The first word I think of, looking back on my first 20 turns of Solium Infernum, is anxiety. With all of Hell laid out before me, and so many ways to seize it for myself, I had to make the most of every turn and those precious two actions I could take. But that’s the appeal of Solium Infernum, a remake of a classic strategy game from Armello creators League of Geeks; it offers a plethora of options but limits their frequency, making each turn a hellish clash of subterfuge, cunning, and two-faced lies.
In the annals of PC cult-classics, Solium Infernum is as much hidden as it is a gem. This strategy game from Victor J. Davis and Cryptic Comet certainly inspired some love when it first hit the scene in 2009. It picked up steam as a darling among bloggers at the time, even inspiring a particularly good series of journals from writers over at Rock Paper Shotgun.
League of Geeks, who you might know from fellow strategy title Armello or the Early Access space anime throwback sim Jumplight Odyssey, are reviving this classic with Davis’ blessing. The result is a strategy game that is fairly faithful to the original, while providing a new look at the battle for the less-appealing side of the afterlife.
Better to rule than serve
If you’re new to Solium Infernum, the general stage-setting is fairly straightforward. The devil has left Hell, and in their absence, the many Archfiends are now competing for rule over Pandæmonium. Your chosen Archfiend competes with several others, who can all muster forces, enact stratagems, scheme, taunt, lie, and more to get what Prestige they can, eventually seizing the title.
One of the most fascinating, incredible parts of both the original Solium Infernum and its remake is the map. Hell, you see, goes on forever. It’s also circular. Scroll north, and you’ll eventually circle back to where you were. Both longitude and latitude eventually come back around, so that enemy far off to the east is actually probably very close to the west.
What this does is create some absolutely wonderful strategic revelations, audible “a-ha’s” as you realize that an enemy has heavily fortified their northern border to you, leaving their southern approach wide open. Enemies are always at your doorstep in Solium Infernum.
Of course, that’s getting ahead of ourselves. You can’t just invade an Archfiend’s territory all willy-nilly. This is Hell, after all; we’ve got some decorum, for Satan’s sake. There has to be casus belli, which usually comes in the form of a provocation. My Archfiend can demand another, say Lilith, to deliver monetary Tribute. If she refuses, then she has personally insulted me, and I can provoke her into a competition, determining that whoever seizes more territory from each other, or eliminates the others’ legions first, may gain much valued Prestige.
Social standing
Solium Infernum might look, on its surface, like a 4X game. But if you approach it strictly from a militaristic standpoint, you’re missing some of the finer details. This is really a game about politics, and playing each player off each other.
A key component of the game’s stressors is how rapidly the table state shrinks. Within a few turns, each Archfiend had rapidly set out and captured hexes around their individual Sanctums, fitting for the power vacuum left in Lucifer’s absence. Lines and borders are formed, and now it’s all jockeying and arguing.
Really, I don’t know if I’d call the political layer of Solium Infernum statecraft, so much as its a bunch of petulant demon-children arguing who’s the toughest kid in the yard. It’s seen in the way you taunt, lie, and snip at each other, and ways the original design encourages both subtle deceit and outright bluffing.
I’d provoke foes way stronger than me, only to let them walk into a legion I’d put a Stratagem on. They might have been counting on winning in the combat turn order; battles are determined in stages of Ranged, Melee, then Infernal points, with the lesser value taking the difference as damage. A 9 Melee force could easily route a 2 Melee one, but what if their Ranged values were secretly much higher, able to end the fight before it ever came to martial blows?
It also helps that Solium Infernum has a litany of hidden moves, through rituals and spells that can secretly alter the game state. Everything plays out at the same time, too. Each player submits their moves for the turn, from demanding tribute to moving, attacking, provoking, or bidding on the bazaar, and then each turn plays out sequentially, starting with that turn’s regent. You could get the jump on a foe if you’re ahead of them in the turn order, or watch your plan crumble if you didn’t anticipate them outmaneuvering you in kind.
Demonic succession
Even precious resources can feel difficult to come by, making every use of them matter. And the currency system is beautifully frustrating. You get resources in tokens, stacking up as 1’s, 2’s, 3’s or more of specific currencies, like Souls or Ichor.
Everything, from summoning new legions to the field to learning new rituals or bidding on books at the bazaar, costs resources. And those tokens don’t naturally stack together. If something costs 2 Souls, and you only have a 3-Soul token, you’re spending that full token. You can only hold so many tokens too. Maybe you’d like to spend an order, one of only two you have each turn, making your money stack neater?
Solium Infernum is a beautifully frustrating game to just stare at. Frequently, I’d find myself pondering how I got myself into such a hole, only to feel on top of the world a few turns later. It’s a delightfully devious set-up that, in a short 20 turns, led to incredible highs.
On the remake side of things, League of Geeks has stayed largely true to the original’s form, while injecting some modern looks. I like that, even though this new version is 3D and has a vaguely Armello sheen over it, Solium Infernum has retained its vision of a gorgeously desolate Hell. Vast ashen wastes and marching legions of horrors look fantastic, and the card art is a particular high note.
I still feel like I’ve only had a taste of what’s possible with Solium Infernum. This version I played, a demo that will soon be available in the Steam Next Fest, was solely single-player. While I love beating up the CPUs, I really do feel like this game will shine in its multiplayer. It’s got some real friendship-scarring design behind it, where everyone leaves the table with at least a few daggers in their back. I can’t wait.
Solium Infernum is coming to PC via Steam. No release date’s been set as of yet, but it’s aiming for early 2024.
