HINNOM EATS EVERYTHING

[Baalz]

Ming said:
On your question on Hinnom's pop eating, my limited experience is that with a Growth 3 scale and care in the early turns (ie. not hiring Rephaims at EVERY possible opportunity) the effect is minimal (virtually all provinces are still growing), although some micromanagement with placement might be necessary. So I equate it as the equivalent of roughly a 80 reduction in design points (you are still growing in the earlier turns and only plateau out in selected provinces later) , which is not much since they get 80 points back for favouring Heat 2.

Well, this actually illustrates my point quite well. If you a) feel the need to take growth 3 for *no other reason* and b) feel the need to limit/alter how many of your best units you recruit then the effect is significant. It's not a crippling thing, but it's not an insignificant one either. Without HINNOM EATING EVERYTHING, there would be no reason to take growth scales, and indeed death scales would be a reasonable choice - you can leverage your rapid expansion to shape your empire such that good bloodhunting sites remain outside your dominion. Kind of a pain, but that'd give you points to stack a nasty bless on top of everything else.

Even taking these precautions it still will impact the bloodhunting as I suggest, growth 3 in a 5k province will offset 30 population decline per turn, so you're talking about slowing the process I describe, not stopping it (unless you're bloodhunting in provinces > 10k).

[Ming]

Baalz,

I was not trying to disagree with you. I don't always disagree with you.



I am just putting it into perspective and saying that it is no where near crippling. I agree with KO that weakening Hinnom's starting army and PD is already sufficient to bring it in line with other nations. No need to weaken it further.

[Ming]

Baalz,

BTW, look forward to reading your Ashdod guide.

[triqui]

I am just putting it into perspective and saying that it is no where near crippling. I agree with KO that weakening Hinnom's starting army and PD is already sufficient to bring it in line with other nations. No need to weaken it further.

I dont think that weaking Hinnom PD and army is enough to bring it in line with the average nations. Nor KO has said such thing. KO said that was an easy change becouse it does not alter the theme of the nation, while other changes might do.

Hinnom is a powerful nation even with a lesser starting army and a weaker PD. It's certainly in the class of nations KO has mentioned that require diplomacy (ie: alliances) to be controlled.

[Ming]

triqul,

Do not under estimate the impact of weakening Hinnom's starting army and PD. It obviously depends on how much they are weakened. If you take the example in my earlier post, I think it would be sufficient. Even if I were to be wrong, it would be simplest (and best) to weaken Hinnom's PD even more than to change other aspects of the nation's make-up.

[triqui]

Ming

What i mean is that, even having monkey PD, Hinom would be a major powerhouse in the game. They have very strong sacreds, very strong regular troops, powerful thugs (even SC i would say), powerful mages, access to blood, natural access to dwarven hammers and bloodstones, access to Astral magic... They have virtually no niche "weak".

I think without PD (or monkey PD, which is almost the same) they would still be Lanka-level nation. Which means a solid top 5.

[Ming]

triqui,

I do not disagree with you, except that being Lanka level is not overpowered. At the very least they have the company of Lanka - and probably also Niefel, Hellheim, Mictlan, etc. Furthermore, Hinnom is relatively weak against high defense, high damage troops (read Lanka/Kalissa etc. ). So they will be at their worst in a match-up against Lanka.

There are other reasons behind my suggesting a PD for Hinnom that is stronger than Lanka's (but still somewhat weak) in my earlier post. I'll elaborate on that and my other observations on Hinnom when I have more time.

[Ming]

triqui,

On re-reading your earlier post, I think we are more in agreement than we thought. My "in line with other nations" is NOT the same as your "in line with the average nation". What I meant was "in line with other STRONG nations".

[Baalz]

Ming said:
Furthermore, Hinnom is relatively weak against high defense, high damage troops (read Lanka/Kalissa etc. ). So they will be at their worst in a match-up against Lanka.

Well, I don't know about this. I suppose "weaker" might be a better term merely because they're giants and clobber high protection units, but I certainly would not say Hinnom is weak vs high defense units. Of course high damage troops are going to be more effective against anything, but again I don't think you can make the point that they're weak against them the same way, say MA Ulm is. As this is still a thread about Hinnom strategy lets see what Hinnom has to field against dual blessed Helhiem or Lanka.

First, I'm sure you'll concede that the two examples I chose are first rate dangers to most any nation. I don't propose that Hinnom can dominate this type of matchup in a worst case uber rush scenario, merely that Hinnom is no more weak against these types of troops than any other first rate nation.

Very rapid expansion buys you a lot of things right off the bat. First, obviously you've got great gold income. Second you've got flexibility in shaping how your kingdom forms up. Finally, you've got a very good ability to counter-raid any rush - neither Lanka nor Helheim's PD is going to be much of a speedbump to your chariots. This, combined with your very rapid castling up and research means it's very feasible to have some basic research done before you need to contemplate serious engagements.

Dual blessed uber sacreds are going to chew threw most anything, but Hinnom's troops will last longer than most and their PD much longer than most PD meat shields. Thus enters the other side of Hinnom's strength - they're strongly diverse battlemagic. As your strong research ramps up you'll quickly progress through (and cast all of these in large numbers) Fireball, Breath of the Dragon, Thunderstrike, Bladewind, Falling Fires, Destruction, Paralyze, Stellar Cascades. If you wan to get fancy with communions and Sabbaths you can lay down a torrent of evocations to make Arcoscephale blush, even pulling in the rarely used blood battlemagic like harm and hellfire. Once you get a chance to really ramp up your research you've got nothing to fear at all from ubersacreds - a small squad of research mages behind nothing more than PD will *DECIMATE* elite forces in anything less than overwhelming numbers by spamming leech.