Solium Infernum lives!

[El Guapo]

AWS260, is Eligos still showing up for you anywhere in your interface, in terms of assigning praetors or when you look at your list of praetors in the vault, etc.? As far as I can tell the issue seems to be that the game is still regarding him as being your praetor and not mine.

[AWS260]

I'll check this evening.

[El Guapo]

I'll check this evening.

Also I'm assuming that this is just an unfixable (for this game) bug that I need to live with, but if you do see Eligos if you could just poke around a bit at different settings (can you try to assign Eligos to a praetor?) that would be great. Ideally something can shake it loose and cause the game to fix the problem.

[El Guapo]

Looks like the server's down. Presumably everyone at the company is focused on fixing my praetor bug.

[baelthazar]

Things that happened (will put in Spoiler tags but this is all public knowledge of the game state):

Spoiler:

1. The Beast only got to munch one legion, but it was tasty.
2. Ezerebet is now a Blood Vassal to Lilith, really clinching Lilith's prestige lead.
3. Lilith can't be the target of demands for five turns, and with only 9 turns left the choices for how to lower that prestige lead are minimal. Barring a surprise excommunication, there isn't much we can do.
4. Lilith also has Pandemonium surrounded except for one canton that I own. Even the Beast can't take Pandemonium without support, a powerful artifact, or a Praetor.

Where things went wrong for Belial (Demons stay out):

Spoiler:

1. Early on, I really pushed to get my powers higher to get access to better plots, more ritual slots, and more orders. That led me to choose the "Raise Prophecy to 6" Plot, which would have given me a nice 30 Prestige. I was helped by The Mouth of Abbadon nearby, which raises Prophecy by 1. But I declared it publicly, had to spend way to much time generating tribute, and lost the Mouth of Abbadon to Lilith. Also, and this may be more opinion than fact, Prophecy has nice information powers but not as many utility powers. Deceit would have been better.
2. I was always legion poor - but I had upgraded my legion with a nice event. Unfortunately, that ended up being a detriment when the first angel came in and killed it - meaning I had a much longer wait time for it to respawn. The focus on growing power meant not spending on legions, artifacts, and manuscripts.
3. I was typically able to weather early demands because I had excess tribute due to zooming up the ranks (blood was also not needed for growing prophecy). This became less true as the other demons caught up with my ranks and then started demanding artifacts and praetors.
4. I learned the hard way that losing a legion with a praetor and artifact attached destroys the praetor and artifact. I got a devastating hit when Astaroth blasted my legion with a ritual (and my destruction protection ritual did not protect me enough). I had spent a LOT of resources making a legion able to overcome how outnumbered I was and it all just slipped away.
5. Every time I was close to getting 6 in Prophecy, a manuscript or random event drained it. Man, that hurt. It happened at least twice.

[El Guapo]

BTW the turn designation on the game (42/50) is a little misleading because the game doesn't end at turn 50. Rather that's when the Conclave meeting starts. The game ends 5 - 13 turns after that (basically the conclave meeting has five phases, and each turn there's a percentage chance (that increases) of the next phase starting, and when the fifth phase happens the game ends).

Also I have a work trip on Monday - Tuesday, so I probably will not be able to take my turn between Monday morning and Tuesday evening.

[Zarathud]

Shit, we’re that close to the game end!?! I need to drag this out to feed my Legions.

[AWS260]

I'll check this evening.

Also I'm assuming that this is just an unfixable (for this game) bug that I need to live with, but if you do see Eligos if you could just poke around a bit at different settings (can you try to assign Eligos to a praetor?) that would be great. Ideally something can shake it loose and cause the game to fix the problem.

I worked super late and forgot to check. Will try again today.

Update: Eligos doesn't show up anywhere for me, sorry.

[El Guapo]

Well it was kind of looking like I was going to cruise for victory, only in a bit of an earthquake Andromalius signed up to serve the false devil Belial. With that prestige boost looks like this is going to go down to the wire.

[Zarathud]

Belial would be winning if someone hadn’t tied me up with diplomatic demands. Shame on you lackeys!

I get to be spoiler, which frankly could be pretty fun over the next few turns.

[El Guapo]

Question for a different SI game - if you order a legion to move through where another friendly legion is, the legion will 'teleport' across the friendly legion, right? Such that if you order one legion to attack an enemy legion that's on the other side of your friendly legion, that order will fail because legions cannot teleport into battle, right?

[baelthazar]

Question for a different SI game - if you order a legion to move through where another friendly legion is, the legion will 'teleport' across the friendly legion, right? Such that if you order one legion to attack an enemy legion that's on the other side of your friendly legion, that order will fail because legions cannot teleport into battle, right?

I had that happen when I ordered one through my stronghold, but I don't know about another legion.

Since we are winding down here, I am thinking about getting a second game going (including a newbie friend of mine who just bought the game). Anyone else want in? Hepcat, you ready?

[AWS260]

I'd be up for it.

[Zarathud]

I’m in. This has been fun, although next time I’m killing someone’s praetors.

I’ve been dying for blood drop tribute this entire game.

[El Guapo]

Shout out to the Leviathan, who has been fairly helpful this go round. I'm a little curious about his targeting pathfinding given that he started next to one of my PoPs but then decided to take a long walk around to attack a different one but...worked out fine in the end.

And I'm in for another game. Would love to try a different archdemon / artifact mix.

[El Guapo]

I’m in. This has been fun, although next time I’m killing someone’s praetors.

I’ve been dying for blood drop tribute this entire game.

I believe that you are referring to "ichor". Maybe that's the problem - you keep telling your minions to get "blood drops".

[Archinerd]

I'm up for losing another too!

[AWS260]

I really love that the loading screen shows the icons from the original game.

[El Guapo]

Is someone starting the second game? I can do it if no one else is already.

[baelthazar]

I’ll start one up soon so I can invite my newbie friend. Code sent by PM when I get it.

[El Guapo]

I’ll start one up soon so I can invite my newbie friend. Code sent by PM when I get it.

Cool - thanks.

[El Guapo]

I signed up for the new game. I also hope that someone else picks Murmur so that this game has each of the three archdemons that we have been missing in this game (I picked Mammon, FWIW).

[baelthazar]

I signed up for the new game. I also hope that someone else picks Murmur so that this game has each of the three archdemons that we have been missing in this game (I picked Mammon, FWIW).

I almost chose Murmur, but decided to change pace and to get Beezlebub. I figured Mumur would be a lot of spell slinging, which I did before. Beezlebub will force me not to just hole up like I did with Belial.

[El Guapo]

I signed up for the new game. I also hope that someone else picks Murmur so that this game has each of the three archdemons that we have been missing in this game (I picked Mammon, FWIW).

I almost chose Murmur, but decided to change pace and to get Beezlebub. I figured Mumur would be a lot of spell slinging, which I did before. Beezlebub will force me not to just hole up like I did with Belial.

I initially chose Astaroth, because that's closer to my preferred style of play (throwing around beefy legions). But then, I figured I wanted to see the other archdemons in the game...and Mammon's core talent (raking in lots of tribute) seems pretty useful and flexible.

[El Guapo]

I hope that the Conclave's lawyers work fast.

[baelthazar]

I hope that the Conclave's lawyers work fast.

I am not sure if this is a bug or me doing something wrong, but I have not been able to achieve that goal of stopping a person from becoming regent even though the spell is doing that and did skip you. My thought is that it must require it not be cast the turn before.

[Zarathud]

Everything is a turn slow...damn infernal bureaucracy.

Too bad Pandemonium resisted my ritual last turn, or I would have delayed everything by being declared Outcast.

[El Guapo]

Everything is a turn slow...damn infernal bureaucracy.

Too bad Pandemonium resisted my ritual last turn, or I would have delayed everything by being declared Outcast.

That delays things?

And also, shouldn't an unsuccessful ritual at Pandaemonium still get you excommuniciated?

[El Guapo]

I hope that the Conclave's lawyers work fast.

I am not sure if this is a bug or me doing something wrong, but I have not been able to achieve that goal of stopping a person from becoming regent even though the spell is doing that and did skip you. My thought is that it must require it not be cast the turn before.

Could be a bug - not totally sure. Probably you should release that ritual and see what happens.

[El Guapo]

The angel's back *again*?? Damn that guy loves being in hell.

[baelthazar]

I did that. Mostly for giggles.

The conclave is really taking its time…

[AWS260]

And our first game of the Solium Infernum is over! GG - it was pretty close in the end.

[Archinerd]

Woo hoo! 2nd place!

[El Guapo]

Woo hoo! 2nd place!

#Feminism #LadyDemonBosses

[El Guapo]

And our first game of the Solium Infernum is over! GG - it was pretty close in the end.

Yeah, that paladin almost ruined my day at the end. Also I imagine Astaroth was about to attack Pandaemonium, which would've been interesting...though the angel also got in the way right at the end, which was mildly amusing.

[baelthazar]

What a game, just a 50 point difference. Nicely done all!

[El Guapo]

So what was interesting about my position is that I had two high level PoPs very close to my starting location. The good part of that is that I had ready access to them and could secure the territory around them fairly quickly. The bad part was that my starting legion wasn't anywhere near able to take either, so it took me a long time and a lot of tribute to get a legion and praetor that could take them. Which contributed to what was I think a fairly slow start.

But once I had that legion and praetor in place, I was able to take them and take two PoPs off of Belial in a vendetta. That vendetta going well was a huge turning point for me, as once that was done I could play the rest fairly defensively - from that point on I avoided vendettas as much as possible, mostly through a lot of proactive demands and praetor duels. Also needed a lot of schemes still to stay ahead of Belial.

[baelthazar]

Yeah that two POP vendetta and my over focus on the “Get Prophecy to 6” plot hampered me badly. I lost the one Prophecy from the Mouth of Abbadon and another from a random event - all resources that should have gone into legions or praetors.

There was also one turn I tried to cancel two of your schemes just before you finished them, but the spell failed. That would have been a 50 point loss - what I needed to win.

My real asset was my excellent Blood Vassel who kept boosting our prestige. He would have made an excellent right hand man.

Question - how does the Belial Dark Calumny power show up for you all? Does it say I did it or just look like any other insult?

[baelthazar]

My real asset was my excellent Blood Vassel who kept boosting our prestige. He would have made an excellent right hand man.

[El Guapo]

Yeah that two POP vendetta and my over focus on the “Get Prophecy to 6” plot hampered me badly. I lost the one Prophecy from the Mouth of Abbadon and another from a random event - all resources that should have gone into legions or praetors.

There was also one turn I tried to cancel two of your schemes just before you finished them, but the spell failed. That would have been a 50 point loss - what I needed to win.

My real asset was my excellent Blood Vassel who kept boosting our prestige. He would have made an excellent right hand man.

Question - how does the Belial Dark Calumny power show up for you all? Does it say I did it or just look like any other insult?

Does that spell cancel both schemes or just one?

The other thing in that vendetta was that you failed a couple forged orders / strategic confusion rituals against my main legion IIRC. One of those going the other way could've changed that situation considerably (at least bought you more time). But then, that paladin event (which cost me 62 prestige IIRC) was random targeting, right? That hitting me instead of someone else was a huge boon for you.

As to Dark Calumny, it identifies your role. It basically says (in a more stylized way) "Belial has used dark calumny to cause Astaroth (or whomever) to insult you." Then it's basically the same as if Astaroth has insulted you directly (except that if you back down Belial gets his Dark Calumny prestige back).