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.