No more MP for Hinnom?

[AreaOfEffect]

I agree that it is difficult to determine the relative strength of a nation based purely on sparse instances of victory or defeat.

It has been implied that their is either a "right tool for the job" or a "rock-paper-scissor" approach. In order for either of these to be true their has to be an exploitable weakness to Hinom. So I ask, what is a weakness of this nation and how easy is it to exploit, as well as how easy is it for Hinom to compensate?

(I will say one thing. Thematically, I find it hard to believe that a Chariot of that size plus giant sized armor requires so few resources to build. It's only a point more then an Arcosephalian Chariot.)

[Gandalf Parker]

The have the same as most of the giant nations. A tendency toward starvation. Some subtle dominion attacks would work well.

[konming]

I think that pretty much only two nations will give Hinnom a strong challenge, or may I say, beat it on equal skill level, in early game.

One is Sauromatia. Poison archer is the bane of many things, esp. small elite army of Hinnom. E blessed amazon riders can easily raid Hinnom PDs. 25 PDs cannot stop 10 E9N4 blessed riders. Hinnom can expect to counter poison archers with baals, but in turn, hydras scare the pants off those poor baals.

The other is Niefelheim. E9N8/9 blessed nief giants and jarls, with its cold spreading domain, can easily beat baals and Hinnom giants 1:1, with any bless.

From middle game on, it really depends on the skill level of player and too many other factors to predict.

[Lingchih]

Kailasa did little against Hinnom in Kingmaker, other than repel him. Lanka did most of the work. I believe Hinnom's mistake in that game was building too many chariots. He relied on Chariots for everything, rather than recruiting his national SCs.

I lost early in that game because I figured Hinnom could hold against Lanka, so I attacked Lanka. Two turns later, Hinnom was dead.

[Kristoffer O]

Hinnom will likely be nerfed with next patch. They do have several strengths, but I never had any grip on how they would turn out in practice. There has been lots of discussions regarding their strengths and weaknesses (quite few) and I have plans for their correction.

Baalz guide, as well as the following discussions have been quite informative, and I thank you all for participating.

Now I wonder a bit about Ashdod. THey have been discussed a lot less, but they are portrayed as almost Hinnomish in power. The Zamzummim and summons are mentioned, but I have less to go on here.

I guess they have been less common in MP games?

Some things I consider:
- Lower PD, not horites though
- Fewer starting troops
- Chariot nerf (possibly size, possibly something else that might affect other tramplers as well)
- Dawn Guard +5g to original cost level.

Not sure about this, but I had an idea of switching Melqart and Ba'al blood magic lvl. Might need a slight rewrite of descriptions and events.

Main objective of nerf: reduce initial expansion power.

[Meglobob]

Originally Posted by Kristoffer O

Some things I consider:
- Lower PD, not horites though
- Fewer starting troops
- Chariot nerf (possibly size, possibly something else that might affect other tramplers as well)
- Dawn Guard +5g to original cost level.

Lower PD - Excellent idea.
Fewer starting troops - Even better idea.
Dawn Guard +5g - Okay.

Chariot nerf - Just increase resources to decrease early numbers. They are easily dealt with later.

General trampler nerf - Please don't. It will effect alot of nations, all Caelum/Arco/Monkey nations and weaken them considerably. Elephants/Mammoths are very good as a alternative strategy to a bless and allow nice scales. After turn 20'ish elephants/mammoths are fairly useless, indeed they are expansive to maintain, so should be killed off, perhaps keep a small force to distract the enemy perhaps.

[hunt11]

The buffs suggested seem like it would do the trick, with them Hinnom would still be a good nation, but it will not be too good.

[Baalz]

Originally Posted by Kristoffer O

Now I wonder a bit about Ashdod. THey have been discussed a lot less, but they are portrayed as almost Hinnomish in power. The Zamzummim and summons are mentioned, but I have less to go on here.

I guess they have been less common in MP games?

Some things I consider:
- Lower PD, not horites though
- Fewer starting troops
- Chariot nerf (possibly size, possibly something else that might affect other tramplers as well)
- Dawn Guard +5g to original cost level.

Not sure about this, but I had an idea of switching Melqart and Ba'al blood magic lvl. Might need a slight rewrite of descriptions and events.

Main objective of nerf: reduce initial expansion power.

Sorry, I know I said I'd write a guide but I haven't gotten Ashdod in a game yet and I can't "get inside the head" of a nation until I've played them against people.

On your ideas I think they're all good, though I agree with others that nerfing tramping in general would have very wide reaching side effects that are a bit hard to assess the scope of. Reducing the size seems best, given the size of the other giants and the fact human chariots only increase the size by one.

A couple other ideas -

Remove Hinnom's ability to produce their best research & combat mage without a lab. Either change the mechanic which allows this, or give them a set path. It's kinda cool that other nations can recruit a weak mage if they haven't gotten a lab up yet, it's pretty much an exploit that Hinnom can crank out battle/research mages with no need to ever put up a second lab until it's convenient. Or maybe make those guys cap only? *That* would be a pretty big nerf.

Perhaps add a minor unrest effect to complement the population eating? Thematic and a tiny amount would go a long way towards reducing their ability to bloodhunt. Even a tiny amount would make it so you could really only use two blood hunters per province, thus cutting down their blood income by 1/3rd.

[K]

Originally Posted by Baalz

Remove Hinnom's ability to produce their best research & combat mage without a lab. Either change the mechanic which allows this, or give them a set path. It's kinda cool that other nations can recruit a weak mage if they haven't gotten a lab up yet, it's pretty much an exploit that Hinnom can crank out battle/research mages with no need to ever put up a second lab until it's convenient.

This is the idea I would support. Giant nations tends to be balanced by the fact that while individually they are more powerful, they are a greater investment to build.

By letting them pump out good research mages without a lab and/or temple, you are basically funding their troops (an advantage no other giant nation can claim).

I also think that the Shaman they get seems like an oversight from the design process. He adds Death to an already diverse nation and seems designed just to let people climb the death ladder and/or make Flaming Skulls.

Also, their starting army is awesome. Cut that back to something reasonable and their early rush is extremely blunted. As far as I can tell, Hinnom's starting army is the only one in the game that can take a province a turn for the first ten turns.

[NTJedi]

Originally Posted by Kristoffer O

Hinnom will likely be nerfed with next patch.

Hopefully there's plans for creating a nation which is extremely powerful. Currently any veterans playing SP games on large maps need to severely boost one or more advantages for the AI opponents if looking for a challenge. It'd save time and be fun to play a random map without using tools, modding or map edit commands to receive a strong AI opponent for middle and late game.

It would be nice to have one very powerful nation designed to provide a challenging AI opponent during middle and late game. The current strongest AI opponent during middle game is LA Ermor and the current strongest AI opponent during late game is EA Niefielheim.

I see no problems having one nation banned out of the other 20 which are available.