HINNOM EATS EVERYTHING

[Baalz]

calmon said:
A moderate bless strategy without destroying the scales is taking an imprissoned E9 Cyclop. Go for O3S2F3G3L3M1 and dom 7. Just conquer some surrounding provinces and you've enough resources. Early game isn't significant slower because of sloth and later you don't miss production.

Right, but my question is does the earth bless gain you more than my suggestion of a blood fountain with B7 (just a brazen vessel for Grigori), a dominion of 9, and production 3? You're giving up 2 levels of dominion, 10% of your income and the easy Grigory/Demon lords, and I maintain that you're not noticeably better at expanding or fighting other nations.

[chrispedersen]

Baalz is right. Hinnom doesn't need a bless strategy. With an awake pretender, you can take two provinces the *first* turn - and every turn there after - which is worth way more than an earth bless.

I disagree with him on DawnGuards. Sure, they're great units. I just like the Size 6 tramplers better. And since the tramplers have decent attacks, defense, morale and mr - they eat elephants for breakfast.

Oh: and I don't know if this has been discussed or not. But tramplers seem to ignore etherealness, luck, (insert spell of choice).

I particularly like hasting them.....

[calmon]

I really like the earth bless. Its also an option to cast forge of the ancient. On the other side a boosted Ba'al does the same here. Maybe some blood makes more sence for hinnom.

@chrispedersen
i don't think a awake pretender is good for any giant race. They have one of the best early game and don't need more boosts.

[sector24]

Great guide! Although, I do have 2 questions/comments.

1) You choose a blood fountain designed to cast LoC, but you later explain how it's unlikely that you even need it. Perhaps another pretender would be more useful, or do you use the blood fountain for something else?

2) Being first in every score graph makes you a prime target for getting ganged up on. Is Hinnom so powerful that you can ignore this or do you have to use Ermorian silver-tongued diplomacy, or do you have to kind of curb your expansion at some point to appear less powerful than you are?

[Renojustin]

From now on Baalz must write a secondary guide for every nation he has a guide for, entitled "How To Fight X."

[Baalz]

Oh, I make a bit of exaggeration for humor's sake. You're not actually going to be able to dominate everyone every time you play and win before the endgame. Hinnom's initial expansion is very, very good, but it's not really that much better than any of several nations who have very rapid early expansion. I think Hinnom will be a nation that people gang up on, just like LA Ermor and LA R'yleh - they're very strong early on but unstoppable if left alone. You'll need to play similarly.

[Taqwus]

...and you'll want to establish a solid advantage before your giants eat all your taxpayers.

[Tifone]

So as far as I understood, the main "danger" for this nation you people talked about, is from alliances of enemies - which will hopefully stop its GREAT early power in order to prevent their UNSTOPPABLE (quoting) late power?

wowz

[Lingchih]

This makes me wonder even more how in the heck Hinnom got stomped in the Kingmaker early game by Lanka.

[Sombre]

Well in fairness Lanka is also a powerhouse and any nation can be tricky to do well with if you are new to it/mp in general.