[Ming]

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).