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[E. Albright]

The rug (which really tied that legion together, man) got pulled out from under them before the phase they were slotted to move in, but they flew into battle none-the-less. I can only assume they were already aloft when the winged monkeys came for it, and their momentum carried them to their destination, where they were fortunate enough to land in a pool of Blood that broke their fall.

[More precisely, it looks like SI only check movement legality when you issue orders, not when they're executed. They Hunger were slotted to move in phase 3 IIRC. The Carpet, which was what let them fly and thus execute the move they had planned, was stolen in phase 1. They proceeded to move anyway in phase 3, despite no longer having the artifact granting them Flying (3)...]

[Il Palazzo]

Well, we do keep learning. Myself, I thought planar lock cast in an early phase would prevent later orders from being executed.

[Il Palazzo]

Come on, people. Once more into the breach. It is, in all likelihood, the last turn after all. One but last at worst.
I just want to put this baby out of its misery.

[lijacote]

Sorry. It's my fault. I was gone for the weekend, and got back late Sunday. Early Monday was spent, now is Later Monday, and I can send in my turn.

[Cheeetar]

All who wish to pay tribute to their liege may form an orderly line afront the palace. You may attend directly supervising the delivery of your debt, or you may be brought later in a rather more regrettable state than if you had submitted.

Durus,
Ruler of the Kingdom of Hell, favoured of the Infernal Conclave, Steel Prince of the Infernal Ranges, Damned Admiral of the Magma Lakes, Overseer of the Sixth Bolgia, Subjugator of All He Surveys

Spoiler: Game Over, Man. (click to show/hide)

Good game, all. I kind of strangeholded as best I could when I got an early game advantage, but I was severely worried towards the endgame when pretty much everybody was taking nips out of my sides (ending the game with two PoPs of the ~6 I had earlier, and no way to defend myself but my vassal (given my lakelocked legion)). I probably would have faltered much earlier had people been more concerned with the lead I was taking- very fortunate to have gone unchallenged for as long as I did.

Also: Anybody up for another?

[Delta Foxtrot]

This game took what, 4-ish months? And with Christmas/New Year it'll be early -15 (if) when the rematch gets properly rolling. I'll put a tentative maybe on it. I'd prefer to be PBEM-free from May onwards so that might be a factor with new game settings.

My build was far too generalist, 1/1/1/0/3 left me too thinly spread to do any serious rituals or doomlegions. Or it might just be that I played my first proper game
Either way, I feel I'd have gotten more miles in with a bit more focused build. More ritual slots would have been nice too, 2 felt quite constricting.

It was quite a learning experience so I wouldn't mind giving this another go.

[E. Albright]

Cheetar, we were all very concerned with you much earlier than it may have appeared and conspiring against you, but that damned Lash made it very hard for us to oppose you. If absolutely nothing else, it definitely cut down on infighting.

Having said that, I knew this would play radically different as an MP game vs. an SP game, but I was still blindsided. I never had so keen a sense of how low ranks could hurt you when playing against the AI; had I had the least clue I would have forgone my used-exactly-once Inspirational Leader in exchange for more rank. Generally, I was far too leisurely in shifting from building myself up to seizing power for myself, so I sat at the bottom of the heap after my first abortive war with Durus, and never really pulled myself up even a little until the very end when I rabble-roused the Great Crusade against Durus... at which point I realized it was too late for me to do anything but play kingmaker, and turned my coat at the last minute. Which seemed fitting enough for the sweet, innocent young baroness of the Bolgia of Hypocrisy, but still.

I'd be willing to do another game, maybe, but not right away, I think, and I'd like some assurance that another 50 turns won't take another 140 days. 

[lijacote]

As one of the factors in making this needlessly long, I'll be honest: Durus' intense lead and seeming invulnerability made it a bit unmotivating. We did plot, and that was fun, I guess. I thought we could excommunicate ourselves and then attack Durus directly, but that didn't work out.

[Karlito]

Yeah, being a Prince seems to outweigh the other traits (unless you really know what you're doing, I assume). Taking Infernal Cardinal certainly did give me plenty of tribute, though i was kind of terrible about spending it in a useful way. Being Paranoid didn't seem to help at all, hardly any of my deceit rituals worked when I needed them too. I pretty much squandered what advantage I might have had in the early game when my combat deception failed against the Palace and my legion died (that worked plenty of times in my single player games  ).

I'd play another game some time, but right now my PBEM commitment is at its max.

[E. Albright]

In depressing hindsight, I could have gotten all the way up to Duchess and given myself 1 point in an attribute without sacrificing anything but my paranoia about legion Loyalty.

(I was Baroness/0-0-0-0-2/Devoted Minions/Infernal Cardinal/Inspiring Leader/Gluttony, for the record. That's a fine SP build, and might even have been okay-ish here if I had expanded better, but it was also a glorious psychological trap lulling me into unwarrantably complacent patience while I wasted turn after turn bolstering my avatar. And Inspiring Leader is mostly useless, paranoia not withstanding.)

[Il Palazzo]

@Karlito - paranoid helps you resist deceit rituals, not cast them


I agree with pretty much everyhting that has been said. Durus' leveled up personal guard turned him into an unstoppable force early on, and only in the past dozen turns or so I felt we've gotten our powers leveled up enough to have any chance of doing something about it. And I agree it was very disheartening - the game was as good as won by Cheetar half way through its running time.
This is not to diminish Cheetar's victory, but to underline what I find to be poor balancing of certain game mechanics.

With five more conclave tokens we could maybe turn it around, although 200 prestige lead over the next contender could be enough to pull through anyway.

I don't remember what stats I begun with, I think it was 0,0,0,2,2 with the ever-popular Infernal Cardinal, Collector of Curiosities and of course Slothful.
Slothful is not as bad as it might seem at first. Makes for a much different playstyle, though. Collector is kinda ok. Gave me some nice manuscripts leading to stat increases (+2 both prophecy and destruction, leading to more order slots relatively early on).

By the end I had six power in destruction, but it still only gave me something like 1/4th of a chance at hitting Durus' legion, going down to negligible if he had any sort of power in prophecy and casting Infernal Premonitions.


Like the rest of you, I'm pretty burned out on SI and maybe PBEM in general, at the moment.
We'll see about a rematch next year.

[Cheeetar]

Durus

Spoiler: Before (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: After (click to show/hide)

Every single attribute point you have adds to your legions power at generation, so I sunk a bunch of points into stuff I otherwise wouldn't use so I'd have a large stick at the start. I chose a high infernal rank so I could bully people, and offset obscure with a decent starting charisma of 3.

[E. Albright]

[Necro'ing this thread since there was never a dedicated SI thread aside from MP/LP ones, and this was the most recent of those.]

So the people who made Armello are, in their words, "re-imagining and modernis[ing]" Solium Infernum. Not sure how I feel about that.

It sounds like there will be less - possibly no? -flexibility with Avatar customization. Don't like that.

OTOH, given how they did Armello, I suspect they may make MP more playable by shifting from strictly PBEM to an online server model. They suggest both blitz and drawn-out MP will be possible, so I suppose we'll see what we see when we see.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1893810/Solium_Infernum/

[Il Palazzo]

Huh. Armello team and SI is not a pairing I'd come up with myself, but I think I dig it now.

[E. Albright]

I really do like their art style and UI. I'm less fond of their game mechanics, particularly with regards to how they relate to game balance and DLC. We shall see.