HINNOM EATS EVERYTHING

[cleveland]

And let's not forget that each point of PD gets you 1 Avvite Light Infantry & 1/2 Avvite Swordsman...you know, same as those starting troops that are "capable of taking out the vast majority of indies, from heavy cavalry to barbarians." PD=2 gets you $160 worth of defenders.

I'd like to formally reprimand Baalz for making this vastly overpowered nation truly unstoppable with yet another of his fantastic guides.

I'd also like to formally recommend giving all Hinnom commanders a Shattered Soul, for the sake of balance.

[Tifone]

Actually, I've just seen the thread about the Lords of Civilization.





I mean:





Well, this nation seems to have everything, strong units, strong PD, strong mages with almost all paths avaible, and 6(!) uniques all-immune full-slots fortune-bringing super-stealth-seducers 5-flying-mapmovement late game SC summons nobody else can even Wish for (and they have inbuilt 17 MR, Fear between +5 and +10, up to 14 points in various magic paths, and one is a very strong healer...).

Mmh.

Even being the n00best here around, I would dare saying, obviously with absolute respect for the overall work of the devs... *maybe* this is a little unbalanced? I think Baalz should have better done a guide about HOW TO SURVIVE IF YOU MEET HINNOM. (and probably the other new nations as well)

[Amhazair]

Edit: I apparently got things severely mixed up inside my brain. Disregard everything I now erase.

[Baalz]

cleveland said:
And let's not forget that each point of PD gets you 1 Avvite Light Infantry & 1/2 Avvite Swordsman...you know, same as those starting troops that are "capable of taking out the vast majority of indies, from heavy cavalry to barbarians." PD=2 gets you $160 worth of defenders.

I'd like to formally reprimand Baalz for making this vastly overpowered nation truly unstoppable with yet another of his fantastic guides.

I'd also like to formally recommend giving all Hinnom commanders a Shattered Soul, for the sake of balance.

Doh! I totally meant to have a section on their PD. Using nothing but PD and your obscene income you can stop anything but the toughest raiders. The awesomeness of your PD is such that you hardly even need troops for defense, just moving some of your mages and SC to supplement your PD will be all you need for many situations.

Ps. I didn't want to go on at too much length about all the things they can do. I mean they're giants with practically every path available...what can't they do?

[Jazzepi]

Love.

Jazzepi

[DonCorazon]

Terrifying guide as usual. I always appreciate a glimpse into Baalz's sinister mind. I imagine the stock price of each nation Baalz' writes about shoots up after each guide.

Anyway, I have yet to even look at Hinnom in the game - never enough time for me - but having been the victim of horror spam now numerous times, I can say the description of it here makes it sound like with Hinnom you could just sit back and let the horrors do most of the work.

So I am always looking for better ways to counter Horror spam. To date it seems the best thing to protect your economy is to constantly have small, roving bands always on the move to recapture the spammed provinces before the enemy hidden scouts do.

I have not been the victim of mass horror spam on an SC - but would be curious to here thoughts on countering that as well...

Thanks for the guide.

[Baalz]

Well, as I'm in the middle of one horror spam campaign and gearing up for another maybe nobody should come up with counters?

Oh well. The most effective thing that has been used *against* me is to have a single cheapish mage with a couple bodyguards scripted to something appropriate sprinkled all around. The cost effectiveness of this varies a lot with the nation you're playing, but horrors have no elemental immunity, and even fall to poison so there's quite a few low level spells which will deal enough damage to stop them considering your mage will generally have several turns to blast them from short range. Even something silly like bonds of fire will hold them still for a round, chopping their defense and keeping them from life draining for long enough that the PD can whittle them down.

As to keeping them from eating your SCs...well, I've never seen anybody else do this so I don't know if anybody's come up with a counter yet (nobody's successfully countered me yet). Nothing obvious comes to mind other than keeping a significant number of bodyguards around...which rather defeats the purpose of a SC.

[MaxWilson]

Baalz said:
As to keeping them from eating your SCs...well, I've never seen anybody else do this so I don't know if anybody's come up with a counter yet (nobody's successfully countered me yet). Nothing obvious comes to mind other than keeping a significant number of bodyguards around...which rather defeats the purpose of a SC.

Two things come to mind: 1.) The normal remote-ritual counters like Dome of Air. Not likely to be useful in all cases but will let him hold ground once he's taken it. 2.) In what sense do PD not make good bodyguards? I should think 10 PD, with the SC right in the middle of them, would break up the horror pack enough to significantly increase the number of horrors needed.

-Max

[Baalz]

MaxWilson said:

Two things come to mind: 1.) The normal remote-ritual counters like Dome of Air. Not likely to be useful in all cases but will let him hold ground once he's taken it. 2.) In what sense do PD not make good bodyguards? I should think 10 PD, with the SC right in the middle of them, would break up the horror pack enough to significantly increase the number of horrors needed.

-Max

Horrors rout the PD in the first couple turns, which routs the SC. Depends on the PD of course...

[Baalz]

Oh, I also wanted to respond to a couple people asking me why I didn't even mention a real blessing. Earth or Nature blessings would be the classical blessings to use for giants, and to be sure they're far from worthless. Thing is, how do you leverage them to make them worthwhile for the opportunity cost of chopping your scales back? The Ba'als certainly don't need the help - a blessing would be a mild bonus on top of all the capability you already have. So, for a blessing we're really talking about the Rephaite Warriors and the question is are they, with a blessing, enough better than your other options to justify lesser scales to get a bless. Your other option is pretty much the Dawn Guard who kicks teh Rephaite's butt on a gold for gold basis.

Ignoring upkeep and production you get 3 Dawn Guard for each Rephaite. The Dawn Guard are size 3 with a defense of 16 and a protection of 13, making them the flat out most survivable giant infantry in the game for the cost (they win handily 1:1 vs Jotun Hirdmen). 3 of them have 75 hitpoints compared to the Rephaite's 55 so they've just got all kinds of advantages in staying power over the Rephaite in most situations. On offense, the Rephaite gets one magic attack and one non-magic, both dealing good damage, whereas 3 Dawn Guard get three magic attacks dealing good damage.

So, what bless makes sense to sacrifice any of your scales for?