HINNOM EATS EVERYTHING

[Kristoffer O]

Good thread with nice input.

I've been a bit worried about the nation since I made it. I've not played extensively with it, so this thread is much appreciated.

I did expect the nation to need some post release fixings, but I was a bit uncertain what their strongest points were.

PD and starting troops are probably good initial nerfs that doesn't affect the thematics of a nation.

Keep up the discussions. I would like to know a bit more of the pop-eating as well. How much does it hamper the nation.

And Baalz, an Ashdod guide would be nice too I fear they are more powerful, at least after the early game.

[calmon]

Hi KO, welcome back!

I don't think Ashdod is more powerful.

Like Baalz said hinnom has some super specials like posibility to cast all site searching spells other than water. And this is really important! Ashdod miss blood, nature and air in addition to water.

Blood Magic is a powerhouse and ashdod doesn't have access to it. Its even possible for hinnom to produce blood stones.

On the other side you got things like +15% Forge Bonus which isn't that good. With dwarven hammers (you normally have when producing items and ashdod has easy access to them) you got only a marginal bonus for the low cost items. 5 gems items cost 3 in both cases, 10 gem items cost you 6 instead of 7 so you save 1 gem. In higher costs the bonus is more worth but the main items you produce are at 5/10 gems (pendant, amulet of am, brands, most used armors and shield, etc.).

Well you don't have people killing giants but it doens't hurt hinnom much atm.

Btw, the possbile build of Ammi (and ashdod raphaite sage) without any lab is because of the bug that every mage with only random magic doesn't need a lab. Its also an advantage for this nations. Maybe you can fix it

[Zeldor]

calmon:

It is WAD not a bug with mages with only randoms buildable without lab. I was asking about it several months ago with MA TC mage.

[Kristoffer O]

I think it begun as an oversight, but it can be fun so we're probably not fixing it.

[Ming]

KO,

I am relatively new here but I would like to take this opportunity to say (or rather, echo, as I am sure it has been said by others) that in all these years of gaming I have never come across a developer that is as responsive and as dedicated to his/their games. Thank you and congratulations for such a superb game.

On your question on Hinnom's pop eating, my limited experience is that with a Growth 3 scale and care in the early turns (ie. not hiring Rephaims at EVERY possible opportunity) the effect is minimal (virtually all provinces are still growing), although some micromanagement with placement might be necessary. So I equate it as the equivalent of roughly a 80 reduction in design points (you are still growing in the earlier turns and only plateau out in selected provinces later) , which is not much since they get 80 points back for favouring Heat 2.

[Baalz]

Ming said:
On your question on Hinnom's pop eating, my limited experience is that with a Growth 3 scale and care in the early turns (ie. not hiring Rephaims at EVERY possible opportunity) the effect is minimal (virtually all provinces are still growing), although some micromanagement with placement might be necessary. So I equate it as the equivalent of roughly a 80 reduction in design points (you are still growing in the earlier turns and only plateau out in selected provinces later) , which is not much since they get 80 points back for favouring Heat 2.

Well, this actually illustrates my point quite well. If you a) feel the need to take growth 3 for *no other reason* and b) feel the need to limit/alter how many of your best units you recruit then the effect is significant. It's not a crippling thing, but it's not an insignificant one either. Without HINNOM EATING EVERYTHING, there would be no reason to take growth scales, and indeed death scales would be a reasonable choice - you can leverage your rapid expansion to shape your empire such that good bloodhunting sites remain outside your dominion. Kind of a pain, but that'd give you points to stack a nasty bless on top of everything else.

Even taking these precautions it still will impact the bloodhunting as I suggest, growth 3 in a 5k province will offset 30 population decline per turn, so you're talking about slowing the process I describe, not stopping it (unless you're bloodhunting in provinces > 10k).

[Ming]

Baalz,

I was not trying to disagree with you. I don't always disagree with you.



I am just putting it into perspective and saying that it is no where near crippling. I agree with KO that weakening Hinnom's starting army and PD is already sufficient to bring it in line with other nations. No need to weaken it further.

[Epaminondas]

Originally Posted by Ming

KO,

I am relatively new here but I would like to take this opportunity to say (or rather, echo, as I am sure it has been said by others) that in all these years of gaming I have never come across a developer that is as responsive and as dedicated to his/their games. Thank you and congratulations for such a superb game.

I echo your sentiment.

[Baalz]

Kristoffer O said:
Keep up the discussions. I would like to know a bit more of the pop-eating as well. How much does it hamper the nation.

I think people are dismissing the pop eating a little too fast as trivial. I haven't played Hinnom in a competitive environment long enough for it to really be significant yet (you know the pace the PBEM games run at), but in the test games I ran to test out my theoretical strategies the population death from building up a stack of Ba'als in my capital was very noticeable and convinced me that it was something that I needed to keep an eye on. I get the impression most people are thinking "ok, I just need to stack my mages outside my capital, no big deal", and that's true for your capital, but what this significantly impacts is blood hunting. All your blood hunters eat population, which is a critical consideration for setting up blood farms. I haven't tested if there is much/any variation, but it seems like Kohen (your most cost efficient blood hunters) eat 20 pop per turn apiece. This means if you go with a standard 3 blood hunters per province you're looking at -60 pop per turn, which means that once you account for a few pop here and there lost to bloodhunting and associated unrest you're looking at the ballpark of -1k population per year in each of the provinces you're bloodhunting. That means if you target the provinces closest to 5k population (absent from this consideration the most cost efficient places to blood hunt) they pretty quickly drop under 5k and you start getting diminishing returns from bloodhunting (a 4k province will on average yield 4/5ths the blood slaves as a 5k province). Assuming you drop the taxes to 0% , if you bloodhunt in a 10k population province the "cost" in gold for your bloodslaves is twice as much as doing it in a 5k province. So, the impact of this on any major scale bloodhunting is to make the blood slaves more expensive and to make there be fewer appropriate bloodhunting provinces. To those thinking "well, ok so I bloodhunting in 6k provinces rather than 5k provinces", just think about how the population density usually falls out, what I think will commonly happen is the one 6k population province will be bloodhunted first, then for the second one the player is faced with a choice between a 5k one or an 8k one.

It's a subtle thing, but I think it really does add a decent bit to how much gold Hinnom "spends" to get blood slaves.

Kristoffer O said:
And Baalz, an Ashdod guide would be nice too I fear they are more powerful, at least after the early game.

Sure, I'll put it on my list.

[Epaminondas]

Originally Posted by Baalz

I think people are dismissing the pop eating a little too fast as trivial.

Agreed. I've found the population eating feature crippling, even with plus 3 growth scale.