Re: HINNOM EATS EVERYTHING
 

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

Re: HINNOM EATS EVERYTHING
 

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

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

Re: HINNOM EATS EVERYTHING
 

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

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

Re: HINNOM EATS EVERYTHING
 

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

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

Re: HINNOM EATS EVERYTHING
 

That, and being ganged up on.My thought was "a score of armored tramplers, what could possibly go wrong?"

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

Re: HINNOM EATS EVERYTHING
 

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

Re: HINNOM EATS EVERYTHING
 

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

Re: HINNOM EATS EVERYTHING
 

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

Re: HINNOM EATS EVERYTHING
 

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

Re: HINNOM EATS EVERYTHING
 

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

Re: HINNOM EATS EVERYTHING
 

Plus Baalz can eat Mels.

Re: HINNOM EATS EVERYTHING
 

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

1. Lanks often defend.

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

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

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

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

3. Lankas are Lethal.

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

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

Still, you have better units against lanka.

Re: HINNOM EATS EVERYTHING
 

The douse and sacrifice bonus are both 3.

Re: HINNOM EATS EVERYTHING
 

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

Re: HINNOM EATS EVERYTHING
 

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

Re: HINNOM EATS EVERYTHING
 

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

Re: HINNOM EATS EVERYTHING
 

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

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

Re: HINNOM EATS EVERYTHING
 

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

Re: HINNOM EATS EVERYTHING
 

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

Re: HINNOM EATS EVERYTHING
 

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

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

Re: HINNOM EATS EVERYTHING
 

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

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

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

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

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

Re: HINNOM EATS EVERYTHING
 

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

-Max

Re: HINNOM EATS EVERYTHING
 

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

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

Re: HINNOM EATS EVERYTHING
 

Scratches head.

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

Re: HINNOM EATS EVERYTHING
 

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

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

Re: HINNOM EATS EVERYTHING
 

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

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

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

Re: HINNOM EATS EVERYTHING
 

Good thread with nice input.

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

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

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

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

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

Re: HINNOM EATS EVERYTHING
 

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

I don't think Ashdod is more powerful.

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

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

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

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

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

Re: HINNOM EATS EVERYTHING
 

calmon:

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

Re: HINNOM EATS EVERYTHING
 

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

Re: HINNOM EATS EVERYTHING
 

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

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

Sure, I'll put it on my list.

Re: HINNOM EATS EVERYTHING
 

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

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

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

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

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

Re: HINNOM EATS EVERYTHING
 

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

Re: HINNOM EATS EVERYTHING
 

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

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

Re: HINNOM EATS EVERYTHING
 

KO,

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

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

Re: HINNOM EATS EVERYTHING
 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Re: HINNOM EATS EVERYTHING
 

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

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

Re: HINNOM EATS EVERYTHING
 

Baalz,

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

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

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

Re: HINNOM EATS EVERYTHING
 

Baalz,

BTW, look forward to reading your Ashdod guide.

Re: HINNOM EATS EVERYTHING
 

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

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

Re: HINNOM EATS EVERYTHING
 

triqul,

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

Re: HINNOM EATS EVERYTHING
 

Ming

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

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

Re: HINNOM EATS EVERYTHING
 

triqui,

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

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

Re: HINNOM EATS EVERYTHING
 

triqui,

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

Re: HINNOM EATS EVERYTHING
 

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

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

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

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

Re: HINNOM EATS EVERYTHING
 

KO,

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

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

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

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

Re: HINNOM EATS EVERYTHING
 

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

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

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

Re: HINNOM EATS EVERYTHING
 

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

Re: HINNOM EATS EVERYTHING
 

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

Re: HINNOM EATS EVERYTHING
 

Baalz,

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

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

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