This week, Sam tries to host, and Alex and Jonathan destroy his intro.

Jonathan went to Archon in St. Louis and may have proven he still hasn’t learned his lesson about alcohol at different altitudes.  That said, he’s got his Iron Tyrants book (#1 BABY!), he’s got actual play of the game, and he’s got some sweet stories that didn’t really get told.

Alex attempts to get into a Yu-Gi-Oh game, Duelists of the Roses, to be specific.  He’s also rediscovered the joys of Soul Reaver 2, and is inundated with correspondence games.

In the tales from the game store corner, Alex has a story about the guy who just wouldn’t take “No” for an answer.

Sam talks briefly about his reasons for trading in Ninety Nine Nights, Alpha Protocol, Transformers: War for Cybertron, and Dynasty Warriors: Gundam 1 & 2.  He also finally manages to work Limbo into the conversation.

To wrap up, we introduce a new feature to the show, “Name That Game!”  Much like the iconic game show of a similar name, Alex reads off a number of classic video game boxes, Sam figures out what most of them are, and Jonathan displays his total lack of knowledge.  We hope you like it, especially since we’re planning on introducing more stuff like it!

See ya next week!

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On The Care And Upbringing Of Praetors

Yes, I know I said the next SI Saturday was going to be on blood vassals, and yes, I know I said it was going to come on the following Saturday and it’s now months later. I’m switching things up, and I’m attributing it to thinking outside the box.

Today’s lesson on the finer points of Solium Infernum is on praetors, those wonderfully employable, terribly threatening lieutenants of hell that can mean the difference between a comfortable victory and a humiliating defeat.

Praetors are purchased from the Bazaar, and always require a healthy amount of souls and ichor only. Generally, the higher the price, the better the praetor, but there are instances where there are simply superb bargains to be had from the Bazaar. Every praetor has its own set of unique stats from game to game, which leads to a sense of familiarity with the praetors among players who have gone through several games. Eventually, you’ll learn to respect the names of Temeluchas, Morax and other praetors, and when they come up for sale in the Bazaar, you can expect the bids to be high for the heavy hitters. Read more »

After tossing around a few ideas on the next topic for Solium Infernum Saturdays, I’ve settled on resources. The game’s resource system may not have the dramatic oomph that combat and diplomacy have, but it’s the fuel the powers nearly every aspect of the game.

Resources in Solium Infernum Saturdays come in four flavors: ichor, hellfire, darkness and souls. Acquiring them requires one of the precious orders that you’re allotted every turn. You have no control over what you get; it’s a matter of a die roll. However, the quality of what you get is dependent on the charisma rating of your avatar. The higher the charisma, the more selection you get, and the better the selection tends to be.

Everything in the game requires resources. They are the material components for rituals. They are the price for everything you buy in the bazaar. You need a lot of them to increase your avatar’s attributes. They are what you demand when you make a demand of another player.

And very often, you will feel like you can never get enough.

When you request resources from your minions, you’ll be offered a selection of them from which you can choose. At low levels of charisma, there is very little choice; you’ll have to take what you’re given. As your charisma gets higher, you’ll get more “draws” from the resource deck to choose from, and you’ll be able to get the type of resouce that you desire.

Resource cards have two qualities: type (ichor, hellfire, etc) and number. So a single card could give you one hellfire, three souls, or two ichor. If you’re really lucky, you’ll get a single card with multiple types of resources. For instance, you could get a single card that gives you two souls, two hellfire and one darkness.

There is no “change” in hell. If you want something that requires one ichor and all you have is a resource card that gives you four ichor, you have a choice to make. You can either let it go in the hopes of getting an ichor card with a smaller denomination before someone else snaps up whatever you’re trying to buy, or you can buy it with the four ichor card and just swallow the fact that you’ve wasted three ichor.

Souls are the most common resource, in that you’ll usually be offered a few when you request resources from your minions. Nearly everything you do in the game will require a tribute of at least a few souls. They are the universal currency in the inferno. Not only that, but souls act as tiebreakers when two or more players happen to vie for the same item in the bazaar at the same time. When that happens, the game awards the item to the person who threw in the most souls. If you REALLY need something in Solium Infernum, it’s always a good idea to throw in a few extra souls to beat those who can only afford the minimum bid.

Hellfire is necessary for the nukes in the game. If you want to power your destruction rituals, you’ll need hellfire to do it. Hellfire is also needed to raise an avatar’s wickedness attribute, which strengthens destruction rituals and makes more of those rituals available. Players will also need a healthy allotment of hellfire for artifacts, which are “equipment” that you add to legions and places of power to make them more powerful and durable.

Ichor is tied to the martial aspects of the game. You’ll need it to raise your wrath attribute, buy legions and purchase praetors.

Darkness is probably the second most useful resource after souls. You need darkness to do the dirty deeds in the game. Deception rituals (the type that steal resources from other players and misdirect their units) need a healthy amount of darkness to take effect. A lot of darkness is needed to increase an avatar’s Cunning attribute, which powers Deception rituals much like Wickedness powers Destruction rituals. Finally, darkness is necessary for relics that can be bought in the bazaar.

So in closing, resources are a necessary evil in Solium Infernum. You don’t get them automatically, like you would in Catan. Gathering them requires sacrifice in that they take up orders that would otherwise be used for buying things, moving legions and strongarming your opponents. The very effort to gather them is what makes diplomacy so important. When a player makes a demand for three resource cards from you, it’s no small thing. You have to make the choice to give up what you’ve worked hard to gain or open yourself up to be hit by the enemy player.

With regards to how things are going in the game I started blogging about in the series, it’s tough for me to say with any sort of detail. As I mentioned in an earlier post, since I’ve been knocked out of the game, I can’t get any sort of choice information about what’s going on and who’s making a demand of whom.

However, I can say that they game is still far from over after 43 turns. Death is way, way, way in the lead with 314 prestige and a per turn gain of ten prestige points. Meche is a distant second at 119. The other three surviving players had better start making some deals to take him out. However, who knows what deals could be made behind closed doors? Perhaps someone will make a play for second place rather than vie for first and request a blood vassalship.

What’s a blood vassalship? That’s next week’s topic.

Any fool can tell the truth, but it requires a man of some sense to know how to lie well. – Samuel Butler

As I mentioned in Part V, I’ve been taken out of the game that I’m using as the basis for this blog. I won’t lie, this is making it extremely difficult to follow what’s going on. Players who are eliminated from the game can monitor what’s going on as far as the game board goes, but they don’t get the turn-by-turn reports about who’s demanding what of whom, what events are being played and such. I’m basically blind, but I’ll do my best to keep up.

Also, apologies for not having a map this week. It takes a fair bit of time to construct the maps, and I’m already behind schedule.

Baphomet worked his way north until he reached a point when he was within striking distance of Lillith’s stronghold. Lillith realized she was in trouble and approached Baphomet with a proposition. She said that she’s excommunicated, so she can act against anyone with impunity. Lillith argued that if Baphomet allowed her to live, she’d work on his side, afflicting Baphomet’s enemies with rituals from afar so he can sweep in and finish the job.

Baphomet accepted Lillith’s terms.

And on the next turn, he smashed Lillith’s stronghold.

Read more »

Turn 24 in our Solium Infernum game could be best summed up with this map.

I’m out. As expected, Lillith’s Chosen struck my stronghold, overcame its defenses and conquered it.

However, not all went as planned for my betrayer to the east. Read more »

At the beginning of Part III, I mentioned that the stage is being set for conflict at Turn 20. Little did I know that the drama would begin at Turn 21. I’ll intersperse this post with excerpts from the chats I had with some of the principal players to give a feel for the kind of dialogue we’re having between turns.

On that turn, we were notified that Lillith, my next door neighbor to the east, had bought both The Beast and the Sons of Typhon, another extremely powerful unit that required upkeep to keep around for any length of time. I talked with Geoff (Death) about Lillith’s choice soon after I processed the turn.

me: &#!*, Lillith bought both the Beast AND the Sons of Typhon!
Geoff: she wont be able to hold them long
me: Yeah, but it makes me wonder what she’s going to do with them.
Geoff: Good question
me: yeah, I’m going to have to talk with Lillith to make sure I don’t interfere with whatever she’s planning.
Geoff: what if you are what shes planning?
me: She’d need a vendetta. That takes time to achieve.
And time isn’t on her side right now.
Geoff: Think shes going to make a move on pandemunium?
me: good point, didn’t think of that.
&#!*, if that happens, I don’t have a whole lot of options
I can only access her territory in one hex.
Geoff: and she could fly the beast over once she excommunicated and take our strongholds
me: Hm
Not seeing anything in the way of a solution
Except maybe combat deception (which is one of several rituals I haven’t delved into yet in this feature series)
Geoff: and nuking her units with destruction (more ritual talk)
me: No, I’m talking before Pando. (My preferred abbreviation for Pandemonium)
Geoff: oh, not much there I think
me: The soonest the Beast can attack is two turns from now; one move, one attack
The sons of Typhon will probably be left behind as a reserve to prevent sneak attacks on her capital.
Hm…
What if the attack isn’t from the Beast, but from the Chosen of LIllith?
With the Beast as Support?
Geoff: still two turns to do
me: True, but we don’t know who to combat deception, assuming someone has the ritual to do it.
Geoff: I will next turn, but then it will be to late
me: Yeah, I got to talk to Eric (Baphomet). I need the green light to enter his lands, and he needs to move his forces south in a hurry.
Want to send out the call for aid, or shall I?
Geoff: You can

Then I sent out an email to all the players except for Lillith:

Lillith has bought both the Beast and the Sons of Typhon. That’s a lot of heavy firepower that requires upkeep, and she doesn’t have a vendetta to act upon.

1. Baphomet, I’d like to insult you this turn. Call a vendetta on the following turn and opt for something other than single combat (praetor on praetor combat, something I’ll go into later). Go for something that’s going to take multiple turns. That will allow me to sweep my forces through your territory, to the north of Lillith’s stronghold.

3. For the rest of you, the best option is deception. I’ll need combat deceptions on either the Beast or the Chosen of Lillith not THIS turn, but the turn after that (assuming he moves his forces towards Pando on the next turn.) Also, if you can loot his vaults, do it. We need to hit him in the pocketbook to keep him from paying his upkeep.

On Turn 22, as expected, Lillith moved The Beast towards Pandemonium, close enough for a strike on the unholy capital city of Hell. However, some other very interesting things happened. Players started playing Events.

Events are powerful, potentially game changing occurrences that can be triggered at will by players. Every turn that goes by, one player is designated regent. The regent not only has initiative in the round he plays and a minor bonus when buying things, but he also gains an event card. It could be minor, like “reduce the prestige of a random player by 2d6″ or “destroy a random legion.” In some cases, it can be a major event that turns the tide for a player. Usually players can only have one event in their “hand” at a time, and a wise player is very judicious about when the event is played.

In turn 22, two events were played. One completely shut down rituals for the next four turns. I haven’t gone into rituals much yet in Solium Saturday, but it plays heavily to the militant player who has a lot of units and against players who specialize in messing with people from afar. I’m fairly confident Lillith played that event to prevent players from messing with her during her takeover. Remember, once she attacks Pandemonium, she’ll be excommunicated, which means it’s open season on her; anyone can mess with her, and the protection granted to her by the Infernal Conclave is revoked.

Another event played opened a fissure near Lillith’s stronghold. I’m not completely sure about the logic of the fissure, but it apparently limits the ability of the Sons of Typhon and Lillith’s Bane of the Righteous from going south towards Pandemonium.

So anyway, in true Lost/Illuminatus fashion, the true drama happened on turn 23. Here’s the map.

Lillith’s Beast attacked Pandemonium and failed to conquer it. The city is down to 6 hit points. Lillith has been excommunicated. This was cause for great celebration.

me: MWAHAHAHAHA
Lucias: That can’t be good.
me: Lillith attacked Pandemonium
Excommed.
COULDN’T TAKE IT
Lucias: OH SNAP

So I was considering my next move, thinking about how I should move my forces towards Lillith’s stronghold to take her out, when I came to a sudden, horrible realization.

me: &#!*. I just realized something
Geoff: ?
me: He’s within attack range of my stronghold
And he has the initiative on me
I’m dead
Geoff: If she goes through with it
me: Instead of going to pando?
There’s no reason not to take me out
Geoff: Ya, but will she see that as her move or try to protect herself
me: That move takes every threatening legion within several hexes away. If he doesn’t make that move, I’d chalk it up as a mistake.
Geoff: ya, good point
me: damn, I’ve never been taken out in a game before.
Humbling!

Geoff: Can I have your castle when youre gone?

So that’s what happened in just three turns of Solium Infernum. Lots of surprises, lots of dirty dealings, and potentially the end of the game for yours truly. Fear not, though, I’ll keep you updated on what happens in this game, and the games to come if it comes to that.

Until next Saturday, my fiendish friends!

Happy half-year anniversary, folks!  We’ll just ignore the technicalities of time and space, and just use this as an excuse to celebrate!

We talk about games this week, because that’s what we’re all about!

Our early discussions are prompted by listeners.  Jonathan has been tasked with talking more about the PS3, but he’s having a hard time saying anything nice about the user experience.  Consoles are all about the games, and the games are worthwhile, but that’s about it.  Meanwhile, Alex gripes a bit about the genre change Front Mission: Evolved is going through, tying it to Shadowrun.

In other news, Jonathan picked up GameFly and doesn’t reference Alex in the process, costing him twenty bucks.  Jonathan’s also getting in on OnLive with an offer he couldn’t refuse.  Here’s hoping it’s not crap.

Games Discussed:

• Demon’s Souls
• Red Dead Redemption
• Star Wars: Empire at War
• Solium Infernum (of course)
• Borderlands

Finally, Alex is excited about the upcoming launch of Crazy Taxi, Sonic Adventure, and (possibly) Hulu on Xbox Live.

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Here’s the updated map at Turn 20.

There have been no major moves by anyone in the last few turns, but the stage is being set for conflict. Death continues to be a grim presence on The Haberdasher’s eastern border as The Haberdasher attempts to retain possession of the Iron Staircase. Not only that, but Lillith’s Bane of the Righteous lurks just outside The Haberdasher’s Palace of Gluttony, and since Luke doesn’t have any territory adjacent to it, he can’t bring a legion into place to help protect it. Read more »

We are back!  As much fun as it was to record with David, it’s refreshing to return to our usual format.  We’ve got some game talk, a little revisit of the changes, and a topic for you this week.

Jonathan is accused of poop-socking Red Dead Redemption.  He denies it, but it’s kinda true.  Alex has been playing Aliens vs. Predators, and wishes there were others to play with him.  Solium Infernum comes up (shock shock), as does a brief mention of the upcoming third season of Table Saw Blood Bowl.

In the topic section, we discuss EA’s new multiplayer strategy, and explore whether it’s a good idea or not.  We also compare it to the decisions other companies are making with regards to DRM (we’re looking at you, Ubisoft), and even discuss the fashion industry for a moment.  (This is a pretty fascinating TED Talk.)

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PART ONE

Hey, Alex the Producer here. Luke from the Podgecast and I have been wanting to blog about our ongoing Solium Infernum game for a while now and figured we’d give it a go. Don’t expect a post very often; if we get one done every week or so, I’ll be more than happy.

Okay, what is Solium Infernum? It’s a PBEM turn-based game made by Vic Davis of Cryptic Comet in which the players take on the roles of devils in Hell. The infernal throne is vacant due to mysterious circumstances, and it’s up to the remaining devils to war over the inferno to determine the next big man.

Read more »