Solium Infernum

Not that you give a shit, but I've discovered one of the most fascinating strategy games since Alpha Centauri.

It is a hex-mapped, turned based war game which is set in hell.

The premise: Satan has vanished and the infernal throne is empty. The conclave (of hell) will decide the next ruler (of hell) in, ooh let's say somewhere between 40 and 60 turns. The player with the most prestige points wins the game.

Prestige is largely accumulated in one of three ways: through holding places of power on the map, through winning battles and through diplomacy. Places of Power the most reliable source of prestige, providing a steady income of prestige every turn. But almost all of them are taken within the first ten turns, leaving you either eying up your neighbors holdings or getting read to sit on what you already have.

But you can't attack another player without a reason and the permission of the conclave, so you'll need to manufacture one and get the conclave to agree to a back a Vendetta: a short war in which you wager prestige on being able to achieve specific goals before a certain turn (destroy x legions, capture x squares, capture one or more places of power). To this end, you may hurl an insult at another player: they must either accept the insult and lose prestige or repudiate the insult and start a vendetta, or you may make a demand resources or territory on another player - if they refuse, you lose prestige but you get the right to start a vendetta.

The risk you run with hurling an insult is that the other player gets to chose the terms of the vendetta: this can mean settling it by combat between champions. Thus, if you hurl an insult your military supremacy could count for nothing if they have some insane bastard of a praetor (=champion) and decide to settle the matter with a duel. Demands are less risky, but since the other player gets to choose the tribute cards they send you it's easy to fob off the other player with low cards.

Furthermore: each player has one publicly stated and, potentially, a number of secret objectives which net large prestige bonuses at the end of the game if completed. Examples include gluttony (consume 30 souls), envy (steal one praetor, one artifact and one relic through use of a deceit ritual) and wrath (knock another player out of the game). A diplomatic option exists called blood vassal whereby a player lacking in prestige and territory becomes a vassal of a more powerful player. The more powerful player adds their vassals prestige to their own, and the vassal is guaranteed second place if their master wins... unless they took the expensive Power Behind the Throne perk at the start, in which case they win outright. And so on.

Combat is mainly resolved by battles between legions. They have three stats: ranged, melee and infernal. Stats are compared in that order, with hitpoints deducted from the loser equal to the difference between the two stats. Stats and combat rules are modified by attaching praetors and artifacts to a legion: some of them cause the melee or infernal round to go first, or a round to go twice, or deduct a random amount from the opposing legions stats.

SI is also different in any other strategy game I've played in that it is very restrictive in what you can do. Most of the things you can do cost resources. There are four of them, and you are usually short of at least one of them. Bidding for a praetor, legion, artifact or relic, obviously costs resources, but so does playing an event card, casting a spell or increasing the attribute of your avatar. You are also restricted in the number of actions you take per turn. Most things are actions: moving a legion, making a diplomatic move, demanding resources from your minions, performing a ritual or assigning a praetor or artifact to a legion. At the start of the game you have two per turn. If you are very lucky you may end up with as many as four.

The game's vision of a aristocratic, bureaucratic and scheming hell is unique amongst all the strategy games I've played. It's also pretty much unique in that it is Actually Hard. Although playing a combat based fiend seems to result in a pretty easy game against the AI , a more subtle character is a much more challenging and intense experience, I've had a couple of very close run games (which I lost) playing as such.

I therefore recommend all who like strategy games to give the demo a try.

Did the price drop recently? I remember looking at it before, and skipping it because of the cost, which I thought was $39.95. The demo seemed pretty interesting, but it was more like $15-$20 interesting.

Also - bugs. The demo crashed fairly often for me. Is the full release more stable?

It's currently $29.99.

I had no stability problems with the demo, so I can't say if the full game is more stable.

Thanks for the heads up. :up:

There have been a great big nothing with regard to TBS lately. I had high hopes for HoI3, but it just doesn;t suit me. I'll try the demo this weekend.

The sister game, Armageddon Empires, looks good too. :up: I miss TBS games... :sour: