To Rule Hell!

I see hordes of demons bowing before me.  Virgin slaves doing my every bidding.  Gold and wealth flow through as I sit on my throne.  Glory and power awaits the new lord of hell.

Solium Infernum is a strategic board game where the goal is to be the ruler of hell.  I just got it last Sunday and got hooked.  I've played several matches against the AI - not much challenge once you get the hang of the rules and mechanics.  The real challenge though is taking the game to multiplayer against real deceiving and backstabbing humans wanting to claim the throne. 

The funny thing in hell is that things are pretty orderly.  Demons don't just go at each others throats every minute, they need a caucus belli to declare vendetta to attack another demon nation.  However, by being excommunicated by the Infernal Conclave (technically the government of hell who will vote at the end of the game who will be king), you can now go out and attack anyone and vice versa.  Oh yeah, Hell is also a doughnut shaped world as going north will eventually make you reach south and going west will make you reach east.  The flat map is basically wrap around which makes things a bit more confusing.

Multiplayer is a Play By Email (PBEM) where people would send turns to a host and the host would process the turn and return it to the players for the next turn.  Reminds me of the older PBEM game I'd play, Dragonlords where turns would take a week (and games normally last from 6 months to a year).

I'm playing my first multiplayer game now and my start doesn't look good.  There are 4 other lords vying for power and they're at better positions.  Even my infernal rank doesn't seem to give me an edge at this point.  I'm a prince of hell, the highest ranking demon (the others are all below me) and my bodyguard unit (the first unit you get) is pretty crappy.  My neighbors seem to have similar (or even stronger demons).  My base is locked between mountains and a river limiting my movement a lot.

Well hell is pretty chaotic and random, you can't get everything.  I'll update my blog after ten turns similar to what Rock, Paper, Shotgun did for their Solium Infernum battle report.