Vic Davis of Armageddon Empires fame has announced his next game, Solium Infernum. I suspect many strategy gamers will now start waiting for winter 2009 with pleasant anticipation.
Solium Infernum will have
turn-based
simultaneous turns
six person
play-by-email multiplayer (also AI players usable)
and a lot of strategic choices.
The game is about ascending to the throne of Hell via any and all means available. It sounds like some of them will be pretty sophisticated, lying and framing up other players, for example.
It’s old school emailing like a game of Dominions 3. I am trying to implement all the sending of the files in the game… you enter the email address and the game sends the file. The host will have to accept the emails from the players and just save the players’ orders to the correct folder.
Yes, I don’t really know any other tricks at this point but I’ve made some special modifications… she’ll go point 5 past light speed… smooth scrolling maps and a zoom out function. The UI is better :) No really it is.
QT3’s own Ben Sones is doing the map art… and he’s probably pissed that I didn’t wait to use the final art for that little snap shot. :) The map really looks awesome though… lots of infernal features, jagged mountains, the rivers Styx, Acheron, Phlegethon, Lethe … chasms, sink holes, and the Places of Power really look cool (and evil). It’s a wonderfully stylized map… just for comparison I’m the half trained monkey in photoshop that did the AE map!
Those map shots feature early versions of the tile art (it’s also reduced a lot–the hexes are about twice that size in the actual game), and that tower and legion marker are just placeholder art. There should be nicer versions of all that stuff available soon.
That would be really hot. That’s the only thing I find rather less appealing about PBEM games as compared to simultaneous turn games. Even as far as I’d prefer PBEMs if they included that automation.
Can’t wait for this. I’ve been rediscovering the joy of AE over the past couple of days, finally giving Cult of the Wastelands a crack, and it really does spice up the gameboard. And I’m finally building decks with an eye to a small garrison force having just lost a sure win game to an Outrider. Again.
Definitely sounds like a step in the right direction though with more card pulls and game events. Really looking forward to it :)
