Solium Infernum
Dec. 15th, 2010 08:48 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jackhttp://www.crypticcomet.com/games/SI/Solium_Infernum.html
I've been playing Solium Infernum. I was first linked by pjc(?) to the awesome write-ups on Rock-Paper-Shotgun diarying several players progress through the multiplayer game, and the growing tensions between them.
You play a noble of hell, scheming to replace Satan as the new lord of the pit. You manoeuvre to expand your lands, but the winning is determined not by territory but by prestige, which is given from controlling certain places of power, but also by making successful vendettas, successfully insulting rivals in parliament, etc, etc.
What I find exceptionally cute (and by "cute" I mean baroque and infernal) is that you obviously can't just out and start a vendetta against another fiend. Oh no, of course not. First you have to justify it by making unreasonable demands or insulting them in public (wagering prestige depending whether they cave in like a whiny little baby fiend, or indignantly refuse), and use that as an excuse to execute a vendetta -- little border war: you fight for N tuns to capture a certain number of hexes, or a place of power, or defeat one of their legions, etc).
You can defeat someone militarily, but you can't defeat everyone militarily, because you can't depart from the rigid etiquette of hell. If you just attacked someone without a laboriously manufactured excuse, you would be outcast and everyone would turn on you. So your little border skirmishes can't actually destroy a player's stronghold until you've completed three successive vendettas and thus manufactured sufficient excuse to declare a permanent blood feud.
But what metaphorically kills me is that there's no details to the absurd demand. You assume you trot out some obscurely justified point of theology to justify your demand, or perhaps point to your genealogy as an excuse for why they were rightfully yours. But it's not specified, you just make "a demand" :) It's like, you know, diplomacy.
This also means it may be prudent to demand a few things off your neighbours, whenever you think you can get away with it, even if you're generally getting on ok with them, because you never know what you may get. But also that if everyone throws your demands back in your face at once, you may have to swallow some of the insults, because you have a very limited number of legions (typically 1 or 2) and can't typically prosecute more than one war at once.
The game is independent, produced by one guy (excluding art and suchlike), although priced comparatively expensively for that (£25), but cheaper than big commercial titles. If you're interested, I'd recommend reading the RPS diaries to see if you like it, and trying the demo which lets you play the first 25 turns.
It's very pretty, but full of baroque details. For instance, all the legions, heroes, artefacts, etc, are unique: sometimes you need anything that fulfils the general roles "fairly cheap cannon fodder" or "total beast" and sometimes you need something with some specific detail that fits with what you already have. Lots of UI, while not bad is not perfectly optimised. And the first one or two times you play, you'll end up screwed by misunderstanding some ramification of something, but that's normally recoverable -- just remember that at any time something bad might "just happen" to your best advantages.
Where it excels is a multiplayer (asynchronous) game. The AI is good enough to have great fun learning the mechanics and experimenting, but I hear doesn't really give the flavour of independent antagonistic opponents.
I'll describe my first game in the comments. Did anyone play it multiplayer when it first came out?
I've been playing Solium Infernum. I was first linked by pjc(?) to the awesome write-ups on Rock-Paper-Shotgun diarying several players progress through the multiplayer game, and the growing tensions between them.
You play a noble of hell, scheming to replace Satan as the new lord of the pit. You manoeuvre to expand your lands, but the winning is determined not by territory but by prestige, which is given from controlling certain places of power, but also by making successful vendettas, successfully insulting rivals in parliament, etc, etc.
What I find exceptionally cute (and by "cute" I mean baroque and infernal) is that you obviously can't just out and start a vendetta against another fiend. Oh no, of course not. First you have to justify it by making unreasonable demands or insulting them in public (wagering prestige depending whether they cave in like a whiny little baby fiend, or indignantly refuse), and use that as an excuse to execute a vendetta -- little border war: you fight for N tuns to capture a certain number of hexes, or a place of power, or defeat one of their legions, etc).
You can defeat someone militarily, but you can't defeat everyone militarily, because you can't depart from the rigid etiquette of hell. If you just attacked someone without a laboriously manufactured excuse, you would be outcast and everyone would turn on you. So your little border skirmishes can't actually destroy a player's stronghold until you've completed three successive vendettas and thus manufactured sufficient excuse to declare a permanent blood feud.
But what metaphorically kills me is that there's no details to the absurd demand. You assume you trot out some obscurely justified point of theology to justify your demand, or perhaps point to your genealogy as an excuse for why they were rightfully yours. But it's not specified, you just make "a demand" :) It's like, you know, diplomacy.
This also means it may be prudent to demand a few things off your neighbours, whenever you think you can get away with it, even if you're generally getting on ok with them, because you never know what you may get. But also that if everyone throws your demands back in your face at once, you may have to swallow some of the insults, because you have a very limited number of legions (typically 1 or 2) and can't typically prosecute more than one war at once.
The game is independent, produced by one guy (excluding art and suchlike), although priced comparatively expensively for that (£25), but cheaper than big commercial titles. If you're interested, I'd recommend reading the RPS diaries to see if you like it, and trying the demo which lets you play the first 25 turns.
It's very pretty, but full of baroque details. For instance, all the legions, heroes, artefacts, etc, are unique: sometimes you need anything that fulfils the general roles "fairly cheap cannon fodder" or "total beast" and sometimes you need something with some specific detail that fits with what you already have. Lots of UI, while not bad is not perfectly optimised. And the first one or two times you play, you'll end up screwed by misunderstanding some ramification of something, but that's normally recoverable -- just remember that at any time something bad might "just happen" to your best advantages.
Where it excels is a multiplayer (asynchronous) game. The AI is good enough to have great fun learning the mechanics and experimenting, but I hear doesn't really give the flavour of independent antagonistic opponents.
I'll describe my first game in the comments. Did anyone play it multiplayer when it first came out?
no subject
Date: 2010-12-15 09:57 pm (UTC)To give trailing players something to play for, if you're behind on prestige, it's possible to conquer the parliament building and declare yourself supreme ruler of hell by force. Electing the player with the most prestige to win only works if the parliament is non-conquered.
However, if you concentrate exclusively on this strategy, it's possible to do too well, as the AI, and other players, typically don't (or can't) punish you enough for not developing other early. So, do the fun stuff.
no subject
Date: 2010-12-15 10:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-12-15 10:23 pm (UTC)But that's very much, now I'm happy to take a chance on £25 every now and then, and think it's worth it, but even a few years ago, it'd feel silly to unless I was really sure.
I don't know if I'll sign up for a multiplayer game somewhere or not: I don't normally do multiplayer with strangers, but I'd love to try.
My first game
Date: 2010-12-15 10:15 pm (UTC)I piled a bunch of improvements onto my legion (several synergistic enhancements to the melee phase of combat, and having melee happen first) until it was practically unbeatable.
I threw my weight around at my two neighbours and quickly declared several vendettas. I overextended myself: my legion was almost unbeatable until someone levelled a legion up, but you can't rely on just one as you normally simply don't have enough moves to complete a vendetta within the turn limit. But then I completed some successfully.
I hoped to complete enough to be able to wipe out my nearby neighbour entirely. He/She has several really strong legions, but not as strong as mine at this point, as it can kill any one all in one hit before it can do anything. But it takes too long to arrange.
At this point, I'm confused by something in the combat mechanics and save the game so I can test it. I want to know if my "melee first" ability trumps their "melee last" ability. But rather than spend eight moves getting my legion over to them (which I'd have to do again "for real") I excommunicate myself by sending a weak magic attack at the capitol, and then march my legion directly over.
But it turns out that even cut-off from the normal perks of legitimacy, my legion is strong enough to defeat everything on the map, and no-one manages to compete in time, and the AI makes no effort to take my stronghold before I conquer everything else and win by default. I'm not sure how typical that is (see PS above).
I then replay from that point trying to make the conquest legitimately, but still have problems winning enough vendettas. I overtake my neighbours, but don't have time to get a permanent feud and wipe either out before the end of the game, and they get a bit stronger militarily and I end up unable to reach the fourth through them, who ends up ahead on prestige and wins.