Re: HINNOM EATS EVERYTHING
 

KO,

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

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

Re: HINNOM EATS EVERYTHING
 

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

Re: HINNOM EATS EVERYTHING
 

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

Re: HINNOM EATS EVERYTHING
 

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

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

Re: HINNOM EATS EVERYTHING
 

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

Re: HINNOM EATS EVERYTHING
 

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

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

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

A. General Comments:

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

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

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

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

B. Pretender Design

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

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

B2. Scales

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

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

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

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

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

C. Early game strategy

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

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

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

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

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

Re: HINNOM EATS EVERYTHING
 

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

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

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

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

Re: HINNOM EATS EVERYTHING
 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Magic - player call.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Voila.

Re: HINNOM EATS EVERYTHING
 

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

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

-Max

Re: HINNOM EATS EVERYTHING
 

Chrispederson,

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

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

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

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

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

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

Re: HINNOM EATS EVERYTHING
 

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

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

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

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

Re: HINNOM EATS EVERYTHING
 

chrispederson,

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

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

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

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

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

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

Anyway, happy gaming!

Re: HINNOM EATS EVERYTHING
 

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

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

Re: HINNOM EATS EVERYTHING
 

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

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

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

Re: HINNOM EATS EVERYTHING
 

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

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

Re: HINNOM EATS EVERYTHING
 

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

Re: HINNOM EATS EVERYTHING
 

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

Re: HINNOM EATS EVERYTHING
 

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

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

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

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

Re: HINNOM EATS EVERYTHING
 

thejeff,

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

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

Re: HINNOM EATS EVERYTHING
 

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

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

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

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

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

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

Re: HINNOM EATS EVERYTHING
 

thejeff,

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

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

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

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

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

Re: HINNOM EATS EVERYTHING
 

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

Re: HINNOM EATS EVERYTHING
 

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

Re: HINNOM EATS EVERYTHING
 

That was me = )

Re: HINNOM EATS EVERYTHING
 

Thanks for the guide, Baalz!

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

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

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

Re: HINNOM EATS EVERYTHING
 

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

Re: HINNOM EATS EVERYTHING
 

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

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

Re: HINNOM EATS EVERYTHING
 

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

-Max

Re: HINNOM EATS EVERYTHING
 

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

Re: HINNOM EATS EVERYTHING
 

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

Re: HINNOM EATS EVERYTHING
 

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

-Max

Re: HINNOM EATS EVERYTHING
 

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

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

Re: HINNOM EATS EVERYTHING
 

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

Re: HINNOM EATS EVERYTHING
 

Baalz,

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

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

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

Re: HINNOM EATS EVERYTHING
 

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

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

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

Re: HINNOM EATS EVERYTHING
 

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

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

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

Re: HINNOM EATS EVERYTHING
 

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

Re: HINNOM EATS EVERYTHING
 

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

-Max

Re: HINNOM EATS EVERYTHING
 

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

Re: HINNOM EATS EVERYTHING
 

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

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

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

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

Re: HINNOM EATS EVERYTHING
 

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

-Max

Re: HINNOM EATS EVERYTHING
 

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

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

Re: HINNOM EATS EVERYTHING
 

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

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

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

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

Re: HINNOM EATS EVERYTHING
 

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

Re: HINNOM EATS EVERYTHING
 

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

Re: HINNOM EATS EVERYTHING
 

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

Re: HINNOM EATS EVERYTHING
 

JimMorrison,

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

Baalz,

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

Re: HINNOM EATS EVERYTHING
 

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

Re: HINNOM EATS EVERYTHING
 

Konming,

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

Re: HINNOM EATS EVERYTHING
 

Gentlemen,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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