Questions about Hinnom
 

Before anyone bombards me with links to other threads, I must say that although Hinnom is wildly powerful, there are a few bug-like flaws:

*PD doesn't have Horites, who should be easily herded for PD. Starting with Avvite Light Inf. this is unbalanced.

*The Rephaim,Ba'al, melqart do not eat supplies from the land. The situation is thus:

Friend is asleep, so I grab his PC:

I was playing Silent seas against Abysia, and I tried to pass the wasteland with Acha's bearing wineskins and broth cauldrons, with 2 Ba'als, a Prophet Melqart and lots of Rephaim in army. Supply usage was -90 or something, so I easily passed the desert in the middle and laid siege to the Abysian fort at the southeast end while my Avvite army was mopping up the rest of the Island.

Then I built a fort in the neighboring forest of Nanga Parbat, I tried to hunt for blood and push research to see the Grigori. I realized I was getting none, then I looked and saw that the HINNOM ATE EVERYTHING, even the people, despite me having 4 achas with endless wine and broth.

Then I saw desert provinces I passed with barely 500 pop.

Is this a bug? Cannibal bastards. Even with a pastoral province of 3 Growth and 1200 supply,the Ba'al eat people! WTF?

Re: Questions about Hinnom
 

I'm not sure about Ba'als, but I do know that melquarts eat your population at a steady rate. Sux, I know but for thematic reasons.

Re: Questions about Hinnom
 

I think they eat people because they like eating people, not because they're hungry.

Re: Questions about Hinnom
 

So far, Ba'als annd Melqarts eat people. I didn't find out if Kohens eat folks too.

Inbefore some Jew says: "BLOOD LIBEL!"

Kohens eat people too. Oh boy, that's going to be fun when Jewish gamers see that faction except a friend of mine.

Re: Questions about Hinnom
 

At the risk of sounding unbearably snide, if you had done a search on Hinnom and read the other threads dealing with it (or checked the strategy thread), you'd have known that all the Rephaim giants (troops as well as commanders) eat the population where they are be it friend or foe - it is even in the flavour text description when you select the nation, but admittedly easy to overlook since the flavour text typically is short on details.

Hinnom truly does eat everything.

Dominions is a complex game - you'll do yourself a favour by using the search function to find answers to the sort of weird issues that probably have already been covered. :)

Re: Questions about Hinnom
 

Speaking as a jewish gamer, I didn't find it offensive, nor did I react by screaming blood libel. Nor did the other jewish gamer that I know of here. Actually, come to think of it, most jews are actually fairly reasonable people who don't scream at every possible provocation.

Funny, that.

Re: Questions about Hinnom
 

Jewish people are mostly sensitive about antisemitism since the tragedy 60 years ago, so I thought someone would get pissed at this. Though the city Gomorrah does point out that these are deviants according to Jewish myth.

Re: Questions about Hinnom
 

If you look in the other thread, I already warned you about cannibalism bro XD

Oh and by the way we already had a fanatic (sorry if I call him this way, I understand sensitivity but he was just excessive) saying it was offensive. The thread started becoming uncomfortable and it was removed, and gave the birth to a discussion here. But the other players of his religion took it intelligently and reasonably and accepted the thing as a part of mythology, and everything was fine ^^ I have several Jewish friends btw, and even they said it was ok for them as well.

Peace to all

Re: Questions about Hinnom
 

I'm glad for all these. Actually it is expected as such low-graphic high detail games have usually high iq, refined gamers.

Re: Questions about Hinnom
 

Yes, Hinnom Eats Everything. If you haven't already done so, I recommend reading Baalz's excellent guide for Hinnom.

Honestly, I don't think the Rephaite warriors are worthwhile, and I don't like playing Hinnom as a bless nation. I think that Baalz has exactly the right approach: Max Scales. Push a bunch of Order, Growth, Luck, and whatever else you like. Crush your opponent(s) with good economy, strong national troops, and killer magic in the endgame.

Use Dawn Guards & Chariots as the bulk of your armies, with those lovely Avvite archers for fire support. Dawn Guards are really amazingly good. They're heavy infantry with good stats, magic weapons, and strategic move of 2. You can recruit them anywhere, and they can go toe-to-toe with anything other than dual-blessed Niefels. Rawr.

PS: Get some Luck, because the Hinnom heroes are outstanding. :D

Re: Questions about Hinnom
 

Another Laptop leeching day, this time co-op with my friend.

I already have 4 nephilim,sons of Azazel,Kokabel,my own Nephilim Avatar and Shamshiel sieging the enemy(Abysia for thematic reasons), and they are true monsters. Since they all had chest wounds due to intense fighting, I gave them blood hearts to make it up, Fear Helmets to boost the already inhuman fear factor they have(one of them has Battle Bellow, another is Obese, another has cruelty,my Pretender has ambidexterity and twin Bolas instead of Hellswords), Golden Shields to avert enemy hits,boots for trampling, and Saint Shrouds for STR+4 and Death Curse, and Hellswords, and invigoration belts. They just eat 200 of the the enemy population in sieges and rout the enemy in a turn!

Did I just make 4 SuperCombatwhatevers?! This was too easy! ALL ARAN WILL BE DEVOURED! BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD!

That nation makes my bloody dreams come true.

Re: Questions about Hinnom
 

eh, that's rather an exageration. most good sacreds will cut them up. They're giants, with the weaknesses giant troops generally have - expense, supplies, and being swarmed.

Re: Questions about Hinnom
 

The thing is you need an expensive air bless against them, not the best thing unless you ONLY face hinnom where it should be a common used one, I think I can say that with the experience I had from a bit of gaming. Plus a Dawn blade, a non sacred unit weapon which is basically a magic item to itself with very good attack and damage in the hands of a hoardable unit type is really good. Plus 3 supply isn't too difficult to provide if you can crank up a few food carriers, easily recruitable achas bearing the wineskins they can easily make...

Re: Questions about Hinnom
 

Jaghatai, you are making very nice and reasonable analyses. Get the g*dd*mn game and join us with the full fun ^^

Re: Questions about Hinnom
 

Why would you need an air bless? It would be completely useless against Dawn Guard or chariots.

Re: Questions about Hinnom
 

Yeah, no idea why you'd want an air bless. I'd go with the standard water and either Fire or minor Death, all dependent on the sacreds of course.
Extra attacks and damage (or afflictions) to add to the swarming. Extra defense to keep from being hit. They do enough damage more protection isn't as useful.

If you're thinking of Air bless for the uber archers, they're really not that bad. Sure they do a lot of damage when they hit, but I'd still rather have 2-3 times as many shortbows, especially early age where there's less armor in general. Fast sacreds will close quickly enough you'll have friendly fire problems anyway.

The Dawn Guard may have the usual giant weaknesses, but they work much better than any other non-sacred giants I've played with. High stats, decent protection (for the age), magic weapon, not too expensive.

Re: Questions about Hinnom
 

Eh, the Dawn Guards aren't unbeatable. Sorry if I implied that they were. But they are really, really good.

They're giants, but they're only size 3 giants. So you can get two of them in every tile. The Dawn Guards are well-equipped, with good stats and even a magic weapon. But that's not what makes them so special. Dawn Guards are extra-cool because they can be recruited anywhere. You can literally fill your opponents' provinces with these guys.

W9F9-blessed Helhirdlings (as just one example of uber-blessed sacreds) are going to cut through nearly any normal troops like an oxyacetylene torch through tissue paper. Dawn Guards won't be much more than a speed bump for them. They'll survive a bit longer than most normal troops, but they still won't get the job done by themselves. But that's okay, because you can recruit a lot more Dawn Guards than your opponent can recruit uber-blessed sacreds. While he has one unstoppable army rampaging around, you can have three or four armies scarfing up all of his provinces. And your scales are better than his scales, so you win a battle of attrition.

Anyone is going to have trouble against a well-played bless rush. Hinnom might have less trouble than most other races, but they'll still have trouble.

Hinnom has answers for the common problems of giant troops:

• Cost -- Good scales help here, as does rapid expansion. Honestly, anything good will be expensive, so everyone needs gold. :)
• Supply -- Add a couple of Acha with supply items. Poof, no more starvation! As an added bonus, the Acha can heal your troops when they start racking up afflictions.
• Swarming -- Throw in a number of chariots for flanking attacks to trample the swarmers.

Androphag Archers would be a problem because of the poisoned arrows, but the Dawn Guards do have shields. That should help a bit, right?

Re: Questions about Hinnom
 

So far it looks like that about 2-3 weeks, it will be ragtag leeching from the friend's laptop.

I also played quite a bit with the demo so I'm not so much of a newbie. If I ever get time with the laptop I'll try that Lanka people are having an orgasm about, though I can say that 65 Gold 25 Res sacred everywhere looks a bit overpower...

EVIL MONKEY! BAD! BAD!

Re: Questions about Hinnom
 

The poison damage still affects a unit, and stacks up, on shield hits.

Re: Questions about Hinnom
 

Try MA mictlan. 15 g 3 r recruitable everywere sacreds with 2 weapons and flying when blessed. A seriously underpriced unit, IMO Any mictlan, to be honest (the others have jaguar warriors, who can be even nastier, under the right circumstances.)

Re: Questions about Hinnom
 

They aren't really the kind of supercombatants you'd see in multiplayer, because they can be killed by spells and aren't even that good at killing. But it's a good start.

Tramplers won't use their weapons, except against units they can't trample (i.e. as big as them, or bigger). Trampling works against chaff units, but since you have recruitable size 6 Chariots, I suggest replacing the boots of behemoth with, say, Winged Boots (Air 2).

Shroud of the Battle Saint can be nice, but giants don't need extra strength, and Blood Curse only comes into play when the giants die. You don't want that, so replace the shroud with something better. Try something lightweight, because extra encumberance is deadly, and flying in battle adds some fatigue. Rainbow Armor (Nat/Air) adds extra reinvigoration and magic resistance, so it's great if you can forge it.

As for weapon choice... life-draining is good, but without trample, the giants might need weapons who deal damage to an area. Fire Brand (E/F), Frost Brand (W) and Shadow Brand (D/E) are most commonly used AFAIK.

Re: Questions about Hinnom
 

D'oh! :doh: So fighting Sauromatia will be highly annoying. Bring along some Acha with Nature boosters to cast Poison Ward....

Re: Questions about Hinnom
 

I still don't find poison as bad on high-hp giants as on normal troops. Doesn't poison stack oddly?
The Dawn Guards + Chariots will do fine.

It still seems like a bug that poison arrows hitting the shield and doing no damage poison you anyway.

Re: Questions about Hinnom
 

Discussion about this here :) Yep, definitively seems some kind of bug... even KO didn't know that, at the time of that thread IIRC.

(and on absolutely personal remark, one of the main causes of Sauromantia's success in EA :D )