Well my first every multiplayer game of Solium Infernum has just hit Turn 20 and in the parlance of the streets (where I grew up, yo!) – Shit just got real. Everything has kicked off as all the potential demonic rulers turn on one another. So now that decisions have been made, and because I posses as much skill in long term planning as an Anglo Irish Bank manager, I feel it’s safe to reveal the comedy of errors that were my initial ten turns (also Simon’s so far in the lead I cant imagine revealing this will do much damage).
When we last left our demonic hopeful I was guiding him through Turn 1. My strategic planning for turn 1 involved a lot of wondering what the fuck was going on and poking around the interface going “Oh, what’s that? whats that? Is it a squirrel?”. It was not in fact a squirrel. It was a demonic lance belonging to a cheerful chap known as the leper king. It would be mine. But not at the moment because I lacked the resources. However I was determined to pick up something and opted for a terrible manuscript of untold demonic power (not really, its power was quite well told in the description). I also thought it best to increase my resources and sent my minions out to scavenge around hell for me.
Along comes turn 2, my demonic mail order completed with no hiccups and I received some paltry resources from my minions. Heres a pro tip, seriously, if you are going to play this game MAKE SURE YOU HAVE A CHARISMA OF AT LEAST 2. Charisma determines the amount of tribute i.e. resources, you receive. These are vital and with a Charisma of 1 you are going to be hurting when trying to pay for anything. Did I mention I put one in each of my stats? More on that later.
Turn 2 consisted of using my mighty pot bellied legion to conquer one of those fancy buildings (Places of Power) on the map. I couldnt help but notice Rainbow Dash’s (fuck I hate you Sean) legion had disappeared from the map. But I was too busy marshaling my out of fit forces and once more whipping my minions into securing tribute.
Lots of Places of Power occupation on the go. As the game continues the message that Haruspicus (Simon) has taken possession of so and so will be seen with worrying regularity. Really I should have taken note earlier. But at the time I was surprised by the whole “Victory” thing. Victory? Dont I just need to occupy the area and I get the place of power? Oh, they have stats. Seems you have to conquer them. Suddenly the cause of Sean’s missing legion became clear.
Looking through the Bazaar (futilely as I was broke) I spied the beautiful ridge-headed building block of my long term plan, Naphula, a fairly hard Praetor. Praetors are your personal champions that you can attach to your legions to buff said legion up. But more importantly, when you get into a Vendetta with another Avatar you can force them into a single combat between your two praetors. I figured if I snapped up a tough praetor earlier on I might be able to take advantage of this.
During Turn 2 and 3 a number of emails urging people to take their fucking turns (this happens a lot, really it would probably be better to set an hour aside each evening for a set amount of turns as each turn is fairly quick so waiting around for everyone to finish can be a bit trying) Sean was complaining he had nothing to do. I thought that was weird as even without a legion there was other stuff to do.
A short face to face with Sean and Simon later it transpired that neither of them knew how to request tribute from their minions. I foolishly opted to tell them how to do it (Click Order, click the red arrow, click Demand Tribute, then Demand Resources). Though I did garner the information that Simon’s forces had mountain walk (and at the same time revealed my idiotic “jack of all trades” approach in giving my avatar 1 in all stats). I also confirmed that Sean’s troops had fallen afoul of a place of power.
After mocking Sean about his foolish troop loss I ran my own troops directly into a place of power, forgetting not just to check its stats but actually forgetting that it could fight back. Total destruction was my, possibly deserved, reward. Bollocks.
Turn’s 5-8 consisted of me huddled in my stronghold cursing my idiocy and using all my orders to gather resources so I could afford to buy some troops or anything to make me relevant again. At this point it might worth be nothing that each turn you can issue up to six orders, each order consumes an order slot and you start off with 2. You should aim to start with more (via perks or higher stats) or increase them quickly (via a number of things, generally relics). By Turn 8 I’d managed to scrimp together enough to purchase Naphula. But as you can only use 8 slots to pay for stuff and all my tribute was in piddly small amounts I had to use a turn (and an order) to consolidate my currency.
Turn 9 saw my glorious return to relevant action. I picked up Naphula and managed to afford to crank my Charisma up a point (thus allowing me to gather more tribute in later turns). With Naphula in hand (ooh err matron) I was ready to unleash my terrible plan! The only slight problem was that I didnt really know how to do so.
Momentarily stymied by my lack of understanding about how the game worked I fell back to demanding more resources and buying some sweet bling for my newly acquired Praetor. I would off course discover in Turn 11 that my newly acquired bling attaches to a legion not a praetor. But more of that anon.
Listening to: Mai Yamane - See You Space Cowboy...