Doom meets Civilization: Solium Infernum

[The_J]

A couple of weeks ago a new interesting game was announced, which just today popped on my radar: Solium Infernum. PCGamesN has as a headline "Doom meets Civilization as Hellish strategy game gets triple-A remake". Apparently the remake of a not well known 2009 strategy game, it is set in a Hell scenario (therefore the "Doom"), but it's a 4X game. It's a real time grand strategy game (like the Paradox games), and played on a hex map. It seems to also feature diplomacy and management options.
Overall the pciture is not yet clear, but it seems we should keep an eye on it.

 

[The_J]

There now exists a first actual trailer, and it looks pretty interesting. Civ in hell might describe this actually well.

 

[Blake00]

Proper gameplay video is here as they gave GamerZakh a copy.. I watched 10mins so far and haven't seen any city management/development.. seems to be more capturing resource points and spending on ability and summon cards so maybe not quite as Civ like as we thought unfortunately, but still an interesting 4X though!

 

[The_J]

Maybe it's just not too much of it?
Have you played Disciples I/II? It was also limited in there.
Okay, that could TBH have been better though. (great games otherwise)

 

[Blake00]

Yeah it's definitely more Disciples and Heroes of Might & Magic like with resource points being the primary economy instead of cities. Although even in them you still have more city management then I'm seeing here. I wonder what happens when you double click on your starting city/fortress in this game as it seems like Zakh never clicks on it. Presumably they'll be a public demo in the coming months so hopefully someone here can have a go and if there's any form of city management snap a picture for us here! Gotta say the world graphics aren't blowing me away either, it mostly looks like a white moonscape carpet with very little terrain details.. would be so much better with lots of black rock, lava rivers and volcanoes everywhere however maybe there's other maps in the game that look like that.

Oh and yeah I love Disciples.. funnily enough just 2 days ago I found out about Verok's HD patches and was able to get both Disciples 1 & 2 running in 1080P HD.. could see half the maps haha! I've still gotta play the newer ones at some point too.
.

 

[The_J]

It has been released today, and currently costs 33.14€ on Steam.

 

[The_J]

The reviews so far seem to like it!
https://www.pcgamesn.com/solium-infernum/review : PCGamesN 9/10
https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/solium-infernum-review RockPaperShotgun also very positive, but I can't find a score right now.

 

[The_J]

Video by Writing Bull (in German).
The title of the video starts this "Good as hell", so I presume he likes it ^^.

 

[The_J]

It seems they have a gameplay series where the devs are playing against each other.

 

[The_J]

Solium Infernum has been included in PCGamesN's list of "The best new PC Games of 2024", see https://www.pcgamesn.com/new-pc-games

 

[Quintillus]

Reading the PCGamesN (what's the N stand for?) review, this stood out:

Likewise, the long-form, asynchronous multiplayer. If you set up a game against your friends, you can log in, input your turn, then log out for two days while the rest of the group responds. It’s great if you’re time-poor but still want a lengthy, multiplayer strategy game. More importantly, it creates these wonderful deliberation and machination periods, where you’re all silently chewing on your next scheme in the days between turns. The magic of Solium Infernum happens in between rounds. Even when you’re away from your PC, you’re still playing it in your head.

They also talk about how it's more about being sly/savvy than building up resources. Who can be the most successfully fiendish and Machiavellian?

Several of the Steam reviews mentions the async multiplayer too (80%-90% positive), and the top-voted one mentions the AI being lackluster (although the recent patch lists quite a few AI improvements). References to play-by-email Diplomacy as an analogy also come up.

Thus I'm thinking, it's probably not the game for me to pick up and play single player, but with the right group of friends, it could be quite fun. I have fun memories of playing asynchronous Diplomacy, plotting my moves during the day and sending proposals that may or may not have been entirely without hidden catches to other players. Has to be the right group of friends though, the type who are willing to betray each other in games, but hopefully less so in real life. Too bad the friend who comes to mind as likely perfect for playing an archfiend in this game, and absolutely willing to betray friends, no matter how close of friends, to win, is both far too busy with real life and only into board games rather than video.