Author’s note: While there are a billion and one other reasons - some good, some bad - that my posting frequency has been glacial (deciding to play Sunless Sea, getting stranded at The Avid Horizon and losing a half-decent captain might have been one [get it? glacial?]), and one of them might have been quitting my current job for one that's giving me a lot more hours, just be aware that my posting frequency will not be going up very much in the near future. On the flip side, I don't have any classes at the moment, which means that my output is unlikely to get worse.
Solium Infernum is a game Taihus really likes, so now he's writing a whole series of articles about it. Just why is this clunky and abstract So-You-Want-To-Rule-Hell Simulator one of the best strategy games to come out this decade, and just how the hell do you go about playing it?
Solium Infernum, by Cryptic Comet. Available on PC.
You can find the introduction to this series here: Worth Ambition
Normally in a tutorial the first thing discussed or demonstrated would be the first thing which a player needs to do. In Solium Infernum this would be the character creation process which determines your starting position in the game as well as various advantages and disadvantages which you will carry throughout the game proper. However, some of the most important decisions made in the character creation process have a huge impact on how the player will pursue victory, and I really don't think it's fair to ask a player to do something without first giving them at least some understanding of what they are doing. This is especially important in SI since there are a variety of ways to win, not even counting the number of ways a player could approach each victory condition. There are a range of means to acquire Prestige (and win the game by having the most Prestige by the end), but it is also possible for players to be eliminated from the game no matter what their Prestige is, there's the oft-mentioned Kingmaker and Power Behind The Throne Perks, and if a player is feeling especially ballsy they can figuratively flip the Infernal Conclave the bird with both hands and risk it all. It's the various approaches that a player can take to winning, as well as the ways in which they can screw themselves over, that start taking this game to the next level.
As discussed in my first Solium Infernum article, the goal of this game is to be appointed the next ruler of Hell. This is generally accomplished by becoming the archfiend with the most Prestige by the time the Infernal Conclave draws the last Conclave Token (a number displayed in the upper left corner). The first important thing to note is that while the game runs on a time limit - the number of Tokens the Conclave needs to draw, which is set at the beginning of the game - this is not a set number of turns. Tokens are drawn on a semi-random basis with a chance that a Token will be drawn every turn, and the probability of a token being drawn on any given turn goes up with every token drawn. This means that while it is entirely possible for a player to carry out plans at the last minute in a final bid to trip up opponents or accelerate themselves into a surprise first place, it is also very likely that a game will end while the pieces are still in motion. Conversely, it is also possible for a player to enact their last desperate plan, have it go off without a hitch, and then find that they've now left themselves open to be knocked out of the game within a few turns.
The primary means of acquiring prestige is through holding Places of Power: spots on the map with some significance, the Temple of Lust, the Mouth of Abbadon, the City of Dis, and so on. These give the player who controls them prestige every turn, usually 1 or 2 points per Place of Power. Having a leg up in turn-by-turn Prestige income will make a huge difference in score over the long term, but when it comes to last-minute plays for first place it can be difficult to do much with just a few points. Though players have the ability to periodically 'harvest' other players for packages of Prestige with Insults and Demands, this method is unreliable, there's a significant cooldown before you can initiate diplomatic actions again, and you risk provoking the wrong person or investing in a Vendetta that you cannot afford. Military action provides Prestige as well, but since it’s difficult to reliably engage in combat that will favor yourself, victory doesn’t tend to come down to the Prestige gained from the battles themselves.
This is where Objectives come in. Every player has a single Public Objective, and potentially many Secret Objectives. A Public Objective is chosen at character creation, and is visible to everyone. Secret Objectives, on the other hand, are, uh... secret. These aren't available to everyone, as they require a player to invest in the Prophecy skill tree and then draw a random Secret Objective into their hand. I'll talk more about the various skills and attributes later, but what you need to know right now is that this means either a major investment of resources (and thus turns) or a major investment of character creation points. All Objectives involve a variety of actions, such as capturing and holding specific Places of Power by the end of the game, capturing a certain number of Cantons (hexes), performing diplomatic actions, leveling up attributes, and more. Objectives, when completed, will add a large sum of Prestige to your final total. The main difference between Secret Objectives and Public ones, other than the whole 'secret' thing, is that failing a Secret Objective will subtract Prestige from your final total, while failing the Public Objective won't affect your Prestige. It is possible to gain the ability to discard Secret Objectives, thus giving you the opportunity to dodge more difficult Objectives, but this requires even more investment in the Prophecy skill. As you're investing turns and resources into this one strategy now, this means that you're gimping yourself in other ways.
What makes Objectives really interesting is that the conditions for meeting an Objective are only evaluated at the end of the game when the final Conclave Token is drawn. This means that a player's real Prestige total can potentially be quite a bit higher (or lower) than the one publically displayed. This also means that even when you are going for a standard Prestige-gathering victory, there's a balance between low-risk and high-risk strategies. A player taking seemingly random and nonsensical actions, especially towards the end of a game, may be going for a Prestige victory via Secret Objectives. Unlike the typical slow accumulation of Prestige through Places of Power and political intrigue, though, there's always the risk that the game will end before the player can fulfill the conditions of their Objectives, and depending on the state of a given game attempting to accomplish a given Objective can leave a player wide open for elimination. You're always facing the question: can I risk leaving this Objective for later?
And, yes, if you think someone is well on the path to victory, you can always try eliminating them from the game. Every player has a Stronghold: a Place of Power which, when taken by an enemy, knocks that player out of the game. However, according to the laws of the Infernal Conclave an archfiend cannot attack the Stronghold of another archfiend without a declaration of Blood Feud first. If by this point you're getting slightly frustrated by all the limitations that the Conclave is putting on what you can or can't do, don't worry, you're a big bad archdemon and nobody can tell you what to do. I'll get to that in a moment.
Blood Feuds are simple. If you carry out three successful Vendettas against another player, you can then declare a state of Blood Feud, which simply means that the two of you are now in a state of no-holds-barred combat. You can freely invade one-another's territory, and can damage each-other's Strongholds. If all other players in a game are eliminated, the final one standing ascends to the throne, no questions asked.
If you're feeling particularly badass, it's important to note that the Infernal Conclave has a physical presence on the map. The City of Pandemonium is a Place of Power like any other in the game, which means it has stats and can be attacked by any player. It's one of the reasons I love this game so much. It's got some really high stats, sure, but it can be taken. In other words, Solium Infernum lets you kick the game-master in the balls and take him hostage. If any player takes Pandemonium and can hold it as well as their own Stronghold for five turns, they win the game, trumping any other victory conditions. While Pandemonium is being held hostage, Conclave Tokens aren't drawn, no diplomatic actions can be taken, and the game can't end. This has some interesting interplay with the other victory conditions, since you can effectively stall out someone else's victory by taking Pandemonium. Then again, attacking Pandemonium will understandably upset the Conclave. You will be Excommunicated by the Conclave as soon as you attack or otherwise damage Pandemonium, even if you are unsuccessful in taking it. An Excommunicated player is essentially in a state of permanent Blood Feud with every other player in the game: everyone can attack them, but they can also attack everyone else.
Though technically an undesirable state to be in, Excommunication has some interesting possibilities for a risk-taking player. Excommunication means that you can effectively ignore the rules which govern conflict in Solium Infernum. Towards the end of the infamous Rock Paper Shotgun game, for example, one player tosses a weak Destruction ritual at Pandemonium for the sole purpose of getting themselves Excommunicated. They then took the opportunity to storm another player's territory, nearly destroying their stronghold. I can't remember where I heard the story, but there was apparently one game of Solium Infernum in which a player got themselves Excommunicated, then used an item - the Puzzle Box - to teleport their best legion to each opponent's Stronghold, one Stronghold per Order Slot, wiping the board in a single turn and winning themselves the game. If there's anything you can take away from this, it's that nothing in Solium Infernum is straightforward, and that you can usually bend the rules to your advantage if you use a bit of creativity.
Finally, no discussion of victory in Solium Infernum would be complete without mentioning the Kingmaker and Power Behind the Throne Perks. At character creation, the player can choose up to three Perks, which do things such as add bonuses to your rolls, increase your Legions' heal rates, give you extra choices when collecting resource cards, and other twists to your game. The two most expensive Perks are called Kingmaker and Power Behind the Throne. A player with the Kingmaker Perk plays by slightly different rules. At the beginning of the game, they choose another player. If the player they choose then wins the game through a standard Prestige victory, the Kingmaker wins instead. This doesn't protect them from being eliminated, though, and if the chosen 'pawn' of the Kingmaker wins by taking Pandemonium then it nullifies all other victory conditions. As winning through conquest or by usurping the Conclave is both risky and difficult to pull off it doesn't tend to happen very often, but it's worth taking into account if a player with a good military decides to screw the rules.
Power Behind the Throne works in a similar way, except that it instead ties into the "Blood Vassal" mechanic. Any player with less than half of the territory and Prestige of another player can ask to become their Blood Vassal. If the other player accepts, the Prestige and owned territory of the Vassal is added to that of the assenting player, who is now referred to as the Blood Lord. The Vassal cannot win, cannot carry out any diplomatic actions, and instead treats the Lord's Vendettas, Feuds, and territory ownership as his or her own. It is, however, a good method for two players who may not otherwise have a shot at winning the game to pool their resources, and the Vassal is guaranteed second place as the Lieutenant of Hell if their Lord wins. However, if the Vassal has the Power Behind the Throne Perk, the positions are reversed: it's the Vassal who becomes Lucifer Mk.2, and the Lord who becomes the Lieutenant. It's a nasty, backhanded, bastard of a move to make: giving someone hope and then taking it away, which is why it’s so fitting for a game that takes place in Hell.
The main trade-off for both Perks is that either Perk requires a cripplingly large investment of character creation points, which means that unless the player is particularly lucky, skilled, or is playing against less competent opponents, they will need to rely on that Perk if they want to win. Generally speaking, the choices made at character creation will determine how a player will approach victory, but the two aforementioned Perks can’t really be adapted to other purposes or worked around since they tie directly into their own special victory conditions. It’s like having an ace in the hole that also happens to be a crippling flaw in your plan. The upside is that it’s impossible, initially, to know what Perks a player has taken. and that the strict limitations on the number of actions a player can take in one turn means that merely trying to find out if someone else has taken a given Perk can set you back. Paranoia is both your friend and your enemy.
As I mentioned at the beginning of this article, and as you might have noticed throughout the last few paragraphs, how you pursue victory in Solium Infernum ties very strongly into how you build your character. What I hope to discuss next is not only how character creation works, but also how each aspect of character creation can be adapted to more than one style of victory. I know I’ve been mostly talking in general terms so far, and that I haven’t actually discussed the nitty gritty of this game’s mechanics and what makes all of it so great. Don’t worry, now that I’ve actually contextualized this game a bit the next few Solium Infernum Rambles should start diving deeper. And dragging you kicking and screaming with them, of course. This is Hell we’re talking about, after all.
But first, Taihus needs to do some web design work and also needs to write about that time he plugged his 5 megabyte neural interface into cyberspace and picked up some stray perception-altering software.
-Taihus, the backstabbing raincoastgamer
Links, for your consideration
Solium Infernum’s official site (a demo is available for download, old school style)
A Solium Infernum tutorial by ananabtilps aka Fudge the demon
Gameboys From Hell: the infamous Rock Paper Shotgun Solium Infernum after-action report
Mechanics Rambles is a series of short(er) articles where Taihus picks one thing out of a game that he wants to talk about and then... wait a sec...
What the heck is Solium Infernum and why does it seem to be taking over this supposedly bi-weekly column?
Solium Infernum, by Cryptic Comet. Available for PC
Here we may reign secure, and in my choice / to reign is worth ambition though in Hell: / Better to reign in Hell, than serve in Heaven.
-Satan, Paradise Lost, by John Milton
I'll preface this article by saying that the thematic material of the game we are about to discuss may disturb some people. Solium Infernum is a game which depicts the internal politics and influential figures of the Judeo-Christian Hell. And we aren't talking about some kind of Dungeon Keeper-esque cartoon underworld (great game, by the way, this isn't meant to be a bash against that Dungeon Keeper) or even the sort of travesty one can make against source material as depicted in the God of War clone Dante's Inferno (this, on the other hand, is a bash against Dante's Inferno). Granted, this game is a very abstract strategy game where most of the theme comes across in flavor text and artwork, this depiction of hell is still a pretty damn crappy place to exist, and whatever forces of Heaven which make an appearance in the game are almost literally forces of nature which the players are entirely impotent against. That all said, I understand if you do not wish to read any further, though if you don't you'll be missing out one of the best strategy games ever made (yes I'm going there).
Solium Infernum is a game about stabbing people in the back. It is a game about manipulating the rules. It is a game where doing the straightforward is convoluted, but doing something seemingly convoluted and arcane is merely a matter of course. It is a game about... look, I know I'm waxing lyrical and will end up hyping this game beyond all reason if given a chance, so I'll just say it: I really like Solium Infernum. Solium Infernum is a turn-based strategy where the players take on the role of various archfiends ruling over their own little corners of Hell. Yes, that Hell. The lakes of fire and brimstone one. The idea is that Satan, Lucifer, the big guy who rebelled against Heaven and was cast down, he's disappeared. This has left a power vacuum in the Hellish hierarchy, and the players all take the role of various archfiends and demons who have a high enough standing to be considered as successors to the infernal throne. This makes for some fantastic thematic material. Though there is very little in terms of animation, effects, or models, there is some great artwork and a surprisingly large number of lore snippets attached to units, artifacts, locations, and so on. Despite the lack of special effects, you do get a very vivid picture of this game's world through the art and the writing. This game paints a vision of the underworld as envisioned by Milton and Dante, perhaps with a few liberties taken and references inserted but never gratuitous in sex or violence as some are wont to do with supposedly "dark and gritty" settings. Often disturbing and tinged with insanity, yes, but Solium Infernum's setting does, I think, do its source material justice. Solium Infernum is also a strategy game which does a lot of things differently than most others, and I've already mentioned that I really like it. Breaking down what this game is and how all the bits work is going to take some doing, but I've wanted to do it for a while, so how this is going to work is that I'm going to spread my rambling about SI over a series of articles over the coming week or three. This series will act as a sort of tutorial for SI, because it doesn't in fact have a real tutorial, while at the same time I will be doing my best to do the whole Mechanics Ramble "I'm a complete amateur trying to analyze game design" thing. Without further ado, let us get down to the nitty-gritty.
If you play a lot of turn-based strategy games, especially ones where the map is divided into hexes, you might think you know how this one works. Build up your forces, march out and capture territory, make alliances of convenience right up to the point where breaking the alliance will provide you with the greatest benefits. While Solium Infernum does involve a certain amount of territorial control, each player makes use of armed forces they march around the map, and it is in the best interests of every player to stab the others in the back, the most powerful player in the game may not own any important territory, directly attacking other players is very nearly impossible to do without first loudly announcing your intentions and essentially getting the other person's permission to attack, and powerful armies may not be nearly as important as the ability to buy a powerful army in the first place.
Solium Infernum is, then, a game about politics, bureaucracy and the ancient art of creating a casus belli, otherwise known as an excuse to invade Poland. In most strategy games, your diplomatic relationship with other players is pretty straightforward. You're either able to attack other players or you aren't. In some, such as the eternal paranoia and stress generator Neptune's Pride, there is no proper 'alliance' or 'non-aggression pact' state, meaning that the players are all watching one-another constantly in case of suspiciously large fleet deployments. When most people discuss Solium Infernum, what they mention after the fact that it's a game where you're trying to rule over frikin' Hell is that the all the players are in a state of politically-enforced cold war. You see, this version of Hell is presided over by the Infernal Conclave, a sort of demonic senate or parliament. They oversee all political activity in Hell in Satan's absence, and will eventually select his successor. In the meantime, what this means for the players is that there are no options to simply "declare war" or "propose an alliance". The Infernal Conclave does not tolerate direct conflict between the various archfiends without reason, so it is impossible for one player's armies to enter the territory of another. Instead, players trade a series of formal insults, demands, and gifts. But if another player refuses to deliver demanded resources, if they insult you before the Conclave or reject a gift you've sent them, that permits you to declare a Vendetta. Vendettas open the way for your Legions to march into their territory and vice versa. Succeed in the goals you've declared for your Vendetta and you'll gain prestige in the eyes of the Conclave.
This is important because Solium Infernum is a game about prestige. Games aren't usually won through the elimination of other players, though you can in fact do that if you're badass enough, but rather through the accumulation of prestige points. End the game with enough points and you are crowned the next ruler of Hell. Prestige is generated over time by various Places of Power dotted around the map, with names like The Mouth of Abbadon, The City of Dis, or The Wood of Suicides. Players who control these Places of Power receive a steady drip-feed of prestige, representing their growing stature in the eyes of the Conclave. If you control more high-earning Places of Power than anyone else, you've already got a distinct advantage with a regular prestige point income. It also means that now everyone will be gunning after you. See, the thing about the prestige point system is that it really is meant to represent the Conclave's opinion of you. It's easy to avoid conflict with other players by simply giving in to their demands and taking their insults in stride. But every sign of submission, every unanswered insult, every sign of weakness is a loss of prestige while your opponents gain prestige in kind every time they successfully bully you. But you've got good armies, right? You've got a competent Praetor leading them and artifacts of power enhancing their prowess, but someone has recently acquired a Praetor skilled in single combat as well as a good number of training manuscripts , and you aren't even sure if all these items were purchased by the same person. The demon who's been sending demands for resources to you doesn't even share any borders, was it him? Surely he wouldn't risk your refusal unless he thought he could challenge you to a duel of champions. And now you must deal with all these flies buzzing about your feet insulting you every chance they get, draining your prestige, but you don't dare take them all on at the same time. You couldn't possibly cover all your borders with your forces, but every turn you give the others is more time for them to dig themselves in and nurture what power they have.
It is, after all, important to remember that Solium Infernum is a game about scarcity. This is a trend that started in Vic Davis's (Cryptic Comet's one and only developer) previous game, Armageddon Empires. In AE you never had enough resources, never had enough action points, never had exactly the right combination of cards that you needed, so you had to improvise, decide between delaying execution of your master stroke or taking a sub-optimal strategy. The harsh limits on what you could do on any given turn forced the player to make hard choices, interesting choices, and pushed home the post-apocalyptic theme. Solium Infernum continues the trend of placing heavy limits on what the player can do in any given turn. One of the many big things that SI does differently from other strategy games is that it makes armies unique. You aren't ever creating generic demonic Legions, you're purchasing unique units off of an open marketplace called the Bazaar. In fact, everything in the game from Legions to Relics to Praetors is unique and purchased from the Bazaar. It makes the ability to purchase powerful items and Legions as soon as they appear very important, and it also means that a dead Legion, any dead Legion, is a major blow since it will never appear in the game again. It may seem that hoarding resources is the way to go in that case, except that scarcity also comes in the form of order limits every turn. Most players start the game with two order slots, more order slots take time and resources to acquire, and every action in the game requires the use of an order slot. Move a Legion? Use an order slot. Make an insult? Use a slot. Buy something? Slot. Gather resources? You need to fill an order slot with the "Collect Tribute" order if you want more resources next turn. This both limits the amount of late-game fiddling around that the player does as well as forces the player to really consider what their priorities are. If you're working on hoarding resources, you're limiting the number of other things you can do in a turn. If you're trying to fight multiple opponents, which you don't want to be, you're pretty much stuck focussing on that in exclusion to literally anything else you might want to do simply because you won't have the order slots available to do anything else.
So now we can see that Solium Infernum is a complex game, though I'd argue that it isn't quite as complicated as it may seem on the surface. It might not be for everyone, but I'd argue that if you like board games, war games, maybe 4X games, and if you are at all interested in strategy game design you owe it to yourself to try out the demo, found on the developer's site. If you've already got the game but have no idea what to do and don't want to dive into the manual or wait for the rest of this series, I recommend this hilariously in-character tutorial written by an internet person. And of course, I don’t think it’s possible at this point to write an article about SI without bringing up the after-action report on Rock Paper Shotgun which is probably as effective a promotion as any for this game. Read it to find out why Kieron and Quinns probably shouldn’t be ever made archdemons. To everyone else, stay tuned, we're discussing victory and the role of the eminence gris next.
-Taihus the fiendishly clever raincoastgamer
Links, for your consideration
Solium Infernum's official site
A Solium Infernum tutorial by ananabtilps Fudge the demon
The infamous Rock Paper Shotgun after-action report of their multiplayer Solium Infernum game
Okay, finding Black Mesa or Vault 13 in the middle of the wasteland, that I can handle. But this?
That's it. We've seen everything that Armageddon Empires has to offer. I don't care if there's anything left to discover or strategies to figure out, I'm outta here.
But seriously, when I found a secret military base that had an "EVA deployment bay" in it, I had to capture the damn thing just to see if it was actually what I thought it was.
It was.
I wonder if my scouts found the fossilized remains of a small Japanese boy in the cockpit?
Armageddon Empires is a pretty fantastic little strategy game made by Cryptic Comet, aka Vic Davis, aka The God Of Really Neat Board Games That Wouldn't Work As Board Games But Work Fine As Video Games. There's a surprising number of easter eggs hidden in the randomly generated wastelands, referencing everything from Mad Max to Escape from New York (SNAKE!), but this one is probably the most overpowered. I mean, look at the resource costs! That's dirt cheap! 9 attack, double attack and that AT field? Good thing I picked it up first.
