Chrispederson,
Thank you for the comments. I am not surprised that you disagree with my take on Hinnom. Hinnom is such a nation. I feel that there are many different ways (well, more than one) to make it work. You prefer to concentrate on chariots and I prefer to use their sacreds. Time will tell what might work best. I like Hinnom's sacred troops because they are cheaper to maintain and effective immediately (IMHO chariots need haste to be effective), much less likely to get afflicted, and probably lower loss rate too. Also, Hinnom's sacred troops are effective in groups of 5 or even less while chariots probably need groups greater than 10 (especially without haste).
I feel more strongly about your point that Production 3 being a must. P3 will only help you in the first few turns, especially if you concentrate on chariots (you'll run out of gold much quicker than resource). Everything else equal, P3 does makes you expand faster innitially but probably only marginally and Hinnom will have one of the fastest expansion rate even without it. Expanding TOO fast is not necessary a good thing even in SP. I suspect it is very much a double edged sword in MP (correct me if I am wrong). So P3 is not an unreasonable choice but definitely NOT the only choice.
Thistle mace is Constr4 and haste is Ench4. To have both researched is probably beyond early game. So you need to be confident that your chariots are effective in the early game without the assistance of haste.
You could be right about not choosing Luck 3 though. It could be more emotional than logical on my part (getting two heroes in year one in a test game can foul up one's logic) and the points might be better spent elsewhere. However, please bear in mind that luck will also give you more gold and Hinnom can use all the gold it can get even with sloth 1 (more so if you concentrate on chariots). This is also why I am not sure if heat 3 is decisively better than heat 2 or not.
BTW if you use Kohen to lead your chariots you definitely should be blood hunting occasionally in the early game - on occasions when you Kohens have nothing better to do.
Kohens eats pop too (I think). So if you need it to take advantage of the chariots' map move of 3 that is a cost you need to consider (Hinnom's sacred troops can be led by indie priests and so your castles can concentrate on researchers).