The New Hinnom Nation
 

Wow, anyone else tried this nation out yet? Those Melqarts are crazy! Playing in SP with them to see how they work - with an e9 n9 bless on a sleeping pretender - if you take scales to counter the high resource cost (125!) on those melqart commanders, you have a veritable mini SC without equipment right off the bat..unequipped they can solo large provinces - they can self bless themselves and take everything on...having Fear+0 doesn't hurt either

with construction two items, with a melqart that got e2 with his paths, i have a 69 hp, 29 protection, 19 MR, 24 str, 15 attk, 18 defense size 6 supercombatant with Trample (Via boots), fear +0, and thats WITHOUT bless, or a custom sword/shield..

there is no stopping these things that early in the game..surely? Even an SC god might go down to these...

Re: The New Hinnom Nation
 

Melqarts look pretty good, but then there are a lot of nations that can solo indies with an E9N9 bless. Yomi, Niefelheim, come to mind. Lanka doesn't solo them with commanders but Palankashas have the same effect (and are a lot cheaper). Frankly, it's hard to beat Niefel Jarls for naked soloing power (the huge chill aura is the key here), and the Dai Yomi is a much better endgame battlemage than the Melqart. Not to be putting down the Melqart--the extra horn attack helps--but let's keep things in proportion here. I.e. let's try not to get Hinnom/Ashdod nerfed unnecessarily.

Did you notice the Qedestim? "Although ordained as priests, their main function is another." Nice and subtle, there.

-Max

P.S. What's the encumbrance on your super-Melqart thug that tramples?

Re: The New Hinnom Nation
 

Yes, they are very good. But, they eat your population. Nuff said?

Re: The New Hinnom Nation
 

ya...im having to pump those e2 mages out to counter supply problems but i took growth to counter that as ewll.

Re: The New Hinnom Nation
 

but that could be a good thing as well, make one massive sacred army composing of 100 holy troops, your prophet (a Melqart) and a couple mages. With this army you could destroy armies and SC with ease, and and country they take will be impossible for people to use because most of the people would be in one of your giants bellies

Re: The New Hinnom Nation
 

they eat population?

Re: The New Hinnom Nation
 

any time you have more then 3 of them in a province, your population will decline, even in a growth 3 province

Re: The New Hinnom Nation
 

Yup.

I even got an event where a Melqart ate one of my Raephalites (your 125 gold Holy troops.) I thought dragons were bad when they ate blood slaves. Sheesh!

Re: The New Hinnom Nation
 

not seen that yet, did you take unlucky?

Re: The New Hinnom Nation
 

Yup. They eat pop. Somebody else noted that it seemed to be about 30/turn. All the Hinnom Rephaim -- the units and commanders -- do. Might want to put points instead into Growth and Order, at least if it's not a small blitz map.

Their appetites are more mild in Ashdod -- slightly more than their size suggests, but not pop-slaughtering, it seems.

Re: The New Hinnom Nation
 

i hadn't even noticed it with growth 1 on

Re: The New Hinnom Nation
 

Yeh. They have fortune tellers and province defense that can withstand barbarians, so it seemed like a no brainer.

Re: The New Hinnom Nation
 

Then you'll miss their best events http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: The New Hinnom Nation
 

They do eat population and is it on the same level as LA Ermor destroys population?

I have already seen it mentioned 30 pop/turn for a single one and up to 500 pop/turn if you have a crowd.

Fairly big drawback in a big game. Does growth cancel it out or not?

Re: The New Hinnom Nation
 

does anybody know any good area of affect magic weapons that they can forge

Re: The New Hinnom Nation
 

If they can get some Death boosters and combine them with Earth boosters, then they can make Shadow Brands.

Re: The New Hinnom Nation
 

I have no MP experience.. but this nation looks too strong to me. And I actually think bless is just an incidental with this nation. A ridiculously nice incidental, but still suboptimal.

I'm starting an MP with this race, so I don't want to give away too many details. But from the way I look at things, the strongest unit is actually the size 6 tramplers at 75 gold.

Max out gold and production and you can make an army a turn that can take almost any indy.

Re: The New Hinnom Nation
 

I also noticed how the Qedesim have 2 less morale than the Qedesot.
I wasn't sure why at first, then I realized I would probably have low morale as well if I were in their place >.>

(Oh, and I'm pretty sure Qedestim in the description is a mistake and it should be Qedesim. Makes more sense in Hebrew at least.)

Re: The New Hinnom Nation
 

Description says that they eat population if they have no supplies to consume. Is it true?

Re: The New Hinnom Nation
 

IMO the nation is excellent, devouring population just forces it to be on the offensive all the time, and rely on thugs + chariots + indies more than the sacreds troops. But it's not a problem considering the quality of these ones. So the nation seem well suited for a medium bless good for thugs (like earth/astral 4 -or blood/nature allowing you reach high blood easily as it opens armor of twisting thorns-) and good scales (including growth 3).

Devouring pop consequences are the big thugs have to be sent to the front as soon as possible, and bloodhunting to be organized differently than with other nations, as all devour 20 pop (Kohen) or more, if you use 12 or so hunters on one province it would soon reduce populations under 6k. So for a good regular slave income you need to bloodhunt every province having sufficient pop with no more than one or two kohen with dousing rods, which mean you tax all your big provinces at about 70%, and you have more microgestion to do (carrying slaves to labs), but population reduction remain manageable with some growth.

Then, if Hinnom survive to endgame, I think it enters the totally unbalanced category, due to the monopoly on grigoris. Just think about it : since the nerf to tartarians, reliable unique SCs you can summon with blood (the only ressource you can gather in unlimited quantities, proportionnal to your number of commanders) become the most interesting, and no one is summonable by other nations without the risk of losing its price (if someone already have it). Of course there are still wished seraphs or pretender chassis to compete against them in the reliable SC category, but even if you have pearls they are far to be as cost effective - a wish for slaves give you the ressources to summon 1,4 grigori (already commander, so you also economize 20n).

Having monopoly on grigoris basically mean Hinnom can lose the race to endgame magic and still have 6 risk free first choice SCs. Or can win the race to blood magic, deny the other nations the fire devils and demon lords, and then have unlimited time to summon grigoris in addition.

I think for MP interest no endgame really good category of unique SC summon should be one nation only. It would be cool if grigoris could be linked with 3 other nations at least (as a national spell can be shared by 4 nations) so their summoning wouldn't be risk free. I think some thematic justifications shouldn't be hard to add in some existing nations backgrounds, or rival rephaim tribes should be added as new nations in a next patch.

Re: The New Hinnom Nation
 

Twan you have some good points but their is one problem, who else would summon then. The grigori are Hinnom's forefather's so why would the grigori help anybody else

Re: The New Hinnom Nation
 

I'm pretty sure a spell can only be shared by 3 nations. Though it can have multiple copies.

Re: The New Hinnom Nation
 

I imagine for example, that Grigoris mortal spouses can have their own story. As the Rephaim society is patriarcal with 100% of male commanders, it may mean the rephaim first mothers, who learned too much secrets from the grigoris, have been banished by their sons and founded their own society, teaching it how to call their lovers. It may be an amazon society (linking Grigoris and Sauromatia -and cannibal witch kings may have some logical affinities with rephaims mothers-) or perhaps they had new sons, another giant race more respectful to women (=Fomoria).

(my examples are not good, as these two are not blood nations, they are just examples made in the minute)

ps : yes it's 3 in fact

Re: The New Hinnom Nation
 

The problem is not enough viable/powerful, magically diverse (ie...anything other than death/astral) SC chasis for the end game.

A new spell was added this patch which is very nice, manifest vitriol, so why not add a couple of new lvl 9 spells to add non-nation specific SC's.

The benefits of doing so are:-

An end to tartarians, tartarians and nothing but tartarians. No point in nerfing them if there are no viable alternatives!

You can then have nation only specific SC's like the Grigori with no end game balance issues.

Freshen up the end game considerably.

Help blance nations with no access or very weak access to death/astral.

Help balance nations with no national only spells or weak national only spells.

Currently, Death, Blood have plenty of summonable SC's/thugs so they are okay.

Astral has wish and other powerful end game spells, master enslave etc... so that is ok.

Earth has unique artifacts, all the magic items so leave earth alone.

This leaves Fire/Air/Nature/Water very weak in the SC department having no really outstanding SC summon, I know there are elemental kings/queens but they are unique and very limited in number. Sadly the tarrasque does not cut it either.

Re: The New Hinnom Nation
 

I completely agree with Twan. Nation specific endgame super-powerful summons may ruin the balance.
The only consolations is that Hinnom is rather bad at research and will face many problems on the way to Grigori.

Re: The New Hinnom Nation
 

Meglobob, +1

Re: The New Hinnom Nation
 

This is how I see the spell. The Rephiam are just paying for their grandparents to visit, it's just that their grandparents are very powerful demons, and they need to sacrifice virgins instead of paying for a ticket. Anyway the mothers of the Rephiam are nobody special, they were just normal female giants, and the fact is that the mothers would have stayed put after they gave birth anyway.

Re: The New Hinnom Nation
 

I agree with Meglobob too, Dom3 need more summoning chassis for end game.

Re: The New Hinnom Nation
 

I made a small test where Hinnom's sacreds with a moderate bless (E6N4, earth was for the mages but it's not really useful) ate everyone else. I ran them into T'ien Ch'i with a F9W9 bless and T'ien Ch'i couldn't do anything against them. Considering I don't know how to play Hinnom yet and managed to get some respectable results wiht EA TC in MP, I tend to believe the nation is overpowered. Their sacreds and chariots are very very powerful, and with Growth 3 it took some time for the population to dwindle. And even then, population didn't fall low enough to be a concern.
I'd like to point out that the Ammi can be built without a lab, which is a little advantage compared to the rest, but it's really silly to be able to build a lvl2 mage without a lab.

Re: The New Hinnom Nation
 

Yeah, it makes it really annoying to take on LA Ermor because each warrior takes 9 supply. I've pretty much given up on keeping them supplied in my current game. My guys have an N6 bless so I'm just using indy priests and a shield wall of blessed Ahiman Anakites who are starving and disease-ridden (but still have good morale anyway after blessing, and regenerate so they still heal during battles).

-Max

Re: The New Hinnom Nation
 

Most tramplers are very good for expansion. C'tis and Arco love their charioteers. Of course, the Avvite chariot has more hit points than a C'tissian chariot.

-Max

Re: The New Hinnom Nation
 

But hmm... aren't other charioteers size4, not6? That is huge difference in trampling...

Re: The New Hinnom Nation
 

Conceptually, I like the Tarrasque. I'd like to see it boosted. It's already a pretty serious combatant, but the lack of slots and magic means it doesn't make a good SC if you GoR it. It's a dragon, so what if it was made flying, and had N3E1 magic (when GoR'ed)?

-Max

Re: The New Hinnom Nation
 

Size 6 does let you trample twice as many units, and makes the trampling do a little bit more damage. That's the difference between C'tis/Arco's chariots and Caelum's/Kailasa's mammoths. I haven't noticed that chariots (or troglodytes) have any trouble at all walking all over indies, but it's possible that mammoths and Avvite chariots do better against national troops. I have limited experience with mammoths and none with MP so I'll decline to give an opinion there.

-Max

Re: The New Hinnom Nation
 

Troglodytes tend to die a lot because of their poor protection and relatively low hp.
Avvite chariots tend to trample T'ien Ch'i chariots very well, and when you compare the prices, Avvite chariots are a really good deal.
Avvite chariots also happen to have javelins. I know that it may look silly, but mass a lot of them and see how much damage these deal, just before trampling...
Last, contrary to other tramplers, Avvite chariots have 12 MR (twice as much as elephants). They are basically cheaper elephants with better morale, better MR, more weapons, less hit points but more protection (unless you compare them to LA Arco's armored elephants).
I think noone in their right mind would pay 3 elephants if they could get 4 Avvite chariots. Of course they are more expensive resource-wise (29 instead of 20) but you don't need to supplement them with higher morale troops, and you can really afford a production scale with Hinnom.

Re: The New Hinnom Nation
 

Grigori descriptions say the gods have jailed them, they are trapped in chains and magical bonds etc... so it isn't that mundane.

It leads me to another idea to balance grigoris : a global other nations may cast to strengthen their bonds and make them not summonable as long it isn't dispelled - or a more funny one : a global making the call grigori 177b spell call gregorius like a puny wish -.

(or if wasting a global slot for that is too much, a generic global blocking all national summons above level x, or all endgame blood summons, or all unique summons)

Re: The New Hinnom Nation
 

THe avvite charioteers might need a cost increase. There are two horses after all http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif .

I don't their AP atm, but I intended them to be slower than normal chariots. Might not be enough, but it would be silly to have them slower than a running man.

I didn't think too much when I gave them their cost. I was more concerned about the larger giants and commanders of the three nations. Small giants look puny and do not appear as a balance threat when you glance at the sprite http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Over all I'm quite aware that there might be a lot of different balance issues with this nation, since it plays quite different from most other nations. I haven't played it competitively, and changes might be needed. It will definitely be a strong nation in SP, since the AI is unfit for taking on SC's (and strong bless troopps).

I do not know how the pop devouring will work out in an MP game, so I would like some feedback when there is some.

Re: The New Hinnom Nation
 

Well I think the combination of some of the strongest healers in the game with some of the better SC out of the box, best trample out of the box, best end game SC, mages able to easily get high numbers in certain paths and some lab free mages should give a hint about how balance will be http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

Hinnom score:
A for flavor and effort
and something lower for balance

Re: The New Hinnom Nation
 

After playing them ofr a few days, I'd disagree with a few points.

I'd say that their mages are substandard. Getting high Blood is exactly the same as not getting a path when it comes to battle magic and non-summoning ritual magic, and the rest of their mages get a single 2 or 3 in other paths. This means they can't use any of the good multi-path spells.

They also have slow research because the numbers on the cost of your mages vs. the research use you get out of them means that often you will have turns where you either recruit troops or a mage. I think a lot of people will recruit indie mages for research just because it's so much more efficient.

While they have good troops, when you combine their large size(more units can attack them), their extreme cost in both resources and gold, and the fact that their blessable troops are capital-only, I'd say that overall the nation is less powerful than comparable nations like Lanka or Neifleheim.

Re: The New Hinnom Nation
 

Somewhat off the thread's topic, but I could never see the reasoning behind a chariot(size4) being able to trample a horse(size3)... but I don't have a chariot to try it.

Re: The New Hinnom Nation
 

I posted about this in another thread, but I had a bunch of the pop eating units sieging an enemy castle. They were eating about 500 people a turn, so when I finally took the castle, I only had a few old, skinny unappetizing peasants left.

Re: The New Hinnom Nation
 

Hinnom needs a lot more positive scales to work than many of the others. Production is practically required if you intend to use many of the troops at all. Growth is required or you will starve (and you likely will anyway). Order is required or you can't afford anything. Magic is good for research or you'll be recruiting indie mages right left and center to stay in the research game. Drain will kill you for lack of research.

Just try and put a bless strat on top of that...

Re: The New Hinnom Nation
 

You don't need a double 9 bless or a combat god with this nation, non sacred troops are good enough for initial expansion (then thugs are the main force).

A double 6 bless, or a single 9 or a triple 4, allow very good scales, considering you'll also take heat 3. And you have also fortune tellers recruitable everywhere to help support high misfortune if you want a better bless. Finally as you'll never have ressources or money to recruit 5+ sacreds a turn you can take a low dominion too (but an high one can be interesting to spread your good scales, and protect your nation only having bad preachers).

You can even use the national pretender chassis for flavour (who has pathcost 60) and still have an interesting triple bless for your thugs.

(I'm currently playing with : imprisoned Son of the Fallen, Order 3, Prod 2, Heat 3, Growth 3, Misf 2, Magic 1, dom 4, earth 4, nature 6, blood 4)

Re: The New Hinnom Nation
 

Are fortune-tellers actually cost-effective? Don't they need to be in every province to reduce bad events there?

-Max

Re: The New Hinnom Nation
 

they do but you usually only really care about bad events in good provinces.

Re: The New Hinnom Nation
 

Although they are capitol only, the sacreds have strat move of 3, and access to astral magic means Gateway is possible for them in the late game.
As for blood magic being inexistant in battle magic, that's not entirely true: Hellfire, Hellbind heart, the various Call Horror spells are all usable. Hellfire in particular is nice with a Blood 3+ mage.

Re: The New Hinnom Nation
 

Has anyone figured out what this means? Don't spoil the surprise, but maybe someone could hint what scales I should be taking and whether "best" means "good" or "bad"? (I.e. best for the player or for the sadistic designers?) Someone did mention earlier that Azazel [rot13] fgvyy yvxrf gb cynl nebhaq jvgu zbegnyf, v.r. bppnfvbanyyl fverf n Arcuvyvz fcbagnarbhfyl.

-Max

Re: The New Hinnom Nation
 

What does EA T'ien Ch'i usually do against Niefelheim? It seems that the counters which work against Niefel Jarls are likely to work against Avvite Charioteers and Melqartim. (In a general sense. Frozen Heart will replace Incinerate.) Or is Niefelheim >> TC?

Edit: a thought. I suppose T'ien Ch'i probably uses Fire Arrows against Niefelheim, which isn't going to work well against Hinnom. Destruction/Iron Bane seems like a good idea, though.

-Max

Re: The New Hinnom Nation
 

blood rain, leech, bloodletting, rush of strength, hellbind heart, summon imp (haven't really used hellfire much) and later go to hell, blood vengeance, rush of strength are all top shelf battle magic if you use them properly. Life for a life, sabbath slave/master, reinvigoration are all niche, but very useful. Several other blood combat spells are quite useful in small niches (call horror, hellpower, etc.)

How many other paths have that many good combat spells? Blood isn't used much in combat, not because of lack of good spells, but because of the pain of managing blood slaves. Heck, just look at how widely used the inferior (other than the need for blood slaves) versions of the spells I list above are:
terror/panic
strength of giants
drain life
charm (hellbind heart - much better because it's easy to spam with cheap mages)

Re: The New Hinnom Nation
 

I think it means that if you have luck and one of the 2 "useable" priests there will be procreation events.