I WANT TO BE A SATAN!
Let's watch a bunch of codexers stab one another in the backs in Solium Infernum!
Table of contents:
Game I
1. Introduction
2. Early Conquests
3. Consolidation of Power
4. Honour Among Thieves
5. Faceslap Delivery
6. The Calm Before the Storm
7. The Joys of War
8. A Pacifist in Hell
9. Heretics! Heretics Everywhere!
10. Scorched Earth
11. Best Laid Schemes of Mice and Men
12. The Throne of Hell
Game II (report never finished, alas)
1. Brave New Hell
2. Peace Through Power
3. Maybe Lightning Strikes Twice
4. Peace and Quiet
Welcome, fair Codexia, to an after-action report of Solium Infernum.
What is that, you ask? Oh, it's pretty simple. You could call it a board game of sorts. Up to 6 players engage in a prestigious and friendly turn-based game of war, deceit and conspiracy in hell.
At the start, a map is more-or-less randomly generated, but following some criteria you input. Each player creates an archfiend avatar, assigning various stats to it - attributes, perks and infernal rank.
Attributes are: Martial Prowess (various legion-combat-oriented abilities), Wickedness (evil destructive magix), Cunning (framing and stealing), Intellect (magic resistance, various supportive rituals), Charisma (used pretty much exclusively for gaining resources).
Perks are too many to list, but two of them require attention. One is Kingmaker - this perk makes everyone in the game paranoid. If you are a kingmaker, you pick a player at the start of the game - if he wins, you win instead. This is why everyone is always supercareful about any suspicious diplomacy and alliances. A lesser version of it is Power Behind the Throne - if you manage to become a blood vassal to one of the players (it's like a permanent alliance where you're an inconsequential bootlick), should that player win, you win instead.
As for infernal ranks - these are a representative showing how important you are in the hierarchy of Hell (starting at a puny lord, through Baron, Marquis and Duke, and ending with Prince). This is important because the higher your rank, the less fiends of lower ranks can demand from you and win less prestige if they insult you. Also, should there be a tie on an auction in the infernal bazaar, the player with the higher rank wins.
How to play? Play to win. To reign is worth ambition. Second place? Fuck that. Winner takes all.
Victory is achieved in a number of ways. First is gentlemanly - everyone accumulates prestige throughout the course of the game, and the guy with the highest prestige at the end wins. Games take a random amount of turns - each turn a 'conclave token' has a chance of being drawn. The more tokens drawn already, the higher the chance a new one will be drawn. This game is on a 'long' setting and won't end before 20 tokens are drawn.
Second is less gentlemanly - if you feel up to it, you can assault the Pandemonium and dethrone the Infernal Conclave. Blowing the Pandemonium up is no small feat, and to make matters worse, you have to hold out 5 turns afterwards without getting kicked out of the game - i. e. if someone conquers your starting stronghold, you go down. And since attacking the conclave makes you excommunicated, everyone can blow you up without repercussions.
Third is the least gentlemanly, but perhaps most tough - simply be the last man standing when the earth gets scorched.
Oh, and while on the matter of waging war - you can't just cross other players' borders and assault their turf. You first have to provoke them into a vendetta, by insulting or demanding resources from them. If you gather enough vendettas, you can start a blood feud - basically a permanent vendetta that allows you to take enemy strongholds.
Each player usually starts with 2 order slots for each turn. Raising attributes to 4 (except charisma) unlocks additional orders.
Those are the basic basics. Let's raise the curtains!
I want to be a Satan!
Chapter I - Introduction
The vilest of the vile, an ensemble of six archfiends withattitude big plans for the future gathered to forge the future of Hell. Lucifer has disappeared and someone had to take his place.
Dramatis Personae:
Roxette - A cunning daemonette of the spiteful Roxorowicz
(where possible, I will post logs from the players diaries. Unfortunately, not everyone kept them, and most end abruptly)
King Herold V - The condemned mortal envoy of a certain Norwegian, herostratus
Devil Deso - The infernal incarnation of all that is Brazil, desocupado
Jaedar The Vile - Waiting in the shadows to amass an entire library of manuscripts of power.
Alexoi - This gluttonous abomination's sole goal in the game is to sit on an ever-increasing pile of resources. Alex had big plans for such a small man.
Caesar - Prince of Hell, the one of the highest standing. root has made sure to take minimal damage from diplomacy and hoard the entire bazaar for himself.
The Gameworld
Here are the starting positions, legions and the entire map.
The buildings inside each player's territory are stronghold - think of them like Dungeon Keeper dungeon hearts.
The little figurines symbolise your legions - they run around the map, flagging territory and capturing places of power. They cannot cross water/swamps/mountains/fissures unless they have the 'flying' or 'mountain walk' perk.
The unclaimed buildings are places of power - they are neutral thingies that need to be captured by legions. When captured, they give prestige per turn, and sometimes give some unique abilities. For example, the Theatre of sloth has "dark sanctuary", which makes your archfiend immune to attribute damage.
Player starting legions:
Legion stats: HP means how much damage it can take before dissolving. Loyalty is a modifier to rolls against deceit rituals. Level is a modifier to magic resistance, as well as a roll in battle that can give you a random bonus to any stat if successful.
Combat is basically like this: [Level roll] -> Ranged vs Ranged -> Melee vs Melee -> Infernal vs Infernal. This happens twice.
As for the bazaar, let's take a look at that.
Legions on sale. 'Min bid' is how many resources of each type you must bid at least to enter an auction. You can overbid if you're very concerned about someone else snatching the goods. Some legions also require an upkeep per turn.
Now let's check the praetors. Praetors are your officers - you can send them to command legions and increase their stats, or challenge enemy praetors to single combat vendettas. Or even challenge praetors from the Pandemonium for massive prestige gain.
Level and loyalty are p. much the same as for legions. Attack/defence/infernal are combat 'resources' the praetors can assign to various moves in single combat. Luck is a stat that can randomly reduce damage taken by your praetor.
Raum is a fairly good legion commander, giving good +stats.
Orias, on the other hand, has some pretty fat praetor stats - high hp and good attack/defence. He can also be deadly when assigned to a melee specialist legion.
These were praetors. Now for artifacts and relics.
Artifacts are items assigned to legions. Relics profit your archfiend avatar. Their level indicates how hard it is for enemies to steal them.
Last are the manuscripts. They almost always come in 'parts', and need to be fully assembled to use.
They can influence very much everything. They can increase legion stats, praetor stats, avatar stats or decrease them for the enemies.
And that would be all when it comes to setting the scene. Next time we'll start the actual infernal game of thrones. The ode of a pacifist in hell. The dirge of the lemming run. The poo-flinging and accusations of thievery and collaboration. The average friendly game of Solium Infernum!
Let's watch a bunch of codexers stab one another in the backs in Solium Infernum!
Table of contents:
Game I
1. Introduction
2. Early Conquests
3. Consolidation of Power
4. Honour Among Thieves
5. Faceslap Delivery
6. The Calm Before the Storm
7. The Joys of War
8. A Pacifist in Hell
9. Heretics! Heretics Everywhere!
10. Scorched Earth
11. Best Laid Schemes of Mice and Men
12. The Throne of Hell
Game II (report never finished, alas)
1. Brave New Hell
2. Peace Through Power
3. Maybe Lightning Strikes Twice
4. Peace and Quiet
Welcome, fair Codexia, to an after-action report of Solium Infernum.
What is that, you ask? Oh, it's pretty simple. You could call it a board game of sorts. Up to 6 players engage in a prestigious and friendly turn-based game of war, deceit and conspiracy in hell.
At the start, a map is more-or-less randomly generated, but following some criteria you input. Each player creates an archfiend avatar, assigning various stats to it - attributes, perks and infernal rank.
Attributes are: Martial Prowess (various legion-combat-oriented abilities), Wickedness (evil destructive magix), Cunning (framing and stealing), Intellect (magic resistance, various supportive rituals), Charisma (used pretty much exclusively for gaining resources).
Perks are too many to list, but two of them require attention. One is Kingmaker - this perk makes everyone in the game paranoid. If you are a kingmaker, you pick a player at the start of the game - if he wins, you win instead. This is why everyone is always supercareful about any suspicious diplomacy and alliances. A lesser version of it is Power Behind the Throne - if you manage to become a blood vassal to one of the players (it's like a permanent alliance where you're an inconsequential bootlick), should that player win, you win instead.
As for infernal ranks - these are a representative showing how important you are in the hierarchy of Hell (starting at a puny lord, through Baron, Marquis and Duke, and ending with Prince). This is important because the higher your rank, the less fiends of lower ranks can demand from you and win less prestige if they insult you. Also, should there be a tie on an auction in the infernal bazaar, the player with the higher rank wins.
How to play? Play to win. To reign is worth ambition. Second place? Fuck that. Winner takes all.
Victory is achieved in a number of ways. First is gentlemanly - everyone accumulates prestige throughout the course of the game, and the guy with the highest prestige at the end wins. Games take a random amount of turns - each turn a 'conclave token' has a chance of being drawn. The more tokens drawn already, the higher the chance a new one will be drawn. This game is on a 'long' setting and won't end before 20 tokens are drawn.
Second is less gentlemanly - if you feel up to it, you can assault the Pandemonium and dethrone the Infernal Conclave. Blowing the Pandemonium up is no small feat, and to make matters worse, you have to hold out 5 turns afterwards without getting kicked out of the game - i. e. if someone conquers your starting stronghold, you go down. And since attacking the conclave makes you excommunicated, everyone can blow you up without repercussions.
Third is the least gentlemanly, but perhaps most tough - simply be the last man standing when the earth gets scorched.
Oh, and while on the matter of waging war - you can't just cross other players' borders and assault their turf. You first have to provoke them into a vendetta, by insulting or demanding resources from them. If you gather enough vendettas, you can start a blood feud - basically a permanent vendetta that allows you to take enemy strongholds.
Each player usually starts with 2 order slots for each turn. Raising attributes to 4 (except charisma) unlocks additional orders.
Those are the basic basics. Let's raise the curtains!
I want to be a Satan!
Chapter I - Introduction
The vilest of the vile, an ensemble of six archfiends with
Dramatis Personae:
Roxette - A cunning daemonette of the spiteful Roxorowicz
(where possible, I will post logs from the players diaries. Unfortunately, not everyone kept them, and most end abruptly)
Ok this is going to be intredasting.
Starting stats 0/3/2/0/3 [that's martial/cunning/intellect/wickedness/charisma], marquis of heil, obscure [less resource tribute obtained when asked for]. Who needs resources from minions, when you can steal them from suckers o_@
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VFNRh26TPmM
King Herold V - The condemned mortal envoy of a certain Norwegian, herostratus
Devil Deso - The infernal incarnation of all that is Brazil, desocupado
Jaedar The Vile - Waiting in the shadows to amass an entire library of manuscripts of power.
Alexoi - This gluttonous abomination's sole goal in the game is to sit on an ever-increasing pile of resources. Alex had big plans for such a small man.
My character build is completely focused on getting resources. I have 1 in all
my stats, and I got all the bonus perks for tributes. Myobjective is toget better
attributes as fast as I can, and work with what I manage to get. It is specially
important toget extra phase slots, as it will allow me to reign and demand tribute
at the same time.
Caesar - Prince of Hell, the one of the highest standing. root has made sure to take minimal damage from diplomacy and hoard the entire bazaar for himself.
The Gameworld
Here are the starting positions, legions and the entire map.
The buildings inside each player's territory are stronghold - think of them like Dungeon Keeper dungeon hearts.
The little figurines symbolise your legions - they run around the map, flagging territory and capturing places of power. They cannot cross water/swamps/mountains/fissures unless they have the 'flying' or 'mountain walk' perk.
The unclaimed buildings are places of power - they are neutral thingies that need to be captured by legions. When captured, they give prestige per turn, and sometimes give some unique abilities. For example, the Theatre of sloth has "dark sanctuary", which makes your archfiend immune to attribute damage.
Player starting legions:
Legion stats: HP means how much damage it can take before dissolving. Loyalty is a modifier to rolls against deceit rituals. Level is a modifier to magic resistance, as well as a roll in battle that can give you a random bonus to any stat if successful.
Combat is basically like this: [Level roll] -> Ranged vs Ranged -> Melee vs Melee -> Infernal vs Infernal. This happens twice.
1. FINALLY I DON'T START WITH A FUCKSHIT LEGION, OMG. Let us march towards the pillar of skulls! After that either the theatre of sloth or the garden of delights, we'll see where Root goes. Gonna bid on Furfur, too.
Turn 1:
Horribru starting location. Most PoPs closer to other people than me. Will go for a mad run for the wood of the suicides, then maybe the garden of infernal delight. Hopefully, Cheddars weak starting legion will have him not contesting that.
Edit: Oooh, trick. Might be that I can use my mountain walk to corner the mouth of abbadon, IF roxor goes west instead of east. However this plan can be cancelled easily by him.
In shop: Nothing game breakingly awesome like adamantium legion or book of enoch, but some nice stuff like darkwing legion. That annoying cunt the oblibian orb is there, and Impale manuscript is perhaps worth overbidding for. Prophecy head should be easy to get as well, few people value that shit highly.
In the short run: I overbid with 2 drops for impale. What I sacrifice for this is the ability to demand tribute and hopefully bid for furfur next turn.
Short run goal: - Take the wood of suicides, or mouth of abaddon. Go even further if lucky.
- Get Impale manuscript
- Bid on Furfur, or barring that, Raum.
Long term Goal: - Get Lemegetong seal and upgrade my int for an early third order
- After the above: decide upon a nearby player to bully.
Started far from any place of power, but I think I have a good shot at the
wood of suicides. The Theatre of Sloth is near too, but Caesar is bound to get it.
The mouth of Abbadon is nearby too, but if Roxor wants it, he will have the phase
advantage. Still, I will take 3 turns to get to the woods either way, so I will
go near it first. If Roxors seems to go for another place of power, I will try to
take it too.
My legion is fairly crap for now. But if I can get the mekatrix sigil it will transform into something quite mighty.
There's lots of juicy stuff in the shop. Flying minion, artifacts, good praetors and some nice manuscripts...
With a good draw I might get mekatrix next turn. That would be lovely.
Going for the wheel. I can get there in one turn. If I can beat it... well that's another story, I should win unless level advantage fucks me over badly.
As for the bazaar, let's take a look at that.
Legions on sale. 'Min bid' is how many resources of each type you must bid at least to enter an auction. You can overbid if you're very concerned about someone else snatching the goods. Some legions also require an upkeep per turn.
Now let's check the praetors. Praetors are your officers - you can send them to command legions and increase their stats, or challenge enemy praetors to single combat vendettas. Or even challenge praetors from the Pandemonium for massive prestige gain.
Level and loyalty are p. much the same as for legions. Attack/defence/infernal are combat 'resources' the praetors can assign to various moves in single combat. Luck is a stat that can randomly reduce damage taken by your praetor.
Raum is a fairly good legion commander, giving good +stats.
Orias, on the other hand, has some pretty fat praetor stats - high hp and good attack/defence. He can also be deadly when assigned to a melee specialist legion.
These were praetors. Now for artifacts and relics.
Artifacts are items assigned to legions. Relics profit your archfiend avatar. Their level indicates how hard it is for enemies to steal them.
Last are the manuscripts. They almost always come in 'parts', and need to be fully assembled to use.
They can influence very much everything. They can increase legion stats, praetor stats, avatar stats or decrease them for the enemies.
And that would be all when it comes to setting the scene. Next time we'll start the actual infernal game of thrones. The ode of a pacifist in hell. The dirge of the lemming run. The poo-flinging and accusations of thievery and collaboration. The average friendly game of Solium Infernum!
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