HINNOM EATS EVERYTHING

[SlipperyJim]

Ming said:
Personally I would rank Sauromatia as Hinnom's #1 threat....

chrispedersen said:
Sauromatia *easily* takes hinnom.

Despite having played Dom3 for years now, all of my experience is SP, and I still consider myself a relative n00b. With that in mind, would anyone care to explain how Sauromatia is such a deadly threat to Hinnom?

I've played Sauromatia once. If I recall correctly, their two main strengths are excellent archery and deadly cavalry. Sauromatia's priests stink, and their magic is limited (but nice). Hydras are powerful, but hard to use. When I played Sauromatia, they seemed like a powerful -- but not overwhelming -- nation.

What makes Sauromatia the ideal Hinnom-killer?

[Renojustin]

I was about to say, there's nothing Sauromatia can do against Hinnom that other nations can't do about twice as well. Good call, Jim.

[MaxWilson]

Maybe it's the poison archers? That's what came to mind for me, although it seems to me that giants have less, not more, of a problem with poison arrows because of high HP.

-Max

[Renojustin]

Right, giants walk right through poison arrows. And that's without regeneration.

[JimMorrison]

Nono. If you have enough Androphags, unless the quantity of giants is overwhelming, it becomes a huge issue fast.

It has to do mainly with the "poison damage on hit" mechanic, where even all the arrows that do not do damage, add poison damage to the target.

That combined with the fact that there is only 1 giant per square, and not many of them altogether, means that they will all be taking a lot of hits in each volley.

For example I'm playing a game as Fomoria right now, and I DO have an N4 in my bless, and a few dozen Androphag Archers almost stacked enough poison on one of my forces to rout it by the time I got through their blockers. It was enough to kill 2/8 of my commanders, and similar proportion of my other sacreds in the force, and I haven't been losing many men otherwise. If the person hadn't gone AI, and I was facing a human player, I'd be in some trouble from those guys.

[MaxWilson]

So it's because all the poison hits the same giant, thus negating the high-HP advantage (3x HP, 3x the poison arrows)? Hmmm, okay, that's plausible.

-Max

[JimMorrison]

Precisely. You get 100 Androphag Archers in one place (not entirely hard to do, only 6 resources apiece) and you need a LOT of giants, or a LOT of chaff to be able to get them before you take some painful losses.

Now, you could always go 8N-10N on your Hinnom bless. Not sure if that is considered optimal from other considerations, but if you regen 10/turn or something, then those poison arrows really need to work hard to overcome that.

[Ming]

I wasn't thinking about the poison archers actually when I made my comment.

Hinnom has ready access to poison ward (Ench4) which would protect it from the poison arrows.

I was thinking of the likes of Oiorpata. They are only slight;y worse than a Van but cost 50G. Fortunately (for other nations) both poison archers and oiorpata are capital only, forcing the Sauromatia player to make a "hard" choice. The Warrior Queen could also cause Hinnom problems and is recruitable everywhere. It is against these troops that Hinnom might find its chariots useful.

Even though I believe that Sauromatia is Hinnom's #1 threat, I believe Hinnom as it stands would still have an edge against Sauromatia (but I could be wrong). The picture might be different if Hinnom's starting army and PD is nerfed.