Re: No more MP for Hinnom?
 

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.

Re: No more MP for Hinnom?
 

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

Re: No more MP for Hinnom?
 

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.

Re: No more MP for Hinnom?
 

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.)

Re: No more MP for Hinnom?
 

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

Re: No more MP for Hinnom?
 

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

Re: No more MP for Hinnom?
 

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.

Re: No more MP for Hinnom?
 

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

Re: No more MP for Hinnom?
 

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.

Re: No more MP for Hinnom?
 

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).

Re: No more MP for Hinnom?
 

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.

Re: No more MP for Hinnom?
 

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.

Re: No more MP for Hinnom?
 

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.

Re: No more MP for Hinnom?
 

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

Re: No more MP for Hinnom?
 

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.

Re: No more MP for Hinnom?
 

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

Re: No more MP for Hinnom?
 

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.

Re: No more MP for Hinnom?
 

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 :)

Re: No more MP for Hinnom?
 

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.

Re: No more MP for Hinnom?
 

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?

Re: No more MP for Hinnom?
 

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.

Re: No more MP for Hinnom?
 

[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:

Re: No more MP for Hinnom?
 

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.

Re: No more MP for Hinnom?
 

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

Re: No more MP for Hinnom?
 

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.

Re: No more MP for Hinnom?
 

Obviously forking the code wouldn't be ideal though.

Re: No more MP for Hinnom?
 

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.

Re: No more MP for Hinnom?
 

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.

Re: No more MP for Hinnom?
 

Removing the pop eating should be easy enough, anyway.

Re: No more MP for Hinnom?
 

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 :)

Re: No more MP for Hinnom?
 

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

Re: No more MP for Hinnom?
 

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.

Re: No more MP for Hinnom?
 

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.

Re: No more MP for Hinnom?
 

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...

Re: No more MP for Hinnom?
 

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

Re: No more MP for Hinnom?
 

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

Re: No more MP for Hinnom?
 

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

Re: No more MP for Hinnom?
 

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

Re: No more MP for Hinnom?
 

Well, Caelum has Mammoths. >.>

Re: No more MP for Hinnom?
 

Do the Grigori also eat pop as well?

Re: No more MP for Hinnom?
 

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

Re: No more MP for Hinnom?
 

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?

Re: No more MP for Hinnom?
 

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

Re: No more MP for Hinnom?
 

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.

Re: No more MP for Hinnom?
 

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

Re: No more MP for Hinnom?
 

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.

Re: No more MP for Hinnom?
 

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.

Re: No more MP for Hinnom?
 

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

Re: No more MP for Hinnom?
 

I am not an Ashdod! Ich bin ein Hinsnomer!

Re: No more MP for Hinnom?
 

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

-Max