No more MP for Hinnom?

[Gandalf Parker]

Well it is easy enough to restrict a game so that certain nations cannot sign up to play. Thats an option and I would have no problem seeing it happen.

I dont think Id like the idea of some sort of mass effort to make it a "rule" and try to enforce it on others.

But if enough people running games locked out certain nations on a regular basis then thats one of the best ways to get the devs attention.

[BesucherXia]

In my opinion, if a nation can always win its duels easily and thus must be countered by alliance, it has greatly limited our diplomacy and strategy choice and made the fun fading.

And vice versa if a nation can only survive relying on diplomacy, that's what I think unbalance, and that's why some nations have been boosted by previous patches.

[Gandalf Parker]

Fine as long as its not fixing it just for you and messing it up for others. Believe me. Im on the beta team. If I pushed to fix things that applied only to the way I play Dominions then it would have a horrible impact on many of the other players here. But I wouldnt do that.

Discussion is good. We might be able to come up with some careful tweaks to suggest which everyone can be happy with.

[Zeldor]

Most concerns are about early game. Later you can diversify. But if you are able to get much bigger for less design points then you have it easier in late game. Hinnom gets free points from heat. More free points for not needing bless or awake SC. And has great PD to beat most attackers and makes them require a lot of research and mage power to get through real hinnom armies [backed by PD]. And you have recruitable SCs. On the other hand we have nation that need to waste [yes, waste] 150 points for awake SC to have a CHANCE of SURVIVING [not dominating or making a rush] early game. They usually also need a lot of research [so even with awake SC they cannot match any bless nation or Hinnom], normal PD, normal troops that get trampled or easily killed [especially under enemy H3 or C3 dom]. And they need to summon all thug and SC chassises as additional cost to kitting them [and they have worse site searching abilities]. Of course that nations can be fun, but you take lottery. And I don't want to depend on luck, not my design, if I survive 20-30 turns [not even talking about chances to win the game].

[Xietor]

In Kingmaker lanka and kailasa crushed hinnom. of course they rushed him early. both of them.

[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.)

[WaltF4]

Originally Posted by K

In this very thread we have a Hinnom invasion army being beaten by Kailasa. That is just stupidly surprising in my book based on the relative strength and cost of their troops, but after some thought I worked out a few early game scenarios where it could happen. Mostly, they revolve around Kailasa's unique strengths and Hinnon's particular weaknesses.

Which particular national strengths and weaknesses would you be exploiting in the early game?

[Gandalf Parker]

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

[JimMorrison]

Originally Posted by Gandalf Parker

I dont think Id like the idea of some sort of mass effort to make it a "rule" and try to enforce it on others.

I still see plenty of LA games (more than 50% that start, which I found shocking), that do not restrict Ermor or R'lyeh unless people ask for it. So I can hardly see a community-wide rule coming into effect on Hinnom. Though, many more games are started in EA than LA, so, the tide may be stronger.

Oh and for the record, I find Hinnom to be utterly ridiculous. I have 2 test games that I got bored of once indie expansion was ending. This boredom resulted from my being 3x the size of any of the AIs by this time, one game with a strong bless, the other game with a scales strat and chariots - both had equal early game results.

Obviously SP results don't reflect much on MP games per se. However, any nation that you can just pick up, and plug in whatever pretender build you like, and outperform ANY of your best/favorite nations in similar circumstances - is definitely a bit higher on the power curve.

Ashdod seems to definitely share some of papa Hinnom's power as well. Gath, seriously seems to lack the edge of their predecessors. Not that they are poorly designed in any way, just that they're much closer to the relative power of other nations.

[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.