No more MP for Hinnom?

[Gandalf Parker]

Those charts do look extreme but no more so than any winning nation late in the game. And "fixing" the number one nation only creates another number one nation. But if the experts say that its best at too many things then it probably needs some action.

I havent seen any sign that any of those nations do better than usual as AIs or on really large maps or the small-map blitzes on my server. It might just be a problem for mid-sized MP games.

[Lingchih]

Originally Posted by Xietor

They were crushed in Kingmaker. Among the first 2-3 races killed out of 63. If you have a tough race, it is the other players duty to double team it.

In kingmaker lanka and kailasa took them out with little trouble.

No. Lanka took them out alone. Kailasa was not involved. And it was only because Hinnom was VERY badly played that they lost.

[Baalz]

A few anecdotal "Hinnom didn't do so good in this game..." is even more pointless than a single "Hinnom crushed everybody in game x!". A weaker player is always a possibility, as is just plain terrible luck and either of those factors trumps anything else. Personally, having helmed Hinnom into a crushing victory I have to say they're even more ridiculously over the top than LA Rlyeh. LA Rlyeh's biggest advantage is being the only water power of the age combined with a nation very much geared towards late game power. Several powers could certainly give them trouble 1:1 early on even in the water, it's just too inconvenient and there are easier targets so everyone leaves them alone until it's too late. Thing is, Hinnom's PD serves the same purpose. It's fricking daunting to attack them and there's always easier targets. But with Hinnom they're not only a powerhouse if left alone, they outexpand everybody else in the first place- not only in provinces, but in gems (best site searching of any nation with no other early need for gems or mages), forts (800 gold forts with no need to put up labs or temples) and research (recruiting their best research mage with no lab!)

I gotta say though, the thing that really brings them from extremely powerful into "too powerful" is the PD, combined with generally good gold flow. They can stop anything short of a very powerful army by spending less than 1000 gold on PD...

[Tifone]

I would feel endlessy uncomfortable in voting for the ban of the hard work of the devs out of the MP world The nation is very nicely thematic also.
But maybe some things could be adjusted... Hinnom is a powerhouse in early game (starting army, PD), and middle game (none of the giants' traditional weaknesses, incredible research potential with mages not requiring labs to be recruited), and late game (Lords of Civilization, access to almost every path). Seems really hard to stop in the hands of an expert

[Zeldor]

Lingchih:

Kailasa had some battles against Hinnom and also Midgard attacked Hinnom, so it was 3:1 with Lanka doing most of the job. And Hinnom player did many many mistakes.

[Hadrian_II]

Originally Posted by Lingchih

No. Lanka took them out alone. Kailasa was not involved. And it was only because Hinnom was VERY badly played that they lost.

Hinnom tried to invade Kailasa, and kailasa was able to crush the invasion force. After that Lanka and Midgard double teamed Hinnom and it fell fast. So it was actually 3v1 and i dont think that this is any indicator of how strong hinnom really is.

edit: somehow i did not see zeldors answer when i wrote this post

[Zeldor]

Hadrian:

I still think you could maybe even win that 3:1 with more tramplers. Especially considering Lanka had long term bless, not rush one. But still, 3:1 to get one nation does not sound like balanced. I wish I had a bit stronger early game nation in that moment

[Hadrian_II]

@Zeldor:

I tried to say, that when you go 3v1 against a nation, every nation will crumble fast, so it does not say anything about the power of hinnom. And i did not see any big effort on our side, as hinnom fell like a stone without much losses to the attackers.

[Zeldor]

Hadrian:

From what I remember you almost killed entire Lankan army with your chariots, if you had just a bit more of them [and maybe PD to back them up, it was probably storming your capitol], you'd win and regain most of lands.

[Gandalf Parker]

But KO has said that a nation needing 3 nations to beat it is within the games concept of balance. So it would not be considered "broke". Thats not to say that he might not agree to even things out a bit but in Dominions as long as there is a rock-paper-scissors answer for something then is no desire to try and achieve a chess-game everyone balanced with each other type of leveling.

I may have to play abit and see if the PD here can lead to actually balancing some of the "low" nations by making their particular skills more useful.