The New Hinnom Nation

[MaxWilson]

chrispedersen said:
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.

Most tramplers are very good for expansion. C'tis and Arco love their charioteers. Of course, the Avvite chariot has more hit points than a C'tissian chariot.

-Max

[Zeldor]

But hmm... aren't other charioteers size4, not6? That is huge difference in trampling...

[MaxWilson]

Meglobob said:
This leaves Fire/Air/Nature/Water very weak in the SC department having no really outstanding SC summon, I know there are elemental kings/queens but they are unique and very limited in number. Sadly the tarrasque does not cut it either.

Conceptually, I like the Tarrasque. I'd like to see it boosted. It's already a pretty serious combatant, but the lack of slots and magic means it doesn't make a good SC if you GoR it. It's a dragon, so what if it was made flying, and had N3E1 magic (when GoR'ed)?

-Max

[MaxWilson]

Zeldor said:
But hmm... aren't other charioteers size4, not6? That is huge difference in trampling...

Size 6 does let you trample twice as many units, and makes the trampling do a little bit more damage. That's the difference between C'tis/Arco's chariots and Caelum's/Kailasa's mammoths. I haven't noticed that chariots (or troglodytes) have any trouble at all walking all over indies, but it's possible that mammoths and Avvite chariots do better against national troops. I have limited experience with mammoths and none with MP so I'll decline to give an opinion there.

-Max

[LDiCesare]

MaxWilson said:
Size 6 does let you trample twice as many units, and makes the trampling do a little bit more damage. That's the difference between C'tis/Arco's chariots and Caelum's/Kailasa's mammoths. I haven't noticed that chariots (or troglodytes) have any trouble at all walking all over indies, but it's possible that mammoths and Avvite chariots do better against national troops. I have limited experience with mammoths and none with MP so I'll decline to give an opinion there.

-Max

Troglodytes tend to die a lot because of their poor protection and relatively low hp.
Avvite chariots tend to trample T'ien Ch'i chariots very well, and when you compare the prices, Avvite chariots are a really good deal.
Avvite chariots also happen to have javelins. I know that it may look silly, but mass a lot of them and see how much damage these deal, just before trampling...
Last, contrary to other tramplers, Avvite chariots have 12 MR (twice as much as elephants). They are basically cheaper elephants with better morale, better MR, more weapons, less hit points but more protection (unless you compare them to LA Arco's armored elephants).
I think noone in their right mind would pay 3 elephants if they could get 4 Avvite chariots. Of course they are more expensive resource-wise (29 instead of 20) but you don't need to supplement them with higher morale troops, and you can really afford a production scale with Hinnom.

[Twan]

hunt11 said:
This is how I see the spell. The Rephiam are just paying for their grandparents to visit, it's just that their grandparents are very powerful demons, and they need to sacrifice virgins instead of paying for a ticket.

Grigori descriptions say the gods have jailed them, they are trapped in chains and magical bonds etc... so it isn't that mundane.

It leads me to another idea to balance grigoris : a global other nations may cast to strengthen their bonds and make them not summonable as long it isn't dispelled - or a more funny one : a global making the call grigori 177b spell call gregorius like a puny wish -.

(or if wasting a global slot for that is too much, a generic global blocking all national summons above level x, or all endgame blood summons, or all unique summons)

[Kristoffer O]

THe avvite charioteers might need a cost increase. There are two horses after all .

I don't their AP atm, but I intended them to be slower than normal chariots. Might not be enough, but it would be silly to have them slower than a running man.

I didn't think too much when I gave them their cost. I was more concerned about the larger giants and commanders of the three nations. Small giants look puny and do not appear as a balance threat when you glance at the sprite

Over all I'm quite aware that there might be a lot of different balance issues with this nation, since it plays quite different from most other nations. I haven't played it competitively, and changes might be needed. It will definitely be a strong nation in SP, since the AI is unfit for taking on SC's (and strong bless troopps).

I do not know how the pop devouring will work out in an MP game, so I would like some feedback when there is some.

[Aezeal]

Well I think the combination of some of the strongest healers in the game with some of the better SC out of the box, best trample out of the box, best end game SC, mages able to easily get high numbers in certain paths and some lab free mages should give a hint about how balance will be

Hinnom score:
A for flavor and effort
and something lower for balance

[K]

Aezeal said:
Well I think the combination of some of the strongest healers in the game with some of the better SC out of the box, best trample out of the box, best end game SC, mages able to easily get high numbers in certain paths and some lab free mages should give a hint about how balance will be

After playing them ofr a few days, I'd disagree with a few points.

I'd say that their mages are substandard. Getting high Blood is exactly the same as not getting a path when it comes to battle magic and non-summoning ritual magic, and the rest of their mages get a single 2 or 3 in other paths. This means they can't use any of the good multi-path spells.

They also have slow research because the numbers on the cost of your mages vs. the research use you get out of them means that often you will have turns where you either recruit troops or a mage. I think a lot of people will recruit indie mages for research just because it's so much more efficient.

While they have good troops, when you combine their large size(more units can attack them), their extreme cost in both resources and gold, and the fact that their blessable troops are capital-only, I'd say that overall the nation is less powerful than comparable nations like Lanka or Neifleheim.

[PyroStock]

Somewhat off the thread's topic, but I could never see the reasoning behind a chariot(size4) being able to trample a horse(size3)... but I don't have a chariot to try it.