HINNOM EATS EVERYTHING

[Ming]

Xietor,

I agree that 2 vs 1 is a VERY powerful way of nerfing a strong nation.

[Baalz]

In case anyone is curious, I played a duel with QM yesterday, Hinnom vs Niefelheim. I used the build and strategy laid out here, which I think is pretty much a worst case scenario for Hinnom (well, anybody really) outside of being ganged up on. A good scales build optimized for long term potential set upon by a dual blessed Niefelheim at the hands of a very good player with nothing else to focus on. How many nations can do anything in such a situation other than rolling over and showing their belly?

I lost, but it was quite a squeaker and I don't think either of us would be sure which way it'd go if we did it again. Even with being rushed by Niefelheim in year one with heavy pressure kept up the whole game I managed to get up 5 castles (one was a freebie with the Castle Arcanum magic site) and had a reasonable chance of pushing back for a win until I conceded in the last half of year 3. Again, how many nations can you name that could do that well in this situation? As QM put it with only a little tongue in cheek, Hinnom is probably overpowered merely because they didn't insta-collapse in that situation.

Anyway, my conclusion is that in Hinnom you've got a nation that's in the same league as the very best early game nations - which steadily gets more powerful as the game goes on. I never got to lay any of the really nasty stuff in this guide down, being heavily raided so early I couldn't get a blood economy going, having no access to cold resistance my SCs were neutered, and blood stones don't really help much in such a game...

[MaxWilson]

Baalz said:
In case anyone is curious, I played a duel with QM yesterday, Hinnom vs Niefelheim. I used the build and strategy laid out here, which I think is pretty much a worst case scenario for Hinnom (well, anybody really) outside of being ganged up on. A good scales build optimized for long term potential set upon by a dual blessed Niefelheim at the hands of a very good player with nothing else to focus on. How many nations can do anything in such a situation other than rolling over and showing their belly?

Hmmm, interesting. Hinnom's heat preference undoubtedly helped hold off Niefelheim because all their sacreds are cold-powered--a different early-game power like Helheim might have fared better. And, Hinnom still lost.

Nevertheless, an interesting datum.

-Max

[Baalz]

Baalz said:
In case anyone is curious, I played a duel with QM yesterday, Hinnom vs Niefelheim.

I was playing around with this over the weekend to see what I would do in such a matchup in the future and came up with another couple things I thought should be added to the guide.

Hinnom lacks access to water magic, which makes fighting Niefelheim SC to SC pretty difficult, but even being giants your troops don't hit hard enough to bring down dual blessed Niefels. I actually think this matchup won't be all that uncommon for Hinnom, given the extra attention they'll probably be receiving. So, what to do....

Birch boots give 50% CR which is a great start and something to start using immediately at con-2. Elemental armor will get you the other 50% you need, but unless you get lucky with the 10% random on a Ba'al, you'll need to empower to forge it. This isn't so prohibitive as it sounds at first, you've got strong fire and earth incomes, and you can empower (different mages) with either of them to do this. Since Thau-2 and site searching are going to be very early targets, you should have a solid gem income. Elemental armor and birch boots make an excellent choice for Ba'al even if you're not fighting Neifel.

Next up, Se'ir. I glanced at these guys before writing the guide and dismissed them as OK summons in a nation with lots of excellent other options. They've got a claw, claw, gore attack and 16 str, 28 hp and 7 protection and you summon 8 for 33 bloodslaves. What I didn't realize was they also have +4 berserk, are holy, and are demons. If you have a blood bless (as I suggested), cast blessing, blood lust, then blood letting they now each have 3 attacks at 28 damage and 17 attack. They're size 3, and that right there should be enough to swarm over neifels in anything short of cold-3, but if you can punch up to con-7 you can also cast a very easily castable weapons of sharpness, and you've got air mages to cast arrow fend against the obvious counter.

Trust me, it's sickening how fast these guys carve through any human sized troops even without the weapons of sharpness. With it, I don't see them having much trouble taking out any SCs in the game.

[Sombre]

I told you man. Se'irim are amazing especially compared with the other national blood summon. They're completely nuts if you've gone for a bless strat too - with N9 for example.

[thejeff]

One of Hinnom's weaknesses is that, although they've got access to most paths, they've got very few multipath mages. Blood & everything, but not much else. This limits boosters and SC items.

It's certainly not crippling, but it removes a lot of the standard SC gear choices.

[calmon]

I also want to add that Hinnom/Ashodod has answeres to most early/mid game tactics:

This counts for every giant race:
- Trampler: Don't work against giants in general
- Big Archer Troops: Archers love to kill with 1 hit because they scatter her arrows. Against giants there are a lot of hitted giants but to kill one you need mutiple hits. The target is big enough but also good protected and has a shield. (With Regeneration bless its really hard to do much damge.)
- Flyers: Giants normally don't use much archers and unprotected mages where flying units rock
- Awaken Awe Pretender: Giants have high morale and do a lot of damage. All things Cyclops (& Co) with awe hate!

And some additionals for the Fire Giants only:
- Flaming Arrow/Fire 9 Bless: 50/75 Fire Protection helps a lot!
- Etheral Forces: A Standard Magical Weapons works perfect here

The only problems they have are typical giant killers:
- "death" spells like soul slay, petrify, etc.. But the weaker forms like mind burn, smite, etc. don't help much (because of high hp). And you've to fight against this weaker form in early game!
- Masses of barbarian type of units

I don't think the icy giants are that a problem in a non-duel MP game. Normally they tend to ignore each other in early/mid game just because of the fact they use different heat/cold scales which makes attacking very exhausting and the fact that there are generally weaker victims (with weaker early game)! In mid/late game niefelheim types tend to losing power, the fire giants not.

In sum. People tend not to go in war with you in early game. Which is the basement for your very good mid/late game.

In moment i'm in a small ea mp game with formoria (paladin on llama). Also inside baalz with Lanka and evilhomer with hinnom. It will bring up some additional experiences.