HINNOM EATS EVERYTHING

[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.

[Ming]

Baalz,

I think you misunderstood my wording. "relatively weak" means weak relative to Hinnom's other departments, not relative to other races. Maybe "weaker' is indeed a better choice of word but I thought I have clarified that point in one of my earlier posts.

Please also bear in mind I am talking about a hypothetical Hinnom that has its starting army and PD weakened dramatically, not as it currently stands.

Give me some time and I'll cobble up a more detailed piece outlining my thoughts on Hinnom for you and others to take pot shot at.

[Ming]

KO,

I have not tested this, but it seems to me that by the time Ophanim is available, Merkavah is not far behind and it is very tempting to wait and get Chayot rather than spending the gems on just Ophanim unless Ashdod is in the mids of a life and death struggle and cannot wait.

Chayots are awesome, but they are not unique and so other nations can get it through wish. So it should not be too unbalancing.

[konming]

Lord of Civilizations, on the other hand, cannot be wished. At least I do not know a way to wish for it.

[Tifone]

They are unwishable, you can find the reason on the 3ad about them

[Kristoffer O]

I'm less bothered by Lords of Civ than Ophanim, since I have nothing to compare them with. They are summoned as SC's without any gear. Seraphs etc needs some equipment to be efficient.

The difference between a LoC and a seraph is not that big. Just a pair of wings

[konming]

I think by the time you summon seraph, gears would be the least thing you would worry about. Ophan is great against smaller beings, but against any other SC, it is dead meat, I mean wheel.

[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).

[chrispedersen]

Ming said:
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).

Sorry ming, Overall I disagree quite a lot. Some points:

A2. Agree completely.
A3. Close enough I won't argue.
A4. Agree

B1. The correct number of sacred to build in the early game is ZERO. These units cost WAY to much for rapid expansion.

B2. Scales.
+3 +3 +3 +3 (-1) (+1 or +3).

Hinnom needs production for ALL its units. Very resource intensive. And it needs $. In contrast, it really doesn't need design points very much.

Heat. Go all the way to +3. Sure, it will hurt you (a little). It hurts everyone else more. Secondly, hinnom will almost always have weak dominion. So it wont hurt you that much.

Luck. Misfortune 1. Or even two. Your primary researcher has the ability to cancel negative events. Use it.

Sure, Hinnom national heroes are incredible. Sure, you cut the chance from 3% to 2%. Who cares? You don't *need* them. They're cool, they're neat they're eye candy till the late game. And by then you'll have them.

Magic - player call.

B2. Hinnom has access to most paths. It lacks water, has poor death access. I prefer looking at a dormant rainbow pretender, something like 2 2 2 4 4 0 - with 4's in death and nature, to be able to cast globals. I prefer crones and enchantresses.

C. I ignore blood hunting completely early game. Don't exacerbate pop eating problems, plus it is a question of focus.

Research path:
Con 2; for thistle maces. Enchant -3? For haste. Haste REALLY increases the effectiveness of your tramplers. After that my personal preference is con 4 to start SC contstruction and thau-2, for communion. Probably then blood, just for aid to communions.

I predominantly just use blood in crafting. Hinnom can be perfectly ok in blood hunting - its just a question of *focus*.

I would include 1 hornblower in most units - as I believe they provide a standard bonus. But they really are unnecessary, if you follow my construction plans. 30 or so tramplers, with a few dawn guard mixed in have sufficient strength to seige a lot of castles the turn the province is taken.

However, I do agree that you cannot build enough castles. Baalz missed iirc that you get cheap castles on both hills and forests.

Yes, you need them for building commanders (usually researchers) - but you also need them for income.

Oh, and don't forget to build around 3 acha at some point. Set to heal, they will cure most afflictions in the province.

The tramplers are fairly fragile - so I keep a steady stream of moving wounded ones back to a healing station and advancing fresh ones to the front. No dead heading that way.

Don't forget to use PD. Many people tap out PD at 20 or so. With the giants, in choke provinces, its cost effective up to 30 or 35.

Lastly, you have a Giant priest.. named Karen or Karel something like that. Usually a MUCH better buy than the commanders.

You don't care about leadership - you're going to be ferrying 10-20 troops not 100's.

But the advantage is they have strat move 3 - perfect with the tramplers 3!!!. And they preach and blood hunt. What more could one want. Never without a useful order.

Just one thing. Be careful on scripting. They have a censer or some such thing which causes disease. What you DONT want is that unit getting anywhere near your expensive, units.

So script Holdx5 and cast spells. And keep him (and his disease clouds) well away.

Voila.

[MaxWilson]

Hinnom's death access is just fine because they have D1 mages, which is enough to cast Dark Knowledge, and Death is an easy path to bootstrap into. Without D1 mages it would be a pain though.

The censer on Kohenim causes fatigue damage, which can make them surprisingly effective against unsuspecting SCs.

-Max