HINNOM EATS EVERYTHING

[Ming]

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).

[chrispedersen]

I've played probably 60 games, with Hinnom, 2-3 mp. I'm very confident the chariots are a great unit, SP or MP.

I *love* bless strategies. To my mind, they are the most fun, and I always start any race with a predisposition - hey.. how can I make a bless work with this nation.

Don't get me wrong - Hinnoms sacreds are solid units. But with morale checks for groups of units under 4, and openended die rolling on individual direct damage spells, you could flee due to one unit being killed.

I don't like the very small forces you would have going a sacred route. Plus, sacreds require a priest which each construction thereof, is one less researcher.

[Ming]

chrispederson,

Let us just agree to disagree and leave it at that.

You certainly have more experience than me. So I won't tell you not to use chariots - you may know some tricks with chariots that I am not aware of. However, I certainly do not find them particularly effective without haste.

BTW, have you tried using Hinnom's sacreds the way I described? Against indies the chance of losing a F4E4N4 blessed sacred troop is quite small if you are careful. If you start with 5 you need to lose 2 to risk being routed. That is a very unlikley event. (The greater risk by far is to lose your priest commander due to flanking - which can be minimised by having some indie bodyguards and careful placement).

Furthermore, Hinnom can get access to blade wind (conj3 and evo4, with falling fire not far behind at evo5) or wooden warrior (alt5, with protection, body ethereal and luck en-route) with less research points than haste (constr4 and Ench4). I am not sure if chariots + haste is necessary better than sacred troops + wooden warrior or sacred troops + blade wind.

Finally, using indie priests to lead Hinnom's sacred troops do not reduce the number of researchers. Using Kohen to lead chariots do.



Anyway, happy gaming!