To Reign in Hell: Solium Infernum Review

Year Published: 2009

Players: 1-6

To Reign Is Worth Ambition

Solium Infernum (SI) is a play-by-email indie video game that came out in 2009. I’m not in the habit of covering video games in my blog, but I make an exception for two reasons:

1. SI plays like an elaborate, epic board game, or even a tactical roleplaying game, not like most video games you’re used to.
2. It’s damned good.

The game’s title translates to “The Seat of Hell,” and it’s both an appropriate description and deliciously evocative. It’s a turn-based area control strategy game played on a hex map of Hell. Lucifer has abdicated and his throne sits empty. You and a handful of other ne’er-do-wells have staked a claim, and must prove your worth to the Infernal Conclave/Council, who are determining Hell’s next ruler.

If it sounds like a hotbed for sinister negotiations, you’re right.

The game allows for solo play against AI opponents or play-by-email multiplayer in a system that will seem arcane to many modern gamers, but has certain advantages that other formats lack.

The game’s designer quite clearly had a vision: to bring to life the backroom dealings, backstabbing and treachery, lies and half-truths that would take place when Hell’s most powerful demons started butting heads, with the throne of Hell at stake. To a large extent, I think he succeeded. The game is not without flaws and age spots, but it’s a remarkably unique vision.

Solium Infernum – Mechanics

I won’t go into a ton of detail, because it’s actually a rather complicated game. Fortunately, most of the complication is in the probabilistic math that governs everything from combat and rituals (i.e. spellcasting), to capricious events that always seem to punch someone in the gut. While you could go mad trying to figure it all out, the basics are logical enough and the game handles the more fiddly math behind the scenes.

In practice, you have an Avatar (archfiend) with certain stats and abilities, and begin with two orders per round. These orders will routinely involve demanding tribute from your minions (which provide you resources, which power all sorts of other actions), purchasing ground forces, purchasing individual gladiatorial combatants (Praetors) and mystical artifacts from the game’s communal Bazaar (artifacts and relics), moving your troops, and making demands of your fellow archfiends. As the game progresses, you’ll usually acquire more orders per turn, more powerful forces, and more oblique powers through your rituals and/or relics.

The way you war with other archfiends is appropriate and amusing. You can’t just walk into their territory. Hell has manners and rules. You need a legitimate vendetta that is approved by the Council before you can go to war, so you have to manufacture drama in the form of making demands, sending gifts and hurling insults at your opponents (or responding to their demands, gifts and insults). The vendettas then have specific rules governing them; what you must do, in how much time, to be successful. These temporary skirmishes dominate much of the middle game.

Combat between your forces (legions) is an elaborate rock/paper/scissors game, with legions having three different stats for combat. There are tons of ways to manipulate this interplay, and also small amounts of random chance thrown in that can confer minor stat bonuses for one side or another (to simulate luck). Gladiatorial combatants (Praetors) feature a similar system, but also add special abilities into the equation. The resulting number of possibilities is occasionally overwhelming.

This is all to acquire Prestige, the game’s victory points. Holding places of importance grants prestige. Winning ground battles grants prestige. A successful vendetta grants prestige. Gladiatorial success grants prestige. Simply hurling an insult can give you prestige if the recipient simply accepts it without rebuttal. But the reverse is true in all cases, so all of these provide an intense tug of war for prestige, with multiple ways to improve your chances in any of them. The game ends via probabilistic math again, when the Conclave pulls its 15th voting token. As the tokens are pulled, the chance the next will be pulled increases slightly. In practice, endgame in a normal-length game usually occurs around turn 50-55.

So what happens when there’s a runaway prestige leader, which will happen in many games?

The second way to win the game is by taking and holding Pandemonium, the game’s capital. It’s a really tough nut to crack, though, and as soon as you take it, the Council turns on you and you’re fair game for every other player, with or without a vendetta. So you have to defend yourself, holding Pandemonium for five turns, while surviving an onslaught. But it’s possible, which means there’s always a fighting chance to come back from the dead, so to speak, if you’re out of the Prestige race.

The final way to win is to eliminate your opponents’ strongholds (their base). These bases aren’t on the table during most vendettas, so it requires quite a bit of work to maneuver into a place where this type of victory is possible.

There’s a lot glossed over in all of that. It’s a game meant to reward repeat plays and competitive play against live opponents, so there are nuances and sub-systems to much of the above. The basics, though, are absorbed easily enough.