Solium Infernum Review

A little late to the party(the game was out in 2009), but Solium Infernum is one game that you wont want to miss if you're a strategy gamer. Solium Infernum was developed by Cryptic Comet, a one man team by the name of Vic Davis, and sees you trying to grab the throne of hell from other archfiends. It's a unique take on turn based strategy games and the way it portrays hell is unique and fresh. Being the lord of hell has never been this fun, or as the games manual proclaims, it's better to reign in hell than to serve in heaven...

Despite the visuals that make it look like a hardcore hex based wargame, Solium Infernums strength is the fact that it plays as a diplomacy centred game. Much of its mechanics borrow heavily from board games quite a bit and the visual style certainly helps push this board game feel. It really relishes in the board game aesthetics from the card based mechanics, the gorgeous art style of the hex map, and even the artistic depictions of units on the unit cards.

You start out by creating an avatar for your archfiend. Even from this first screen, Solium Infernum demonstrates that its intricate and delicately balanced as you'll need to pick stats for your avatar with very limited resource(character points). You can redeem more character points by giving your archfiend negative personal perks like greed, gluttony etc. Adding points to your character statistics will influence your strategy and underline how you will play Solium Infernum.

The main point in a game of Solium Infernum is gaining the most prestige points. The one with the highest prestige will be elected as lord of hell at the end of the game by the Infernal Conclave(the council that rules hell when there is no leader). You gain prestige by doing the usual conquering cantons(hexes in SI), owning places of power(neutral special buildings of great power), defeating other archfiends, winning duels and a host of other options. What I find really interesting is that, you can also spend prestige points to give certain orders(you'll often have to deposit prestige points to take diplomatic action). Before I get ahead of myself, let me explain how all these orders are taken and what they mean in Solium Infernum.

For every turn, you are given two phases(the exact number depends on you archfiends statistics) in which you can give two orders. Everything from moving a unit, to bidding for a legion(I'll get to this later) will take one phase. You will be forced to really measure the importance of each order as most of the time, there are more things that you wish could be done in a turn. Even demanding tribute(which is an order that gives you resources) will take one phase. You 'll often need to consider at times whether to demand tribute in a turn if you have more urgent things to do, in effect denying yourself from gaining resources for that turn. The arrangement of your orders also matters a lot as you rival archfiends will have their own order which will take place using the game logic to calculate who does what first(it’s not complicated, it’s rather simple).

As I've said, you gain resources by demanding tributes from your minions. That’s the only way you can gain resources. There are a bunch of different type of resources such as darkness, hellfire, ichor, and souls. Their difference is merely in its rarity and how the internal logic beneath the game weighs the chance of getting a certain resource when you demand tribute. Your minion will randomly bring you these resources in the form of cards that you can claim(remember you'll have to give the order to demand tribute first). More valuable items or legions on the infernal bazaar(a convenient marketplace open to all archfiends of hell) can require the rarer resources.

The infernal bazaar is a novel concept. You can purchase all sorts of items or relics that give you bonuses. These can be very useful and often key to ascending to the throne of hell. Do not underestimate the importance of relics and definitely go for relics that give out a bonus that fulfills your play strategy. Make sure to place your bids in the first phase of your queued orders so that you don't get outbidded because of being late to bid for the item.

Remember the attributes you picked at the beginning of the game? Well they determine the strength of a particular discipline. Disciplines such as wrath(martial power), deceit(cunning), prophecy(intellect), destruction(wickedness) and diabolism(charisma) affect many things and in a lot of instances allows you to be more effective in certain rituals. For instance, archfiends with high deceit can perform rituals that confuse, debilitate and even steal an opponents praetor or legion more successfully.

With flesh I have sown the heart of a sparrow, the tongue of a toad, the essence of a balrog. And these ingredients make an abomination unlike humankind has ever seen. Let us pepper the earth with these bearers of decision. Let us dived the humans into those ascending and the rest. petty battles between wings and horns no longer excite me. Let us hasten the formal event. ~ A private letter from Cleric Dorev to Lord Lucifer

Description of the Plague Bearers Legion

Your legions are essentially your army. All legions can level up and be improved by attaching relics or combat cards. You can create combat cards by using up your resources to forge one in a turn. You'll have to be mindful though that each legion only has two slots for items or relics. You can even attach a praetor(leader) to your legion to improve its effectiveness. You don't get to declare war, in fact Solium Infernum uses the term 'vendetta' whereby any archfiend can claim a vendetta towards you if they do not accept the insult hurled at them(throwing insults is a diplomatic move that can win you prestige points if your foe accepts the insult). Once a vendetta is claimed, the archfiend can set out its objective for the vendetta. This can range from conquering a number of cantons, controlling a place of power, or even challenging a praetor to a duel.

If you have claimed three successful vendettas on a single opponent, you can then declare a blood feud where in its essence, it's total war with that archfiend. Destroying their stronghold will remove him out of the game. Throughout my play through of Solium Infernum, I've also had AI archfiends excommunicated by the Infernal Conclave. When this happens, it's everyone versus the excommunicated archfiend, a free for all. An excommunicated archfiend can still win the game by holding on to the capital of hell, Pandemonium, for a few turns(prestige becomes meaningless).

There's also this thing called threat levels to think about in diplomacy. In the first ten turns, you'll be given the opportunity to set the threat level for you closest rivals. This in essence makes the cost of diplomacy and taking action against that archfiend much cheaper than the one that is the lowest threat to you. All diplomatic actions must first go though the Infernal Conclave, and it often takes a few turns to get a reply from the archfiend. You'll get to observe archfiends slog it out in a bitter political slugfest for the throne of hell in the turn log. It's impressive to see how the politics of hell all come together in Solium Infernum. Brings a tear to my eye...

Ahem, now that I’ve composed myself, a message from the Conclave? The infernal conclave thinks what? I have been holding back on tithes to them and they demand 6 tribute cards? Solium Infernum throws random events at you from time to time to keep you on your toes. A lot of it adds to the atmosphere of the game and plays to the theme excellently. A crusade might be called by heaven to smite occupants of hell and an archangel will move around the board and devastate anyone unlucky enough to be near him. There is also a possibility for the beast to wake up and start rampaging around the board. A cunning archfiend can then tempt the beast to join his side and be a huge thorn to his opponents. The beast however is expensive and requires lots of tribute per turn to maintain his allegiance to you.

There are many other random events that can occur that will require you to rethink your short term strategy in the game. Events that reduce tributes, events that give all archfiends discount on all items on the infernal bazaar, events that affect a particular legion on the board etc. You can also play event cards which you can get from the event deck at certain times. You can expect other archfiends to play event cards against you in Solium Infernum. So don't be stingy with them but be wise when you want to use them.

Solium Infernum is chock full of strategic decision making and choices as the ones I have described to you above. I have not explained every single nuance in this game. There is still a lot to learn, a lot to discover as you play through the game for yourself. You'll find a game that is charming, deep, and intelligent that you'll wonder why hasn't anyone else tried to replicate what Vic Davies has done here. Solium Infernum is a plateau of strategy gaming goodness and any self declared strategy gamer should give this one a try.



Try out the demo here

Make sure you check out these really awesome fan made tutorials here


Pros:

• A lot of strategic depth
  
• Playing human players is a lot of fun
  
• Rewards the cunning player
  
• Great art work
  
• Well written description/flavour text on cards
  
• Overall great use of the theme
  
• The system is flexible enough to support many play styles

Cons:

• Poor documentation
  
• Lack of built in tutorial
  
• User interface can be confusing and cumbersome sometimes

Verdict: Hell ain't a Bad Place