The New Hinnom Nation

[Xanatos]

i hadn't even noticed it with growth 1 on

[K]

Xanatos said:
not seen that yet, did you take unlucky?

Yeh. They have fortune tellers and province defense that can withstand barbarians, so it seemed like a no brainer.

[Kristoffer O]

Then you'll miss their best events

[Meglobob]

Xanatos said:
they eat population?

They do eat population and is it on the same level as LA Ermor destroys population?

I have already seen it mentioned 30 pop/turn for a single one and up to 500 pop/turn if you have a crowd.

Fairly big drawback in a big game. Does growth cancel it out or not?

[hunt11]

does anybody know any good area of affect magic weapons that they can forge

[K]

If they can get some Death boosters and combine them with Earth boosters, then they can make Shadow Brands.

[chrispedersen]

I have no MP experience.. but this nation looks too strong to me. And I actually think bless is just an incidental with this nation. A ridiculously nice incidental, but still suboptimal.

I'm starting an MP with this race, so I don't want to give away too many details. But from the way I look at things, the strongest unit is actually the size 6 tramplers at 75 gold.

Max out gold and production and you can make an army a turn that can take almost any indy.

[Agrajag]

Did you notice the Qedestim? "Although ordained as priests, their main function is another." Nice and subtle, there.

I also noticed how the Qedesim have 2 less morale than the Qedesot.
I wasn't sure why at first, then I realized I would probably have low morale as well if I were in their place >.>

(Oh, and I'm pretty sure Qedestim in the description is a mistake and it should be Qedesim. Makes more sense in Hebrew at least.)

[ano]

Description says that they eat population if they have no supplies to consume. Is it true?

[Twan]

IMO the nation is excellent, devouring population just forces it to be on the offensive all the time, and rely on thugs + chariots + indies more than the sacreds troops. But it's not a problem considering the quality of these ones. So the nation seem well suited for a medium bless good for thugs (like earth/astral 4 -or blood/nature allowing you reach high blood easily as it opens armor of twisting thorns-) and good scales (including growth 3).

Devouring pop consequences are the big thugs have to be sent to the front as soon as possible, and bloodhunting to be organized differently than with other nations, as all devour 20 pop (Kohen) or more, if you use 12 or so hunters on one province it would soon reduce populations under 6k. So for a good regular slave income you need to bloodhunt every province having sufficient pop with no more than one or two kohen with dousing rods, which mean you tax all your big provinces at about 70%, and you have more microgestion to do (carrying slaves to labs), but population reduction remain manageable with some growth.

Then, if Hinnom survive to endgame, I think it enters the totally unbalanced category, due to the monopoly on grigoris. Just think about it : since the nerf to tartarians, reliable unique SCs you can summon with blood (the only ressource you can gather in unlimited quantities, proportionnal to your number of commanders) become the most interesting, and no one is summonable by other nations without the risk of losing its price (if someone already have it). Of course there are still wished seraphs or pretender chassis to compete against them in the reliable SC category, but even if you have pearls they are far to be as cost effective - a wish for slaves give you the ressources to summon 1,4 grigori (already commander, so you also economize 20n).

Having monopoly on grigoris basically mean Hinnom can lose the race to endgame magic and still have 6 risk free first choice SCs. Or can win the race to blood magic, deny the other nations the fire devils and demon lords, and then have unlimited time to summon grigoris in addition.

I think for MP interest no endgame really good category of unique SC summon should be one nation only. It would be cool if grigoris could be linked with 3 other nations at least (as a national spell can be shared by 4 nations) so their summoning wouldn't be risk free. I think some thematic justifications shouldn't be hard to add in some existing nations backgrounds, or rival rephaim tribes should be added as new nations in a next patch.