early game?

[Gandalf Parker]

The have the same as most of the giant nations. A tendency toward starvation. Some subtle dominion attacks would work well.

[JimMorrison]

I dont think Id like the idea of some sort of mass effort to make it a "rule" and try to enforce it on others.

I still see plenty of LA games (more than 50% that start, which I found shocking), that do not restrict Ermor or R'lyeh unless people ask for it. So I can hardly see a community-wide rule coming into effect on Hinnom. Though, many more games are started in EA than LA, so, the tide may be stronger. ;)

Oh and for the record, I find Hinnom to be utterly ridiculous. I have 2 test games that I got bored of once indie expansion was ending. This boredom resulted from my being 3x the size of any of the AIs by this time, one game with a strong bless, the other game with a scales strat and chariots - both had equal early game results.

Obviously SP results don't reflect much on MP games per se. However, any nation that you can just pick up, and plug in whatever pretender build you like, and outperform ANY of your best/favorite nations in similar circumstances - is definitely a bit higher on the power curve.

Ashdod seems to definitely share some of papa Hinnom's power as well. Gath, seriously seems to lack the edge of their predecessors. Not that they are poorly designed in any way, just that they're much closer to the relative power of other nations.

[konming]

I think that pretty much only two nations will give Hinnom a strong challenge, or may I say, beat it on equal skill level, in early game.

One is Sauromatia. Poison archer is the bane of many things, esp. small elite army of Hinnom. E blessed amazon riders can easily raid Hinnom PDs. 25 PDs cannot stop 10 E9N4 blessed riders. Hinnom can expect to counter poison archers with baals, but in turn, hydras scare the pants off those poor baals.

The other is Niefelheim. E9N8/9 blessed nief giants and jarls, with its cold spreading domain, can easily beat baals and Hinnom giants 1:1, with any bless.

From middle game on, it really depends on the skill level of player and too many other factors to predict.

[Omnirizon]

In this very thread we have a Hinnom invasion army being beaten by Kailasa. That is just stupidly surprising in my book based on the relative strength and cost of their troops, but after some thought I worked out a few early game scenarios where it could happen. Mostly, they revolve around Kailasa's unique strengths and Hinnon's particular weaknesses.

Which particular national strengths and weaknesses would you be exploiting in the early game?

Kail's Awe

Hinnom's lack of high moral units, and often disuse of sacreds (which will generally have the highest base moral that boosted even more when blessed).
and if Kail is not using an Air bless... Hinnom has no missile unit that can be mustered in any significant amount.

[Lingchih]

Kailasa did little against Hinnom in Kingmaker, other than repel him. Lanka did most of the work. I believe Hinnom's mistake in that game was building too many chariots. He relied on Chariots for everything, rather than recruiting his national SCs.

I lost early in that game because I figured Hinnom could hold against Lanka, so I attacked Lanka. Two turns later, Hinnom was dead.

[Kristoffer O]

Hinnom will likely be nerfed with next patch. They do have several strengths, but I never had any grip on how they would turn out in practice. There has been lots of discussions regarding their strengths and weaknesses (quite few) and I have plans for their correction.

Baalz guide, as well as the following discussions have been quite informative, and I thank you all for participating.

Now I wonder a bit about Ashdod. THey have been discussed a lot less, but they are portrayed as almost Hinnomish in power. The Zamzummim and summons are mentioned, but I have less to go on here.

I guess they have been less common in MP games?

Some things I consider:
- Lower PD, not horites though
- Fewer starting troops
- Chariot nerf (possibly size, possibly something else that might affect other tramplers as well)
- Dawn Guard +5g to original cost level.

Not sure about this, but I had an idea of switching Melqart and Ba'al blood magic lvl. Might need a slight rewrite of descriptions and events.

Main objective of nerf: reduce initial expansion power.

[llamabeast]

Nerfing tramplers in general would be great, in my opinion. Elephants have always been a bit crazy.

[Baalz]

Sauromatia I think is a bit of "in theory this could work". Once you get reasonably good players (on both sides) trying to counter what each other is doing I don't think Sauromatia really has much of a chance. Hydras don't even come close to countering Baals if you use them right. Flesheater axe (berzerk) + snake ring (poison immune) plus some other cheapish cons-4 gear and Hinnom is basically fielding a nearly unstoppable SC every turn *very* early which Sauromatia doesn't really have anything to address. Hinnom is a very strong research nation, and cons-4 + alt-3 + thau-3 are not very high bars to have teleporting SCs who can be configured at the lab specifically to whatever Sauromatia is fielding, then drop in on them before they can move while your normal (chariots & dawn guard) troops continue to expand in every direction twice as fast as Sauro can match. Not to mention the other thing people seem to overlook because it seldom comes up - Hinnom has such broad magic diversity + strong research that they can pretty easily bring any spells they need to the party if you do manage to counter their strong suit. You don't like my SC counter to hydras? Ok, how about spamming some blade wind into those hydras & poison archers? Or casting arrow fend and paralyzing the hydras? How about both? Whatever the most devastating counter you can come up with - Hinnom can very likely do it, and do it well.

Neifelheim in a very early dual (triple) bless rush is going to give anybody a hard time, but I can't think of anybody I'd rather have in that situation than Hinnom with a strong heat-3 dominion. Neifel's a very one dimensional power, and even fully optimized in a best case scenario (not including ganging up on somebody) I wouldn't give a triple blessed Niefel rush more than a 50% chance of succeeding against an unprepared, good scale Hinnom with an imprisoned pretender (assuming equal skill levels).

[AreaOfEffect]

For the most part I have always found the price of the trampler to be fair. Most of the weaknesses of the elephant and Hinnom chariots don't warrant a higher gold cost in my opinion.

I do however find them too easy to amass in large numbers during the early game, which often upsets most of their weakness at this point. Nothing follows the rule of critical mass more faithfully then tramplers. Gold costs in my opinion aren't much of a barrier as huge quantities can be had at great personal cost. So if anything, I'm in favor of resource increases over gold increases.

[Psycho]

I feel that nerfing elephants would nerf nations which are weak as it is like Caelum or Arco

[Xietor]

What would la arcos do without elephants? my god(: No national summons. In kingmaker i am being raided by angels(la marignon), and Bandar Log's national summons. Take away elephants then make those sirrush cost water gems or something besides s gems, or give them some anti thug ability(an affliction causing attack, arm loss or something).

Something else that needs nerfed is the ghost rider leader. he is basically unkillable by pd.
You can kill all of his men but he fights on to the last hp and causes fear. Now I have used that to my advantage many times, but he needs toned done slightly. Maybe take his fear away or make him not ethereal.

A level 35 pd should have at least a chance at stopping him. Maybe ea abysia's can since they get mages and fire aura, but not your basic shinuyama, arcos pd that is strong but not magical.

[konming]

Sauromatia I think is a bit of "in theory this could work". Once you get reasonably good players (on both sides) trying to counter what each other is doing I don't think Sauromatia really has much of a chance. Hydras don't even come close to countering Baals if you use them right. Flesheater axe (berzerk) + snake ring (poison immune) plus some other cheapish cons-4 gear and Hinnom is basically fielding a nearly unstoppable SC every turn *very* early which Sauromatia doesn't really have anything to address. Hinnom is a very strong research nation, and cons-4 + alt-3 + thau-3 are not very high bars to have teleporting SCs who can be configured at the lab specifically to whatever Sauromatia is fielding, then drop in on them before they can move while your normal (chariots & dawn guard) troops continue to expand in every direction twice as fast as Sauro can match. Not to mention the other thing people seem to overlook because it seldom comes up - Hinnom has such broad magic diversity + strong research that they can pretty easily bring any spells they need to the party if you do manage to counter their strong suit. You don't like my SC counter to hydras? Ok, how about spamming some blade wind into those hydras & poison archers? Or casting arrow fend and paralyzing the hydras? How about both? Whatever the most devastating counter you can come up with - Hinnom can very likely do it, and do it well.

Neifelheim in a very early dual (triple) bless rush is going to give anybody a hard time, but I can't think of anybody I'd rather have in that situation than Hinnom with a strong heat-3 dominion. Neifel's a very one dimensional power, and even fully optimized in a best case scenario (not including ganging up on somebody) I wouldn't give a triple blessed Niefel rush more than a 50% chance of succeeding against an unprepared, good scale Hinnom with an imprisoned pretender (assuming equal skill levels).


The thing is, short of a berserking baal, everything up to const6 gear I put in a baal does not help him from running away every single time when facing 4 hydras. And I do mean a lot of times. Teleporting those baals deep in enemy land facing hydra is a certain way to quick death from running. Heck, one baal who was supposed to cast call horror ran away from the first horror he summoned (no, the horror was not attacking him, he just panicked from seeing the horror he summoned). And hydras did not even need to do any damage to the baal, not that they couldnot with 9 attacks 16 damages or above, but the baal ran away 50% of the time coming into contact with hydras.

[Sombre]

I'd quite like to see def stat (not including parry from shield) have more of an impact on trampling. That way tramplers would be a bit worse and light infantry with virtually no armour, plus light cavlary, would be a lot better.

[AreaOfEffect]

What would la arcos do without elephants? my god(: No national summons. In kingmaker i am being raided by angels(la marignon), and Bandar Log's national summons. Take away elephants then make those sirrush cost water gems or something besides s gems, or give them some anti thug ability(an affliction causing attack, arm loss or something).

Something else that needs nerfed is the ghost rider leader. he is basically unkillable by pd.
You can kill all of his men but he fights on to the last hp and causes fear. Now I have used that to my advantage many times, but he needs toned done slightly. Maybe take his fear away or make him not ethereal.

A level 35 pd should have at least a chance at stopping him. Maybe ea abysia's can since they get mages and fire aura, but not your basic shinuyama, arcos pd that is strong but not magical.

A resource increase, though a restriction for early-game expansion, is not a mid-game or late-game restriction. Personally I care more about the Hinnom chariots then I do about the elephants.

On the subject of balancing nations, lets stick to one nation at a time. It's been like five posts and we are already talking about elphants, ghost riders, and a host nations who have national summons. If your problem with the ghost rider is that deep then it should get it's own post dedicated to hating it.

[Zeldor]

Kristoffer O:

I think there are some issues with overall nation balance. Most of them are about early and mid game [before you can diversify and get big enough gem income to do almost what you want]. My biggest concerns are about:
- sacred nations [they just own, and you can always put cheap Shroud on whatever you summon later], getting a good bless is just too cheap [and some blesses are useless]
- recruitable SCs/thugs [other nations first need to get research to summon them and then pay at least 10-30 gems just to get a chassis], Niefel Jarls can even beat a big part of summonable SCs and cost well, only gold [Hinnom SCs are powerful too]
- tramplers [many nations have almost no ways of protecting against them and get nothing in exchange]

There are simply some nations that base their survival on luck or diplomacy. And they should have normal chances of getting through [even if they are weaker in that stage]. I don't like paying 150 points for awake SC only because I will be dead within 15 turns if I don't. If someone wants to pay 150 points for faster expansion it is his right, but that should be a choice. But I don't know if I can expect major changes like that before Dom4 [even QM's CBM does not try to work on that].

[konming]

Berserking Baal means no buffing. Without buff, are you going to survive against 4 hydras? I do not think so.

Arrow fend is a good counter to Sauromatia, but at Ench6, which is not something you research first, it is hardly an early game counter. Blade wind, you could very well hit the skeletons instead of poison archers.

Yes, with research scale up and in the late second year, Hinnom can start to counter effectively, but an early war will put Hinnom in disadvantage, even 1:1. Remember if you expand too fast, you also make a lot of enemies.

[DonCorazon]

I'd prefer to see tramplers not get nerfed. They give some otherwise weak early game nations a nice boost. And they always have the risk of trampling their own troops and have some significant morale issues that can be exploited.

I disagree on nerfing Ghost Riders - I think it should be able to take out most PD - it is a very high level spell that requires most nations to bootstrap to be able to cast and helps accelerate the end game.

The point re: Hinnom's magical diversity is also valid - as Fomoria I turned the tide briefly until Hinnom started showing up with SR trinkets. That's something that Niefel would have a tough time with except through trading. So I wouldn't mind seeing Hinnom lose access to some magic schools.

[konming]

I would really like to see more counter against SC on unit level. One solution would to incur fatigue on the target for every attack attempt. Even it is just 1, those infantries will do at least 15 fatigue damage on target every round.

[konming]

I'd prefer to see tramplers not get nerfed. They give some otherwise weak early game nations a nice boost. And they always have the risk of trampling their own troops and have some significant morale issues that can be exploited.

I disagree on nerfing Ghost Riders - I think it should be able to take out most PD - it is a very high level spell that requires most nations to bootstrap to be able to cast and helps accelerate the end game.

The point re: Hinnom's magical diversity is also valid - as Fomoria I turned the tide briefly until Hinnom started showing up with SR trinkets. That's something that Niefel would have a tough time with except through trading. So I wouldn't mind seeing Hinnom lose access to some magic schools.


Are you kidding? Slightly more than 1 in 3 niefel jarls will have A1. And they can all forge ring of shock resistance, giving 100% SR. If you mean it does not have capital A income, neither does Hinnom.

[DonCorazon]

No, I wasn't kidding, just mistaken. I hadn't played Niefel in a while and forgot they had A randoms. My bad.

[Ironhawk]

[QUOTE=Xietor;642006]What would la arcos do without elephants? QUOTE]

A resource increase, though a restriction for early-game expansion, is not a mid-game or late-game restriction. Personally I care more about the Hinnom chariots then I do about the elephants.


What has always balanced trampling units is the fact that when they rout, they kill your own men, instead of the enemy. Thats the key.

But the way things are right now, tramplers generally have too high hp and prot to be really risky to use in combat. Particularly if you balance thier morale by adding some slow, good morale troops to thier squad. If we just nerf thier prot and hp stats somewhat and make them vulnerable (not totally helpless, mind you!) to the relatively moderate attacks of a mundane army, then you will take tramplers back from being a no-brainer to a really interesting and risky decision.

[Baalz]

Berserking Baal means no buffing. Without buff, are you going to survive against 4 hydras? I do not think so.

Arrow fend is a good counter to Sauromatia, but at Ench6, which is not something you research first, it is hardly an early game counter. Blade wind, you could very well hit the skeletons instead of poison archers.

Yes, with research scale up and in the late second year, Hinnom can start to counter effectively, but an early war will put Hinnom in disadvantage, even 1:1. Remember if you expand too fast, you also make a lot of enemies.

Nah, I actually played this matchup as Hinnom vs Sauro - though granted it was late year 2 after my research had a chance to mature and I was already much larger than my opponent (scarcely a rare occurrence wit Hinnom), but I'm pretty confident I could have smashed him with much less resources. Flesheater axe gives you berzerk, but not "gone berzerk", so you can buff just fine and the first time you get hit you go berzerk (works great for SCs as the berzerk gives you more protection as well!). If you're having trouble getting this to work for some reason (cons-4 not researched? Arrows tending to hit you before you finish buffing?) you could also forego the teleportation and have one of your N2 mages (with a tower shield) stand around waiting for you do finish buffing before berzerking you and retreating. Have to say though that I had no trouble at all slaughtering groups of 8+ hydras using nothing but cons-4 gear and alt-3 buffs on a single Baal. Didn't really notice the Androphag archers because I already had SCs at that point, but if they had tried to rush me (how in the world you rush tramplers with mostly archers I've yet to see) it wouldn't have been much of a stretch to stall him with counter-raids. Following my strategy guide you're pumping out two expansion/raiding parties per turn from just your capital while leveraging your fast expansion and awesome scales to plop up cheap castles from which come more raiding parties/mages while at your suggestion Sauromatia has taken a bless and possibly an awake pretender so it's impossible for them to match Hinnom's troop output with cap only troops.

Again, I played this matchup, and not only did I attack Sauro in a crushing invasion late year 2/early year 3, I simultaneously declared war on all the remaining nations (Sauro plus Neifelheim, Lanka, and TC with none of them fighting each other) just to try and give them a fighting chance - FWIW nobody could even put up a convincing speedbump. That's in early year 3 - scarcely left alone to grow in power forever.

[Meglobob]

Some things I consider:
- Lower PD, not horites though
- Fewer starting troops
- Chariot nerf (possibly size, possibly something else that might affect other tramplers as well)
- Dawn Guard +5g to original cost level.


Lower PD - Excellent idea.
Fewer starting troops - Even better idea.
Dawn Guard +5g - Okay.

Chariot nerf - Just increase resources to decrease early numbers. They are easily dealt with later.

General trampler nerf - Please don't. It will effect alot of nations, all Caelum/Arco/Monkey nations and weaken them considerably. Elephants/Mammoths are very good as a alternative strategy to a bless and allow nice scales. After turn 20'ish elephants/mammoths are fairly useless, indeed they are expansive to maintain, so should be killed off, perhaps keep a small force to distract the enemy perhaps.

[hunt11]

The buffs suggested seem like it would do the trick, with them Hinnom would still be a good nation, but it will not be too good.

[Gandalf Parker]

Im glad to see that KO is looking into this and Im very glad to see the players making suggestions. I wish that I could also but truthfully I just could never find them fun to play. There never seemed to be much thinking in deciding what they should do. There didnt seem to be much specialty-use units.

The most thinking was putting my archers to the left of the battlefield (to avoid hitting my own men) and setting them to fire at archers. Setting my tramplers to the right (bottomof the placement screen) of the battlefield to avoid trampling my own and setting them to hold and attack rearmost. Then setting my infantry in the middle behind the mercs and set to hold and attack closest.

[Baalz]

Now I wonder a bit about Ashdod. THey have been discussed a lot less, but they are portrayed as almost Hinnomish in power. The Zamzummim and summons are mentioned, but I have less to go on here.

I guess they have been less common in MP games?

Some things I consider:
- Lower PD, not horites though
- Fewer starting troops
- Chariot nerf (possibly size, possibly something else that might affect other tramplers as well)
- Dawn Guard +5g to original cost level.

Not sure about this, but I had an idea of switching Melqart and Ba'al blood magic lvl. Might need a slight rewrite of descriptions and events.

Main objective of nerf: reduce initial expansion power.

Sorry, I know I said I'd write a guide but I haven't gotten Ashdod in a game yet and I can't "get inside the head" of a nation until I've played them against people.

On your ideas I think they're all good, though I agree with others that nerfing tramping in general would have very wide reaching side effects that are a bit hard to assess the scope of. Reducing the size seems best, given the size of the other giants and the fact human chariots only increase the size by one.

A couple other ideas -

Remove Hinnom's ability to produce their best research & combat mage without a lab. Either change the mechanic which allows this, or give them a set path. It's kinda cool that other nations can recruit a weak mage if they haven't gotten a lab up yet, it's pretty much an exploit that Hinnom can crank out battle/research mages with no need to ever put up a second lab until it's convenient. Or maybe make those guys cap only? *That* would be a pretty big nerf.

Perhaps add a minor unrest effect to complement the population eating? Thematic and a tiny amount would go a long way towards reducing their ability to bloodhunt. Even a tiny amount would make it so you could really only use two blood hunters per province, thus cutting down their blood income by 1/3rd.

[OmikronWarrior]

On the question of Tramplers, I always beleived the best way to "nerf" them would be force repel checks on sufficiently long weapons (say 12 length of weapons in the square). They'd still be fine for expansion, but would give players a non-magic option for countering them with out lots of mages.

[K]

Remove Hinnom's ability to produce their best research & combat mage without a lab. Either change the mechanic which allows this, or give them a set path. It's kinda cool that other nations can recruit a weak mage if they haven't gotten a lab up yet, it's pretty much an exploit that Hinnom can crank out battle/research mages with no need to ever put up a second lab until it's convenient.

This is the idea I would support. Giant nations tends to be balanced by the fact that while individually they are more powerful, they are a greater investment to build.

By letting them pump out good research mages without a lab and/or temple, you are basically funding their troops (an advantage no other giant nation can claim).

I also think that the Shaman they get seems like an oversight from the design process. He adds Death to an already diverse nation and seems designed just to let people climb the death ladder and/or make Flaming Skulls.

Also, their starting army is awesome. Cut that back to something reasonable and their early rush is extremely blunted. As far as I can tell, Hinnom's starting army is the only one in the game that can take a province a turn for the first ten turns.

[HoneyBadger]

You know, the Devs themselves have even stated that they assumed balancing problems would be taken care of by the modding community, so I wonder why more people don't try to create MP friendly versions of Nations? Where's the great shame and doubt in this? There's good, easy access to in-game graphics now, so Hinnom will look the same, and it's a lot faster and easier than waiting for the off-chance that one of the Devs *might* someday play a Nation you think is unbalanced, and *might* rebalance it in a way that satisfies you.

Sure, you'll get the same arguments and hassles about how it's still not balanced, but once the work of actually recreating the vanilla nation is done, making adjustments becomes a fairly simple process that anyone can do.

[Gandalf Parker]

Im of the same opinion.
Except that Im hoping for the AI complainers to mod more AI friendly nations. :)

[HoneyBadger]

Well, yeah, you and I both share a love of the SP game. I keep hoping the Devs will gift us with a magical bundle of tools that we can, at the very least, unpack and put into play. It's a faint hope, though.

There is some work being done on making the AI more challenging in the Mod forums, by Edratman. From what I've read, he seems to have the right idea about what needs doing to make it better-atleast as far as preventing the AI from suiciding itself.

[JimMorrison]

You know, the Devs themselves have even stated that they assumed balancing problems would be taken care of by the modding community, so I wonder why more people don't try to create MP friendly versions of Nations? Where's the great shame and doubt in this? There's good, easy access to in-game graphics now, so Hinnom will look the same, and it's a lot faster and easier than waiting for the off-chance that one of the Devs *might* someday play a Nation you think is unbalanced, and *might* rebalance it in a way that satisfies you.

Sure, you'll get the same arguments and hassles about how it's still not balanced, but once the work of actually recreating the vanilla nation is done, making adjustments becomes a fairly simple process that anyone can do.


While this is a great theory, there are a couple of problems with it. First being that we've only even been able to properly use mod nations in MP games for a couple of weeks, so it's not as if everyone's mindset is geared towards that. But I think the major hurdle is that most people are going to be a bit leary about mod nations that they haven't experienced before. I mean, consider the body of effort that has gone into at least making a case for balancing Hinnom - to expect that sort of undertaking for a mod nation may be a bit fanciful. So it's likely that a lot of people (other than the most experienced, who are either 100% confident in themselves, or who can assess the mod nation at a glance) will continue to have a generally fearful perspective on the unknown. Obviously, you could release a mod version of Hinnom that was declared "toned down" or "weakened", but even if people acknowledged it were true, I bet you more often than not if someone said they were implementing that mod, no one would want to use the player nerfed nation.

I'm not saying no one will ever include player modified vanilla nations, or that no one would ever select that particular mod nation, only that there is a bit of a gap between where we are now, and that being commonplace on either end.

But also, it seems to me that everyone is pretty comfortable with there being "some" discrepancy in power. I mean everyone acknowledges that Lanka and Niefel are powerhouses, and they usually get picked fast, but they're within a certain variance that is acceptable, because they CAN be taken down with a joint effort, and often are as a result. Because of that, it does seem reasonable to ask for them to be brought within that range of variance so that perhaps they might be considered very strong, but not entirely unfairly so. And not necessarily to expect it to be this grand sweeping fine-tuning. A few increases in resource/gold cost, maybe a certain unit made capital only, a tiny change to starting army, and voila, you have surely brought the nation more in line with their expected performance.

[Edratman]

Im of the same opinion.
Except that Im hoping for the AI complainers to mod more AI friendly nations. :)

There are two mods available for AI friendly nations, EA Improved Computer Opponents and MA Improved Computer Opponents. Each mod improves the six nations with the lowest number of MP victories.

[Zeldor]

JimMorrison:

I wouldn't be so sure about Niefel. They are more powerful than Lanka and should be toned down. The only reason they are not banned is that they are not as extremely overpowered as LA Ermor. But not far from that [powerful recruitable SCs, what else do you want?]. They could try to beat LA Ermor 1:1.

[HoneyBadger]

I acknowledge all of that, JimMorrison, but every single nation ever is a "player nerfed nation"-that player being Kristoffer or Johan, and-coming back to my original argument-they're the ones asking that we take up the burden of balancing the nations out.

They're busy fellows, and expecting them to do all that they're doing, *plus* something like this (and they already do, quite often, as it is), is putting a lot of burden on them.

And the easiest way to get people thinking about a new idea is to present it in a public place, so that's what I'm doing here-in the hopes that it'll start people changing their gears a bit.

As far as people using the "nerfed" nations, once you get some of those very experienced players playing them, and acknowledgeing that they are indeed more balanced, and better for MP, then I'm betting the general public will accept them. And it's better that they be nerfed than banned from MP. Besides, "nerfed" isn't the same as "neutered". If Himmon could be adjusted from an 11 to a 9 or an 8 on the power/versatility scale, I think that would be enough.

I haven't noticed many MP games that have stayed empty for very long, for lack of players, even the mod-nation ones, so I'm pretty confident that test games for rebalancing nations will get filled too.

It's a lot of work to do, but such a project would make the game more fun for everyone, and I'm sure that thanks and appreciation would follow.

[GrudgeBringer]

I think in a Elite Vetern Player game Hinnom may be taken cautiously because the Vets all know to take Hinnom out early and HOW to do it.

In lesser skilled games I would support Hinnom being banned as in all the games I've played (and thats really not very many) Hinnom jumps out of the gate and never looks back.

By the time everyone decides to quit squabbling and do something about it...its too late.

Game over and people start going AI.

Its our own fault for the most part but most of us really DON'T know how to stop them.

Just an opionion...

[HoneyBadger]

I don't agree that Niefelheim is uber-powerful. Very powerful, yes, but they lack any PD, they're not an early rush Nation, and they have no real national Summons. They can become quite powerful, if you know what you're doing with them, and aren't opposed effectively, but they're not that easy to learn, and they're almost always used in exactly the same way. They're a middle game nation that's relatively weak in both the Early game and the Late game.

They should probably get some Gluttony (Starvation really isn't a threat for them in their current state, if you plan for it), and their Gygjas and Skratti might eat a little Population, but they could also stand to have some more heroes and a few decent National Summons.

There's a *ton* of mythological elements that could be directly added from Norse literature to Niefelheim to make them more interesting. The biggest problems with Niefelheim are that it's generally a 1 trick pony with a very powerful trick, and that they haven't been updated in quite a long time. I could stand some minor nerfing, to keep them more in line with newer nations, but I want more diversity and interest out of them, too, especially since they're the defacto "flagship" nation of Dominions.

[Sombre]

I don't agree that Niefelheim is uber-powerful .... they're not an early rush Nation

Yes they are.

[HoneyBadger]

Maybe, sometimes, but only as a side effect of being giants in the first place. If you try to rush Abyssia or Hinnom for instance, it's not likely to work out in your favor. If there's weak nations that you can stomp on, sure, you can rush them with Niefelheim, but you can also overextend yourself, and get your Nation cut out from under you, for lack of PD and the expense of your troops.

Rushing with Niefelheim is very risky, as opposed to say Helheim, where you can quickly and consistently attack your nearest neighbors, and hold on to the territory. And Niefelheim's just as vulnerable to a rush as any other nation, too, and moreso than several.

[Endoperez]

I like the trample discussion, so I created a new thread for it. I think it warrants more discussion, and this thread is about Hinnom, not elephants.

[HoneyBadger]

I'll happily move the Niefelheim discussion over to the Niefelheim thread, too, if anybody will follow me.

[llamabeast]

I would have thought that Niefelheim was an extreme example of a rush nation. Stopping E9N9 giants early on is all but impossible.

[archaeolept]

I don't agree that Niefelheim is uber-powerful. Very powerful, yes, but they lack any PD, they're not an early rush Nation, and they have no real national Summons. They can become quite powerful, if you know what you're doing with them, and aren't opposed effectively, but they're not that easy to learn, and they're almost always used in exactly the same way. They're a middle game nation that's relatively weak in both the Early game and the Late game.

say what???

[Epaminondas]

I don't agree that Niefelheim is uber-powerful .... they're not an early rush Nation

Yes they are.

I agree with Sombre here. But I also agree with Honey in that they are not that strong at the end game, and hence I don't think they really require a major over-haul.

I hate "nerfing" anything as a general philosophy unless it is ridiculously out of whack--though I understand sometimes that that is the only practicable and convenient solution.

[WraithLord]

I'm sorry but I really don't like the way the pole is presented. As was mentioned earlier in this thread the pole doesn't give any choice. I for one would have like to vote, "no, don't ban Hinnom".

Yes, its strong, very strong, but so long as MPers are aware of that you can bet Hinnom will usually get its neighbors to ally against it.

[Sombre]

People don't like being forced to double team a nation, to ally, or indeed to have to face double teams against them every single game.

[Epaminondas]

I'm sorry but I really don't like the way the pole is presented. As was mentioned earlier in this thread the pole doesn't give any choice. I for one would have like to vote, "no, don't ban Hinnom".

Yes, its strong, very strong, but so long as MPers are aware of that you can bet Hinnom will usually get its neighbors to ally against it.

"Pole"? Which "way" would you prefer a "pole" to be "presented"?

Freudian? :)

[Epaminondas]

People don't like being forced to double team a nation, to ally, or indeed to have to face double teams against them every single game.

Indeed. I respect the work Gandalf has put into this game--as well as this community--but his understanding of "balance" is really baffling.

[Omnirizon]

my understanding of what the dev team looks for in balance is simply that a single nation does not force most other nations into a particular course of action simply to counter that nation.

thus, why LA R'yleh and Ermor are considered unbalanced by most, because they must be dealt with very deliberately and specifically, forcing other players to take _special_ action against them, thus reducing the possibilities from the player's perspectives in the game.

I think Hinnom falls into this category too. I see some players saying "they're not unbalanced, all you have to do is have EVERYBODY gang up on them, so therefore they are automatically rebalanced." That is NOT balance. I will NOT join an MP game where the first twenty to thirty turns of my game are dictated to me by the simple presence of another nation, before the game has even randomized placement and the game world. That is not balance, and it is not good MP gaming in Dominions.

Now, I don't expect all nations to be absolutely equal either, it is simply impossible, and this is where that diplomatic balance comes into play. But no nation should crystalize the diplomatic landscape of a game into a particular form before the game even starts.

[WraithLord]

People don't like being forced to double team a nation, to ally, or indeed to have to face double teams against them every single game.

That doesn't invalidate the point about unfair poll. Besides, ever since the early day of dom-ppp there were nations you just knew you had to team against or expect to be teamed against if you were to play them. In dom-ppp it was Ermor, now there are quite a few of them. It makes for a more interesting MP, at least for me.

[HoneyBadger]

It all goes back to Early game power, and Late game power. If a Nation is very powerful in the Early phase of the game, then it's justifiable that a couple other Nations might have to team them up to bring them down. But there should be a trade-off. Nations who start small should finish large, they should eventually "come into their own".

From what I'm reading, the problem with Hinnom is that it's always large, it always has a new trick to pull, which means that other Nations *have* to ally to bring it down-even the more powerful ones, like Lanka and Niefelheim. And I don't understand why they have such good PD. For a giant Nation to have the "best PD in the game" seems like a bit of a stretch...

[Gandalf Parker]

People don't like being forced to double team a nation, to ally, or indeed to have to face double teams against them every single game.

Indeed. I respect the work Gandalf has put into this game--as well as this community--but his understanding of "balance" is really baffling.

That wasnt mine. That was the developers.
I just understand it enough not to pitch trying for a 1-to-1 balance.

As far as me personally, it doesnt bother me much because Im not into MP championship-ladder style gaming. Im fine with solo play, ai games, multiplayer alliances games, etc. I dont really have a problem if the diehard MPer strategy players try to get this fixed. I just like to remind some of them that isnt the only way that the game is enjoyed.

[Aezeal]

I think that Hinnom might be nerved by lowering PD indeed and maybe lowering the chariot a size and give it some more resources.

I think Niefelheim is pretty strong early game, my latest game I rushed Lanka after year 1 when I knew others where not after me and I didn't have that much opposition and hardly any losses. The giants are strong... I must say I don't see much new options for me for the late game though... just more giants and kitted jarls and just bash and hope the best of it.

[HoneyBadger]

I just find early rushes with Niefelheim awfully risky, when you can just wait a little bit, and have an army that's twice as hard to take down. Against Lanka, it might be worth the payoff, since Lanka can be a real threat, at the same time Niefelheim is. And Lanka probably can't *take* an early rush quite as well as Niefelheim can-their PD's only a little better, and their troops are still expensive, and not as good in small numbers.

[NTJedi]

Hinnom will likely be nerfed with next patch.

Hopefully there's plans for creating a nation which is extremely powerful. Currently any veterans playing SP games on large maps need to severely boost one or more advantages for the AI opponents if looking for a challenge. It'd save time and be fun to play a random map without using tools, modding or map edit commands to receive a strong AI opponent for middle and late game.

It would be nice to have one very powerful nation designed to provide a challenging AI opponent during middle and late game. The current strongest AI opponent during middle game is LA Ermor and the current strongest AI opponent during late game is EA Niefielheim.

I see no problems having one nation banned out of the other 20 which are available.

[Sombre]

Of course the AI is crap with Hinnom. Just can't use them.

[Tifone]

Actually I think it can, of course not like a player but it doesn't suck though. In all my solo games it is just after me in the graphs. If I started slowly, it can even be above. Anyway, around double the scores of every other EA nations in all the games I put them in - in everything except research (I think it can't use the advantage of having recruitable mages in every fort even without a lab).

[Sombre]

Really? In the couple of SP games I played they got a few provinces and then got stuck on that amount for 20+ turns. Definitely lower on the graphs than other races, especially fomoria.

That might have just been their scales or something though I guess.

[NTJedi]

Scales play a huge role on how powerful an AI nation becomes during a game. With a good starting position and good scales an average AI opponent can win and feed on neighboring impossible AIs.
Give an AI opponent 3 order, 1 productivity, 3 growth, 3 luck, and 3 magic and then it really thrives.

[HoneyBadger]

I always designed my AI Nations from the ground up, before I played against them in SP. And if it was going to be a lengthy 1500 Province game, I'd actually play them myself, through the first year or so. It makes for a vast difference in their ability to offer a challenge, and my memory of where they actually *are* on a 1500 Province map is vague enough (and dissipates quickly enough) that it really doesn't offer me that much of an advantage.

Usually, the biggest problem was just giving them up to the AI after I've put so much work into them, especially if they were doing well...It's a great way to learn all the different Nations, though, and really does offer the best AI experience possible.

[Humakty]

I only play SP, but I must say that with Hinnom I literaly don't know with what to wack the AI. The fact Hinnom has powerfull endgame summons is a joke, as you will have walked all other the AI with your base troops and recruitable everywhere mages. Really, even their sacreds and capitol only mages are unecessary.
Ashdod is less uber, mainly because they have supply problems.

[Tifone]

It all goes back to Early game power, and Late game power. If a Nation is very powerful in the Early phase of the game, then it's justifiable that a couple other Nations might have to team them up to bring them down. But there should be a trade-off. Nations who start small should finish large, they should eventually "come into their own".

Heartily agree. I'd add even the Mid-game power into he sum (which doesn't also always translate in late game power), which some nations already make their strong point.

-

Maybe another thing that could help balancing Hinnom and be thematic at the same time, would be if the civilians of the lands where Hinnom armies go, aren't exactly happy of being eaten alive just for fun by the invaders (in game mechanics = if Hinnom soldiers/commanders with the pop-eating feature have the unrest-increasing one as well).
The amount of micromanaging required to keep the loss of gold and further population at bay, could make playing Hinnom a bit more of a challenge and somewhat "justify" its high power...
The AI, on the other side, would never be able to manage this and would be probably screwed ^_^

[Epaminondas]

Really? In the couple of SP games I played they got a few provinces and then got stuck on that amount for 20+ turns. Definitely lower on the graphs than other races, especially fomoria.

That might have just been their scales or something though I guess.

Hinnom has sucked every time they were AI in my SP games. I suppose that's why I fail to comprehend the "Hinnom is over-powered" mantra.

[Edratman]

Really? In the couple of SP games I played they got a few provinces and then got stuck on that amount for 20+ turns. Definitely lower on the graphs than other races, especially fomoria.

That might have just been their scales or something though I guess.

Hinnom has sucked every time they were AI in my SP games. I suppose that's why I fail to comprehend the "Hinnom is over-powered" mantra.

I agree with this. I played about 20 EA games trying to balance out my mods for better computer opponents and Hinnom never did that well.

One thing I did notice during the testing is that as an AI opponent they seem to have a lower castle build ratio than other nations.

I've tested two different mods for computer opponents and possessing some small observational ability I have deduced that JK is using a very low probability dice roll for AI castle builds that checks every AI owned province every turn. It appears that JK has assigned slightly different values for each AI opponent. The water nations appear to have the highest ratio. If you play mods as AI opponents, then they also seem to get a higher probability for castle builds. I suspect they get a default dice roll value that is greater than that of some standard nations.

No real science here, just observations by a very old engineer.

[Sombre]

Sounds more like the UW nations are finding the free castle sites.

[Edratman]

Sounds more like the UW nations are finding the free castle sites.

I cannot refute that. Nor did it occur to me. I personally do not like and thus haven't played the water nations since my initial round of experimentation, but I have noticed a high ratio of free castles in the water when invading and site searching.

I do know that castle cost is not a factor in AI castle building. I modded a version of "All Nations" and gave half the nations Wizards Towers for all terrains and there was not any difference in the number of castles built between the two groups over two or three long games.

[Edratman]

OOPS. I'm sorry that I pushed this a little off topic.

What I mean is that Hinnom's strength is its national troops, and as an AI opponent if they do not build additional castles the national troop build is too restricted. Too much gold is spent on indies, even using BI opponents, and the computer choices for national troop builds are not always optimal. That is why as an AI opponent they do not always perform as well as when played by a person. Not enough prime national troops and commanders.

It is also the reason I limited national troop selections and removed capitol only restrictions in the Improved Computer Opponent mods. These mods are optimal if the AI nation gets some favorable "build castle" dice rolls or finds free castle sites. Otherwise they are merely slightly enhanced versions of themselves.

I wonder if JK could correlate AI castle build probabilities to degree of difficulty? That would help AI nations, if it doesn't bankrupt them. (OOPS, another OT nudge.)

[Lingchih]

Why has this discussion pushed into Hinnom SP? The topic was Hinnom MP, where they are unstoppable with a good player at the helm.

[Bwaha]

Shush, I'm playing Hinnom MP. Don't give them any ideas....:D

[Gandalf Parker]

Why has this discussion pushed into Hinnom SP? The topic was Hinnom MP, where they are unstoppable with a good player at the helm.
It happened when the discussion went to possible fixes.
A reminder that MP is only a part of the game so a fix needs to involve more fixing the MP part if it breaks others.

[archaeolept]

how could more balancing hinnom for MP possibly break SP? I don't even understand that.

[HoneyBadger]

What Gandalf means, I think, is that there's an MP element to the game, and a (badly neglected) SP element, and they don't work the same way at all. I personally think we need atleast 1 version of each Nation for SP, and atleast 1 version of each Nation for MP. Probably more than one.

[JimMorrison]

Also, if on harder difficulties many people are already seeing Hinnom fumbling around in SP, then "tuning" them with even subtle nerfs intended for MP, may just compound that problem. Of course, I'm having trouble figuring out what might be different about them, that the AI underperforms even against itself. (I'd like to note, many of my recent test games, Hinnom or Ashdod take off like crazy.) I'd be willing to bet it has to do with the AI's propensity for cheap indie troops though, as Hinnom's strength is based off of their incredible national troops (and if they lag in castles, that will have the obvious effect on that).

[Sombre]

No I played with Hinnom on a No Indies map and they still got tooled by the other AIs.

I think the best AI nation barring UW or LA Ermor is EA Ulm. It seems to do well every time.

In terms of balancing, you can't worry too much about SP and the AI, because the AI doesn't use the nations as they are supposed to be used anyway. Despite them having awesome PD and a strong starting force, the sort of things the AI can use well, they still don't do great. I don't really understand why though.

[Edratman]

No I played with Hinnom on a No Indies map and they still got tooled by the other AIs.

I think the best AI nation barring UW or LA Ermor is EA Ulm. It seems to do well every time.

In terms of balancing, you can't worry too much about SP and the AI, because the AI doesn't use the nations as they are supposed to be used anyway. Despite them having awesome PD and a strong starting force, the sort of things the AI can use well, they still don't do great. I don't really understand why though.

Based on limited observation, the AI Hinnom perfers to recruit the first 4 troops on the recruit screen. I theorize it is because these unit require lower gold/resources and it allows a larger quantity of unit recuits each turn.

You just never see AI Hinnom use chariots, for example. And you never see AI Caelum massing Mammoths for the same computer logic.

And EA ULM does well because the gold/resource costs of all its troops are approximately the same (slightly higher for best unit), so they do not have a precipitious drop off in unit quality when the computer chooses quantity over quality.

Using the Improved Computer Opponents mod you will see Caelum armies with 20 Mammoths, only because of restricted choice. Based on this thread, I'll add Hinnom and post it tonight.

[vfb]

Wow, I think you are onto something! Your explanation fits well with the massive armies of Marverni Horn Blowers the AI loves to parade around.

[Epaminondas]

Based on limited observation, the AI Hinnom perfers to recruit the first 4 troops on the recruit screen. I theorize it is because these unit require lower gold/resources and it allows a larger quantity of unit recuits each turn.

You just never see AI Hinnom use chariots, for example. And you never see AI Caelum massing Mammoths for the same computer logic.


I think you've nailed the problem on its head.

[Edratman]

Thank you both.

For additional confirmation try the existing EA or MA Improved Computer Opponents mods.

I've run some quick tests with Hinnom and determined balancing the changes will take some time. I had a similar problem with EA Argatha. In nations where the top end recruitables are vastly stronger than the rest I've found getting a balanced boost is more difficult.

[Gandalf Parker]

Ive seen many suggestions for MP which would break AI or break the enjoyment of playing a nation in solo games. Ive also seen suggestions for AI or SP which would break MP etc etc.

I dont think that SP has been ignored by the Devs. In fact I think that many of the recent additions to the game are pro-SP and possibly damaging to MP. But the impression of nelect towards SP does exist in the forums. Thats understandable though. The MPers need to hang around more to get games, and need to create logins. The statistics on sales and on forum use (anonymous readers tend to outnumber registered by 200% in the forum at any time) it appears that there are many many SPers who just come for quick answers

[HoneyBadger]

That may be the case, Gandalf, but I don't think the game was ever built with SP in mind-and without a more powerful AI, it's hard to shoehorn in strong solutions, although I'm confident the Devs *do* try, they've been very attentive to our needs and desires, within the constraints of their limited time.

[Tifone]

I always found SP very entertaining. Now that I'm playing even MP I find it of course much more interesting, with diplomacy and everything - yet I'm always gonna play SP too and every improvement in this, is welcome :)

[Sombre]

SP is a far easier experience to tailor via mods than MP because you don't have to get permission from other people or wait for them to test and agree/disagree with changes.

Hence I am generally of the opinion changes should be made with MP far more in mind. Besides which, most nerfs of Hinnom would also be good for single player. Try playing as them in SP - it's ridiculously easy to school the AIs even with extremely heavy handicaps like staling for 10 turns at the start. The AI just doesn't have any answer for the all around elite game Hinnom brings.

[Omnirizon]

I'm not so sure I understand the logic behind saying that fixing a nation in MP is going to break it in SP...

Tolerating a broken nation so that it works with a broken AI is what is not a solution at all. Fixing a nation for MP should have precedence over making a nation work well with a dysfunctional AI.

Is the AI directly modifiable through modding? Is that what Erdratman does? Why isn't there more work on this front? Rather than trying to tolerate a grossly unbalanced nation if only because it works well with a broken AI?

[Sombre]

Is the AI directly modifiable through modding? Is that what Erdratman does? Why isn't there more work on this front? Rather than trying to tolerate a grossly unbalanced nation if only because it works well with a broken AI?

Nope. His mod removes 'bad' units from the nations recruitable selection and gives them more gold, resources etc to start with along with a larger starting army.

It makes them stronger not smarter.

[Edratman]

[QUOTE=Sombre;643142
Nope. His mod removes 'bad' units from the nations recruitable selection and gives them more gold, resources etc to start with along with a larger starting army.

It makes them stronger not smarter.[/QUOTE]

Exactly correct. Smarter is KO's and JK's baliwick.

A significent clue is that I do not use Improved AI in the title of the mods, rather it is termed Improved Computer Opponents.

By the way, EA Improved Computer Opponents including Hinnom is now posted in the Mods and Maps forum.

All the mod does is restrict recruitables to the best two to four units and the best three to five commanders. Also capital only restrictions have been removed and gold/resources have been boosted in what I think is a balanced manner. I did not mod the nations or units in any other way, with the exception of EA Oceania and R'lyeh.

I primarily play MA, not EA. Using the MA version of the mod I have seen MA Man armies of 35 knights, 20 wardens and 40 longbows in the first year as an example of the changes this mod effects.

For EA Oceania and EA R'lyeh I combined EA and MA units to give these nations some land capability. I found in my testing that when these nations started in a 4 or 5 province isolated sea, they were incapable of expanding to the land and becoming an opponent of consequence. :up:

[Gandalf Parker]

I seperate SP and AI. And Ive never said that fixing MP would break SP. I only said that it COULD break SP if it wasnt at least considered in the suggestion.

A fix for MP which might break SP would be deleting special nationals of flavor because they cause imbalance. A fix for MP which might break AI would be deleting certain spells which the AI uses well and players abuse. There are also many examples of fixes which would benefit SP or AIs which I would never suggest because it would definetly affect MP.

The easy fix for those who only consider the MP play would be to simply remove the offending items. Doing that with no concern for other methods of play would be fairly rude. The game might have been made with MP in mind (which Im not sure I agree with) but the numbers seem to support more non-MPers so it would be a good idea to at least consider the "environmental impact" of recommended fixes IMHO.

[Illuminated One]

But you could always keep the old version of Dom for SP if there are multiplayer related changes.
Dom3SP.exe -> old Dom for SP
Dom3.exe -> patched Dom for MP

[Gandalf Parker]

I always save previous versions (on my server so that everyone can catch up to the patch). But that would only work for one patch. Johan has already had the discussion about patching multiple exe's. He doesnt like the idea.

[llamabeast]

Obviously forking the code wouldn't be ideal though.

[Edratman]

An additional bonus when playing the Improved Computer Opponents mod is the computer global casting. This setup probably comes close to replicating MP global casting.

When I made these mods I gave the boosted nations significent additional gems: motivation was partly whimsy, partly intentional and partly out of "it was the easiest way to go".

Anyway, I'm deep into a MA game and the Improved Opponent modded AI nations are throwing up a global just about every turn. As a SP player, I never had to fight off globals like I do now. I'm using up all my pearls on Dispel so I can keep my favorite globals from being randomly displaced (what is the term for that?). And the computer seems to be adapting to this because I think it is putting more and more gems into protecting the globals. :eek::eek:

I do play on easy research. I got tired of never getting to the really cool spells by the end of a game.

[Epaminondas]

I think one of the main problems with AI Hinnom is that the AI cannot handle the pop eating issues. I've seen the AI get a few heroes or pop out a few Melqarts or Baal and literally exterminate the population.

So I suppose here's a perfect case where a nation that is effective in MP can't compete in SP as AI.

[Sombre]

Removing the pop eating should be easy enough, anyway.

[Epaminondas]

Removing the pop eating should be easy enough, anyway.

How so? Wouldn't you have to clear the entire unit stat and then re-input the whole thing minus the pop eating? Maybe it's not hard, but it's damn tedious :)

[Epaminondas]

By the way, do low-level and mid-level Hinnom summons eat population as well?

[llamabeast]

Removing the pop eating should be easy enough, anyway.

How so? Wouldn't you have to clear the entire unit stat and then re-input the whole thing minus the pop eating? Maybe it's not hard, but it's damn tedious :)

Yeah, I think that's how you'd have to do it, but there's not a huge number of pop-eating units, so it wouldn't take too long I think.

[Sombre]

It would take about an hour I think to get it all so its perfect. Sometimes you have to accept things take time though - modding requires patience.

[chrispedersen]

I played all the hinnom nations quite a bit.
Hinnom is strong but Sauromatia, lanka, Niefel, and possibly mictlan take it. Probably Arco does well as well. (Size 6 elephants trump size 5 chariots).

I don't consider the other two over balanced.

However, I can't vote in the poll, since you can't vote all no...

[Bwaha]

From the scroll, Quotes of Ethniu, "Hobbits are a tasty and low calorie snack". :D

[AreaOfEffect]

chrispedersen, Hinnom chariots are size 6. Not size 5.

[Trumanator]

I'm pretty sure that no EA nations have elephants. Why does noone remember this?

[AreaOfEffect]

Trumanator, your right. No nation has Elephants. However, Mammoths come really close.

[JimMorrison]

I'm pretty sure that no EA nations have elephants. Why does noone remember this?

Well, Caelum has Mammoths. >.>

[Epaminondas]

Do the Grigori also eat pop as well?

[Sombre]

The true Grigori doesn't. The silly fake ones do.

[Trumanator]

I'm pretty sure that no EA nations have elephants. Why does noone remember this?

Well, Caelum has Mammoths. >.>

Sorry, my bad. Are they any different stat-wise? I thought I noticed about 10 more HP, 1 less MR, and 2 more Morale. Is that bogus?

[Sombre]

Yeah they're better than elephants, bit more expensive.

[Bwaha]

Great for barbeque's as well. I'm Hungry. I've the privilege to play them in a current game. Don't mod them at all, Everyone is afraid of me, and thus I have to work in isolation. I expect to get wiped out rather quickly by a coalition of my neighbors. But till then I'll have great fun with food jokes.

[chrispedersen]

chrispedersen, Hinnom chariots are size 6. Not size 5.

Point still remains, that there are several nations more powerful than hinnom. I believe I was the first to broach that much of the fixing can be accomplished by reducing their starting forces.

Thematically, I find them hinnom somewhat insipid. I would like the population role enhanced a little further.

For example - I would like to see an increased likelihood that the gluttonous commanders would eat other commanders or units.
Depending on what was eaten, there would, perhaps be the chance that magic was gained.

Or experience. Or curses.

And that hinnom would have this occur whenever there was a shortage of food. Such as when spells were cast that ravaged population, or food.

This would make death scales more attractive against hinnom.

These are thematic considerations - I would be willing to even support small boosts were the thematic consideration done well.

For example - it would mean that either Hinnom could not mass its top researchers - for fear of cannibalish - or it would have to accept the steady attrition due to gluttony.

It means that every so often that hinnom commander is going to eat that priest you were just planning to build a temple with.

Chris

[HoneyBadger]

That's exactly what I would like to see happen. Mind you, Chrispederson, I'm not much support, since I haven't even played Hinnom, but from a purely logical perspective, it makes sense that cannibals would eat each other, on occasion-maybe only giants that get afflictions have a chance to be eaten?-and plus, they're not *truly* cannibals, unless they eat members of their own species, which means Hinnom giants eating Hinnom giants, not just humans.

[Lingchih]

I've been Hinnom, and you are no Hinnom Honeybadger. Oh, wait, sorry. I'm regressing into US political debates of the last 20 years. Sorry.

[MaxWilson]

I disagree on nerfing Ghost Riders - I think it should be able to take out most PD - it is a very high level spell that requires most nations to bootstrap to be able to cast and helps accelerate the end game.

How does Ghost Riders help accelerate the end game? The few times I've tried it, it didn't actually help me take any provinces even if I had a scout move into the province the same turn: the PD just regenerated and my scout had to fight it.

-Max

[HoneyBadger]

I am not an Ashdod! Ich bin ein Hinsnomer!

[MaxWilson]

That's exactly what I would like to see happen. Mind you, Chrispederson, I'm not much support, since I haven't even played Hinnom, but from a purely logical perspective, it makes sense that cannibals would eat each other, on occasion-maybe only giants that get afflictions have a chance to be eaten?-and plus, they're not *truly* cannibals, unless they eat members of their own species, which means Hinnom giants eating Hinnom giants, not just humans.

But they do. Baals will eat Melqarts, Melqarts will eat Rephaites, etc.

-Max

[HoneyBadger]

If they do, that's great. Like I said, I am utterly in the dark about what Hinnom does or does not do.

[chrispedersen]

I know they do Max - but hell it was like 7 games before I even saw it happen. Ergo, not a serious theme. Make them down right blood thirsty - creepy.

Would be cool if sometimes a giant that ate a giant could get a seond shape (the eaten giant).

Would be cool if sometimes.. if somone ate the prophet - he might become the prophet.

Perhaps they should all be damned...(cursed)

[vfb]

How does Ghost Riders help accelerate the end game? The few times I've tried it, it didn't actually help me take any provinces even if I had a scout move into the province the same turn: the PD just regenerated and my scout had to fight it.

-Max

Ghost Riders turn the province into an empty independent every time they win, as far as I've seen. PD and any temples are wiped out. Are your Ghost Riders actually winning the battle?

[HoneyBadger]

Chrispedersen: How about a Hinnom-specific "frequent cannibal" heroic trait?

[Edratman]

Just wondering if anyone has used Hinnom as an AI opponent using the EA Improved Computer Opponents mod?

[MaxWilson]

How does Ghost Riders help accelerate the end game? The few times I've tried it, it didn't actually help me take any provinces even if I had a scout move into the province the same turn: the PD just regenerated and my scout had to fight it.

-Max

Ghost Riders turn the province into an empty independent every time they win, as far as I've seen. PD and any temples are wiped out. Are your Ghost Riders actually winning the battle?

Yep. They win the battle, but it apparently only turns into an empty indy province when there's no PD at all there (only units). I tried it four or five times and then gave up in disgust.

-Max

[thejeff]

PD should not regenerate after losing to ghost Riders.

In SP, the AI spends so much time moving troops around internally he's likely to move troops in that turn to fight your scout, who may or may not get there first.

I've definitely seen it work in MP. My PD never regenerated

[archaeolept]

Max, i'm not sure what you're saying, or doing, but if you GR a province, and kill the pd, even a scout can take it.

[Gandalf Parker]

Even better is Eater of the Dead. I love following EoD around with a stealth army taking the empty provinces it leaves behind it.

[MaxWilson]

It sounds like I'd better try Ghost Riders again. Maybe it was a fluke, or the AI was moving units in that happened to look like PD. I'll report back to the bug thread if I can't get it to work at all.

Agreed that the GR Wraith Lord commander is quite nifty for wiping out PD, which makes GR potentially great for cutting off escape routes and destroying routed armies.

-Max

[Omnirizon]

at almost 4000 views, this thread has moved to be among the most viewed dominions threads.

therefore I deem that this thread is now about trains.

http://www.trainweb.org/carl/halx2003/S_574Pushers.jpg

http://www.trainweb.org/carl/halx2003/S_648CalTrains.jpg

[Lingchih]

Multiple ghost riders castings, followed up by a scout invading or coming out of hiding and attacking, is a common and well-used tactic.

And I like trains too, Omni.

[Tifone]

Hinnom likes the trains too. Expecially the filling.

[vfb]

Now that I've finally played a bit against Hinnom in MP (just a 1-on-1 in Silent Seas), I see what's broken about the poll. I don't think any of the new races need to be banned, but I can't vote for that.

Admittedly I'm playing with CB on, so my units (Marverni, mostly berserkers) are cheaper. And I got lucky with some early risks I took. But it's a pretty good fight, and does not feel unfair. I may even have the upper hand at the moment.

[Deadnature]

no more Hinom chariots is what I say...I mean, how do you stop those guys? They are too well armored for archers. Spells work fine but only if you can get your mages to target them. If the Hinom player holds his Chariots in reserve then you basically have to rely on your troops to take them out, which would be fine if said troops weren't already occupied with recruit-anywhere Dawn Guards!

Sorry, just my rant, you can guess what happened to me in a recent mp game.

[vfb]

Hinnom was invading me with a 30/30 army of chariots and warriors iirc, and I guessed where he'd strike. I bought 30 PD and marched in about 250 Marverni warriors, mostly bare-chested carnutes. The PD javelins did some damage, then the PD all got trampled. The carnutes moved in and cleaned up. Hinnom lost the entire force and I lost around 60 warriors I think.

That was before I'd researched Gifts from Heaven ... a small communion with three masters casting eagle eyes/summon earthpower/PoTS works really well.

[HoneyBadger]

250 warriors and 30 PD seems somehow a bit extreme vs 30 chariots and 30 warriors, even if you do get the 30 PD back. How do the two forces (roughly) match up, in terms of gold/resources spent?

[vfb]

It's 30 PD on the front lines. Never hurts.

The cost to compare is 60 canutes versus 30 chariots/30 warriors, because the rest of the Marverni troops are still alive:

Marverni:
60 @ 13 gold = 780 gold (if you want to include 30PD @ 465 gold: 1245 gold)

Hinnom:
30 @ 75 gold + 30 @ 30 gold = 3150 gold

Resources for Marverni are negligible considering I'm building 6-resource units with prod-2 scales, out of several cheap forts. Like I said before, I'm not sure it it was exactly 30, it may have been as low as 20 chariots/40 warriors for 2700 gold. But Marverni still comes out on top.

[Bwaha]

I've been playing Hinnom and I think I have a solution. If you have a pd that is 20 or above you get a Kohen. He should eat pop as pd. Thats right. Have the pd eat pop. This should go a long way to reduce their might. Just a sugestion. Thanks for your time.:D

[HoneyBadger]

Good enough for government work, vfb, but still, from what I gather, PD is Hinnom's biggest problem.

[thejeff]

Comparing only the cost of the lost troops isn't really meaningful, because it doesn't scale.
Overwhelming force often results in a victory with few losses. If Mictlan takes 50 barbarians with 20 jaguar warriors, only losing 2, that doesn't mean that 2 jaguar warriors = 50 barbarians.

You had critical mass against him and won with few losses, but a small change in either side could lead to a completely different outcome.

[vfb]

Thanks! I didn't look at it that way. I see what you mean.

The new math is:

Marverni:
250 @ 13 gold = 3750 gold (if you want to include 30PD @ 465 gold: 4215 gold)

Hinnom:
30 @ 75 gold + 30 @ 30 gold = 3150 gold

But Marverni still crushed Hinnom later with Gifts from Heaven and teleporting Druids spawning Earth Elementals. :)

[Zeldor]

Marverni alive so long? It must be some really bad play from its neighbours. And where are Hinnom mages? His research must be far superior to Marvernis at that point. Surprise kill of one obsolete army with mages means nothing.

[vfb]

It doesn't take all that long to get to Thau 1/Alt 1/Evo 5. Especially if you start next to some farmland and build a lot of druids and have decent scales. I used:

Wyrm (Body 269, 160 hits)
No magic
Dominion 10
Scales: Order 3 Productivity 2 Cold 3 Growth 1 Misfortune 2 Magic 1
Awake

The Wrym allows rapid expansion from turn 1, and also will block chariots while you're waiting for Conj 5 for elementals.

Sure, Marverni needs to build a fort+lab+temple to recruit more druids, but all forts are 800, 3 turns and temples are only 200.

[DonCorazon]

I need to do some more research but from what I can tell so far, I'd say that relative to other nations in their era, Ashdod completely dominates MA nations and is more unbalanced relative to the landscape than Hinnom.

Ashdod's Anakites are berserking, sacred, FR75, with 50HP, high MR (15) high protection (14), decent combat stats for giants (att 12/ Def 15) and not outrageously expensive at 125 gold (Vans cost 90 gold by comparison), especially given the nation has Heat +2 preference meaning most build will be Heat +3 for an extra 120 points. Since they have innate berserking, no need to go N9 but you can settle for a cheaper N bless for solid regeneration. With the typical E9 bless these guys are monstrous to stop.

They will tear through almost anything the MA nations can throw at them. Hydras will drop like flies. Woodsmen have lower MR, lower combat stats, not naturally berserking, lower protection, etc.

Ashdod: Strong PD - national summons...

[hunt11]

How are you using Ashod. Ashod works well with a E10N6 bless, but the central focus is really the Adon's and there SC abilities (with access to strong unique summons, death summons, and wish) and not the Anakites. But I do agree that Ashod is a nation that should be looked at now that Hinnom has been nerfed.

[DonCorazon]

I am not playing them (actually I am fighting them), or trying to discuss strategy, just making the point that I think Ashdod is far out of balance with other MA nations.

[lch]

You did not select an option to vote for. Please press back to return to the poll and choose an option before voting.
Poll fail

[hunt11]

I am not playing them (actually I am fighting them), or trying to discuss strategy, just making the point that I think Ashdod is far out of balance with other MA nations.

Sorry about that :doh:. I agree that Ashod should be balanced, luckily that will be next on the agenda now that Hinnom has been nerfed.

[MaxWilson]

Agree on that E10N6 for Ashdod. (E10 is rarely useful but in Ashdod's case it's the difference between Enc 1 and Enc 0 for most of their troops.) That bless is perfect for Adonim and Ahimans early on (and She****es, which I haven't played much with), goes well with Zamzummim thugs in the midgame, and is really nice gravy on Malik + Ditanu as well as Chayot + Ophanim later on (esp. for rejuv, e.g. it makes the regular old non-commander Ophanim accumulate no fatigue even if they trample 4 squares per turn, except in cold/swamps). Ashdod is still not as strong as Niefel early on, and recruitable Niefel Jarls are better SCs than recruitable Adonim... but Ashdod is terribly well-rounded.

A gcost increase for Zamzummim would not be out of line, to make them have awful research (like Helheim) to compensate for awesome units. PD is not as strong as Hinnom but is pretty decent, and nerfing PD would not mess up the nation thematically. (E.g. you could have human slaves + Edomites for PD instead of Edomites + Gileadites.)

-Max

[DonCorazon]

Max, Just to be clear, I am not trying to compare Ashdod to Niefelheim or debate strategy. I am trying to address the thread topic/survey on how these nations impact MP games.

I think the difference in power between Ashdod and other nations in MA is fairly extreme. Not necessarily saying they should be banned, or even nerfed, but it seems most of the focus has been on Hinnom. I think that Ashdod is actually currently more unbalanced relative to its peers.

[Alderanas]

Shouldnt they be a powerful scary nation. I mean after-all they are cannibalistic giants who fallen angels taught how to fight. You should also add the option to keep them in mp.

[MaxWilson]

Ashdod is not cannibalistic, in case you were talking about them and not Hinnom. I thought I was agreeing with you, DonCorazon--saying that a nation is "less powerful than Niefelheim early on" is sort of like saying that a guy is "a little weaker than Mr. T." Not exactly a charge of weakness, y'know? The point is that Ashdod just gets better with time.

Ashdod is by far the strongest nation I've seen, all things considered. Or maybe they just suit my playstyle the best, I dunno. (Marverni and LA Agartha are also great.)

-Max

[AreaOfEffect]

I'm playing against a double bless Ashdod in a MA game currently. I'm playing a double bless Mictlan. Knowing how cheap my sacreds are, I would say that, dollar for dollar, the Ashdod sacreds win almost 3 dollars to my 1 in a straight up fight. This includes the use of jade amazon riders. I'm serious, nearly hundreds to his dozens. I'm actually glad I didn't take a full fire bless as that might work more in Ashdod's favor, considering their natural fire resistance. Luckily for me, I would never fight a straight up fight against them.

Their access to death magic has been painfully synergistic. Their skelly spam is better then any other nations due to their unique undead. I think their access to forgers and earth magic also synergies too well with their access to national thugs.

As for player skill, the original player knew what he was doing. It is now controlled by a new player. That said, he has still managed to fend off three nations and eat another one alive. It is a bit ridiculous, but I suspect the gap in player skill might allow the others and I victory. Against an experienced player, I would say we have no chance to survive.

[JimMorrison]

As for player skill, the original player knew what he was doing. It is now controlled by a new player. That said, he has still managed to fend off three nations and eat another one alive. It is a bit ridiculous, but I suspect the gap in player skill might allow the others and I victory. Against an experienced player, I would say we have no chance to survive.

Calahan was really a great player, and a great guy. Hope he's doing as well with whatever RL threw at him, as he was doing here with Ashdod.

PS - I think they're a bit over the top myself. I guess I should run a good test game so I can comment in actual detail.....

[MaxWilson]

Their access to death magic has been painfully synergistic. Their skelly spam is better then any other nations due to their unique undead. I think their access to forgers and earth magic also synergies too well with their access to national thugs.


15% Forge Bonus on Talmai Elders + Dwarven Hammers + 3 misc slot sacred giants w/ magic = really nice thugs.

-Max

[vfb]

This works to a lesser extent with Gath too. A Forge Lord with an E9F4 gives a nice enough bless to the super-cheap recruit-anywhere zealots, and pretty good scales.

He makes extremely cheap hammers for himself and the rest of the Gath mages to build items for the 3-misc-slot Gadols, and inexpensive Serens. Get a nice heroic ability, and you're in SC land.

[MaxWilson]

Their access to death magic has been painfully synergistic. Their skelly spam is better then any other nations due to their unique undead.

Thinking about this more... is Ashdod spam actually better? Typically it seems that you get either 5 regular skellies or 1 giant skelly (or maybe 1 giant and 1 normal). I don't think 10 giant skellies are actually better than 50 regular skellies except maybe against heavily-armored troops. (Troop density is worse and you have less overall attacking power.)

-Max

[JimMorrison]

From everything that I've seen, there is no reduction in quantity. Nation specific undead are simply added to the "spawn list". This is most clear with Lanka priests Reanimating, as they can get large numbers of Soulless Bandar, which are quite nice.

(EDIT - Just rewatched a current Ashdod fight, with a single skelly spammer. First cast, 5 Longdead. Second cast, 4 Longdead + 1 Longdead Rephaite.)

[vfb]

Same here Jim. I've never seen less undead reanimate either in battle or overland, just because some of the undead is special (giant or otherwise).

[HoneyBadger]

Considering this thread, and that their already are units marked as 'Demon' and 'Undead', I wonder if the Devs have considered making an 'Angel' tag? That would allow special forged items, and special abilities/spells to affect angelic units, such as Hinnom gets, reducing-atleast somewhat-their late game power, without having to remove their (frankly, very cool) summons.

This could even be extended to the Nephils and other half-angels, as well as the much overused Seraphs, ashen angels, etc.

[MaxWilson]

You're probably right, then, Jim.

-Max