Solium Infernum - from the creator of Armageddon Empires

I'll be up for a few learning games in the next few weeks. Maybe we should start a Steam group? GWJ_Infernum or something?

I could play on weekends, or Friday evenings.

Robear wrote:

I'll be up for a few learning games in the next few weeks. Maybe we should start a Steam group? GWJ_Infernum or something?

I could play on weekends, or Friday evenings.

I think just organizing something here in the thread should be pretty easy. Looks like we have interest from Sephirotic, Knightsabre, garion333, Robear, and me. That would be more than enough to get a learning game up and running. I'd be willing to host if you guys or others are still interested.

For the playing schedule I've seen two pretty good options. First is the standard one turn every day or so PBEM set up. Each turn probably shouldn't take more than five or ten minutes so I hope no one would be limited to just the weekend. A second option would be for everyone to get together and have a "live" PBEM game and try to get a couple dozen turns churned out in one evening. A combination of the two might actually be the best option.

I'm down with a turn or two during the day.

Sorry, I thought there was a live option. PBEM one a day is good for me. Can't do more, really, unless we run them in the evening.

Sat down and had my first proper game start to finish today and man, there was some serious drama in there. I had my legions all set up for a nice little vendetta: I'd made a ridiculous demand for tribute, ready to grab a place of power right on the border when he refused.

No sooner had I declared I'd grab it within two turns and moved to take it when The Beast appears and smashes it, turning it to neutral and screwing my plans royally. And an angelic host appeared right next to it. And a fissure apears behind me, completely cutting off my legion from the rest of my territories.

There was a wee bit of swearing at the end of that turn.

I'd be up for a game at some point as well, btw, although much more than one turn a day would probably be unfeasible due to the time difference.

So it has PBEM-style play? May have to give the game a look... could be up for that.

I can definitely do a turn a day, if not more. If I was ballsy enough I could put this on my computer at work seeing as there are so few actions a turn, but I don't think I want to get into that. I'd be fired so fast. Actually, I probably wouldn't. Half the place farms all day on Facebook.

I'll PM you with my email address, Gunner. I haven't even looked into getting the pbem setup. I'm sure it's simple, but Steam has just been putting so many damn games on sale I haven't spent as much time with this as I'd like.

We're not supposed to run Windows at work, unless a customer requires it. We don't use it internally.

I'm down for the turn/day style of play. You know, no harm if we get a few turns in, but we're generally expected to at least submit one turn sort of thing. Steam group sounds like a good idea, as does using Google Wave for diplomacy if all players have it (finally, a good use for it!)

I'm still midway through the manual, getting a bit bogged down, though clearly trying to parse all the different possible modifiers to things isn't a good way to learn. Probably should just hop in to some single player and start twisting knobs, pulling switches, and pushing buttons.

I installed the demo on a virtual machine, and it's running fine so far. I need to plow into the manual to see if this has legs for me before I commit to a purchase, though.

Looks like I'm officially forming a game then. So far I have:

Gamers in Hell
Gunner
garion333

PM me your email if you'd like to play. Could also start thinking about your avatar build if you really want to get ahead.

Lets go with a pretty simple goal of one turn a day once we get into the swing of things. However, it'd be awesome if we could jump start it this weekend sometime. I'm open to suggestions and am pretty flexible, but just to throw one out there how about 9pm eastern on Saturday?

Vic Davis is a guest in the latest Three Moves Ahead podcast. Definitely worth a listen.

Man, they had the maker of AI War on last time. Three Moves Ahead is rocking.

Especially the shows I'm not on.

I was going to add "the only way it'd be better is if Rabbit would show up" but I didn't think you'd be in this thread

Now I know, Rabbit is everywhere.

Actually, that probably doesn't work for me. In a super geeky coincidence, my friend is having people over to play board games on saturday. I don't know when that's over with, or when I "can" leave, but when I do I'm supposed to be going out for another friend's b-day.

So, no, I can't do Saturday. Friday and Sunday are good unless something changes.

I'd rather do an evening or afternoon start. 9pm is going to limit me to about two hours at a go. But if someone is limited by work or something, I can deal with it.

I could do Friday evening then if Saturday is no good. Maybe something like 7:30, or would that be too late also? Or Sunday after 8:00.

My, this is getting complicated. If we can't get a time worked easily out its really no problem though to just start the game like normal.

I've gotten two more sign ups for the game today, bringing us to four out of a potential six:

Edit: and Sephirotic, bringing us to five

Gamers in Hell
Gunner
garion333
Robear
7inchsplit
Sephirotic

7inchsplit said he'd be down for the 9pm eastern kickoff time. Robear, garion, and any others that sign up, does that or some other time this weekend work for you?

Send those emails over if you want one of the last two slots!

@rabbit
It really is a shame when you can't make it for TMA, especially for the interview shows since that is imo one of your biggest strengths. Hope your schedule clears up for the future.

I don't have the game yet, but I'm looking at being part of a PBE game in the future. However, I hate to ask, but why is it important that everyone start at the same time? Isn't time-shifting the primary appeal of PBE?

Gunner wrote:

I could do Friday evening then if Saturday is no good. Maybe something like 7:30, or would that be too late also? Or Sunday after 8:00.

I'm free Friday evening, as well, starting at 6 PM Pacific/9 Eastern. Sunday I'm free during the day, but alas, not during the evening. I'd be happy to get a couple hours of live time in, then switching over to day-by-day.

Oh, wait, it's pbem, not live? In that case, we just set a 9pm deadline and start the game like Saturday morning, right? Sounds great.

adam.greenbrier wrote:

I don't have the game yet, but I'm looking at being part of a PBE game in the future. However, I hate to ask, but why is it important that everyone start at the same time? Isn't time-shifting the primary appeal of PBE?

We're trying to set a time up so we can all do pbe in "real time" to get things started faster. It's basically just us trying to quickstart the game some we don't have to wait for two weeks worth or turns to get the game really rolling.

I'm good with Friday and Sunday. I can squeeze in Saturday morning especially since I'm in Colorado, so Mountain time. Just not 8 am EST, but I'm usually up by 7 my time (9 am EST).

garion333 wrote:

We're trying to set a time up so we can all do pbe in "real time" to get things started faster. It's basically just us trying to quickstart the game some we don't have to wait for two weeks worth or turns to get the game really rolling.

Yes, well, be practical then.

With the simple graphics, you could probably install Remote Desktop on your home PC, connect to it from work, and run your turns remotely.

After playing the demo I decided to jump in and buy it. Hopefully the AI is fairly interesting or I can get into the game you guys are planning.

adam.greenbrier wrote:
garion333 wrote:

We're trying to set a time up so we can all do pbe in "real time" to get things started faster. It's basically just us trying to quickstart the game some we don't have to wait for two weeks worth or turns to get the game really rolling.

Yes, well, be practical then. :P

You're just jealous we're playing at all, so you can just go be snarky somewhere else then.

So I just got the green light from work to work from home on Wednesdays. I can play all day Wednesdays now. Well, after next week.

@Petrified Just PM Gunner with your email address. It looks like we have one slot left. If there's a bunch more interest I'm pretty sure I can swing more than one game at once.

Done and Done!

So do we want to make Google Wave our venue for diplomacy? I just got a handful of invites in if y'all need them.

Made it all the way through the rules and started a learning game last night. So far I haven't experienced to much in the way of rituals and their effects, but, wow, the diplomacy restrictions are fantastic, and really make the on board play very strange. I love that you have to set a goal and time limit for your vendettas, which with the order limits mean you really have to commit all your energy toward resolving them. It also means frustrating them with a well-timed event or through rituals is totally viable.

I sort of wish the Bazaar were a bit more interesting, more of an auction house and less of a store. That might be difficult to do given the PBeM focus, but it would be cool if the prices slowly dropped over time or if some actual bidding occurred. Also, I think the CCG metaphor could be stronger, but I guess the design took it in a different direction.

So it looks like we're all good to go then. The final list will be:

Gamers in Hell
Gunner
garion333
Robear
7inchsplit
Sephirotic
Petriefied

I'll get the .inv files sent today. This Google Wave stuff sounds kinda interesting, but I know absolutely nothing about it and certainly don't have an account yet. Care to explain a bit more?

Looks like we're probably not going to be able to work out a time this weekend to get a 'live' jumpstart based on the lack of interest from most of the players. So we'll just try to shoot for getting one (or more!) turn a day in. The game starts picking up pretty quickly so it shouldn't be a real problem.