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Solium Infernum
Fellow Fiends,
Satan has disappeared, now is the time to reach for eternal glory! It is up to each one of us to prove our worthiness and seize control of the Infernal Throne. Which among you will fight, deceive, and guile your way to the top?
Solium Infernum is a Turn-Based Strategy game which pits players against each other in a battle for domination of Hell. Players create their Archfiend avatars, customized with to their play style, to command legions, purchase artifacts, conduct rituals, and serve as the figurehead for diplomacy with other players. Their goal is to seize control of the Throne of Hell through several ways. Either earn enough prestige points throughout the game to be elected to the position by the Infernal Conclave, manipulate votes and rig the election, or take the throne by force.
While it may seem that the realm of Hell would be wrought with chaos, it's actually governed with procedure and pleasantries. In order to even think of attacking a fellow Archfiend, you must produce a reason or vendetta against them. Of course, there are ways to make your intentions known; demand tribute from them, or even insult them openly in front of the Conclave to raise their anger. Antagonize another player for long enough, and you may even enter a permanent blood feud.
Capture territory with you hellish legions, which can be augmented with Praetors (generals), artifacts, and rituals, while securing strongholds and places of power throughout the realm. Bid on new legions and relics through the Infernal Bazaar.
There is a demo available here and you can read the manual here (PDF). I'm interested in starting a play by e-mail game in the future, and getting the full six people would be awesome. If you like the demo, the game is $30.
Comments
Might give the game a try.
First, they have the objective card mechanic, which is just like route cards in Ticket to Ride. It's very interesting to see those in a turn based strategy game. It's cool that you have something else smaller and more specific to do than just kill everyone else. Then you can draw more objectives and all that. It would be super cool to see an Advance Wars-ish game where everyone had a different secret objective such as "capture that island."
The other thing I really like is the diplomacy aspect. Games like Diplomacy have a problem where none of the actual diplomacy is enforced by the rules of the game. Civ has a problem where AI players obey all these diplomacy rules, but that whole part of the game disappears in multiplayer. Solium Infernum has found a clever way to make diplomacy work. As a side effect, they make it very feasible and possible to win with a strategy that is less heavy on military, something that other games fail at. Gandi does not do well in multiplayer Civ, but he could do better on Solium. Here's how it works.
You want to attack someone. Well, you can't. You need to have a reason to have a Vendetta against them. You have to use one of the three diplomatic tools available to you.
The first option is to demand something from them. You put your prestige points on the table and make a demand. If they acquiesce to your demand, you keep your prestige points, and you get what you demanded. If they refuse, they take your prestige points, and then if you want you can claim a vendetta. Even if they meet your demand, you have to wait before making another demand. Depending on your ranking, you have to wait X turns before making more demands.
The second option is to insult someone. If you insult them you wager some number of prestige points. Let's say 10. If they accept the insult, you take that many prestige from them, so you would actually get your 10 back plus 10 of theirs. If they refuse the insult, they get your 10 prestige, but then they MUST claim a vendetta. If you want to fight someone, you can just keep insulting them until it happens. If they really want to hold out, you might drain them of all their prestige first. Like with demands, you have to wait a few turns before insulting them again if they accept the insult.
The third option is to give a gift to someone. Gift giving is a tricky move. If they accept the gift, then they can't insult or make demands of you for X turns depending on the size of the gift. If they refuse the gift you get the gift back, but you lose some prestige. The receiver actually has a third option which is to humiliate the emissary. If this happens, they actually get prestige for being a jerk. However, the gift sender must claim vendetta the next turn, or lose even more prestige. If you win a vendetta against someone who humiliated your emissary you get a prestige bonus for revenge.
Basically you have these prestige points flowing around the board, and having a lot of them can give you great defensive power. You might lose prestige, but if that means keeping one guy off your back while you deal with your primary foe, that's pretty good.
The rest of the Solium game has some issues, and I don't think it would actually work so well, but these two mechanics are quite good, and I would like to see them mixed in with some other games.