Manual is here:
http://simanual.s3.amazonaws.com/SI_Manual.pdf
There's no tutorial because this game is mostly made by one person. Extra art was made by other people. I can try writing one.
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First, you need to create
your archfiend. You can spend points on main attributes, which grant you various bonuses and/or unlock various actions. Each attribute is paired with a Discipline. You could say Discipline is a subset of Attribute. They are:
- Martial (Wrath): your skill at commanding legions
- Cunning (Deceit): your ability to perform dirty tricks and rituals
- Intellect (Prophecy): hard to describe in short, but gives some control over future and allows rituals for information gathering
- Wickedness (Destruction): this is fairly straighforward offensive magic. It can only be used if you're at war with someone.
- Charisma (Diabolism): currently overpowered attribute which controls your Tribute income (resources)
For demonstration purposes, it's easiest to take 2-3 Charisma and some Martial, which will help in battle. Additionally put some points in your
Infernal rank: Prince > Duke > Marquis > Baron > Lord
This affects your clout and power in the
Infernal Conclave. You can get away with more, issue better and more frequent demands, hurl stronger insults. You also get better starting legion and more starting resources.
Finally, choose your public objective. They vary in difficulty and yield diffrent amount of
Prestige if completed by the end of the game. For a war-centered archfiend, I'd pick Wrath (eliminate one opponent) or Lust (conquer and hold a specific Place of Power). Other objectives are: Gluttony (consume 35 souls), Envy (steal some stuff), Greed (accumulate huge treasure), Pride (never send an emissary), Sloth (Never bother hurling an insult or making a demand).
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Lucifer has disappeared and nobility of Hell is fighting to take his position. All actions in Hell are ruled by
strict code of behaviour, enforced by Infernal Conclave, which rules from city of
Pandemonium. There are two main ways to win: get the most prestige, or perform a coup and take Pandemonium by force.
Eliminating all opponents is extremely hard, because you can't just go forth and attack someone. You need a reason, and permission from the Conclave. To put things in motion, you can hurl insult and make demands.
If you
insult someone in front of the Conclave, he can either declare a
Vendetta against you, or accept calmly, losing face (Prestige). Making an insult cost prestige, but you get it back with bonus if target accepts.
You can
demand something from another player, mostly
Tribute (resources).This also costs some Prestige, and similarly you get it back if you successfully bully another player. If he refuses, you get to declare vendetta on him. If he complies, you get some resources and prestige back. So long as a player accepts your demands you can't really do anything to him, but each consecutive demand can be bigger, and after 3 of them you can simply declare a vendetta.
Permanent state of war is only possible in two cases: if you successfuly complete 3 vendettas against someone,(this is called
Blood Feud) or if someone gets
excommunicated, which happens if he gravely insults conclave, such as trying to attack Pandemonium.
So you can see, there are many roadblocks if you just want to go ahead and annihilate everyone. This is nobility, and beaurocracy from Hell. For the most part, you'll want to distinguish yourself as much as possible before (default:15) conclave tokens are accumulated and the winner with most Prestige is chosen. The game is designed around this
time limit. This doesn't mean you can't try to bend the rules and scheme against your rivals, it's just much, much harder than in your typical strategy game.
You get two
Orders each turn. They don't pass to the next turn, so make best use of them. Up to 6 orders can be had, this is increased by high avatar stats or relics, mostly. In the beginning, move your legion around to capture hexes (called
Cantons). Don't worry about defending them, Cantons by themselves are worth little and can't be taken without a vendetta.
Make
Places of Power your priority. Among them are Woods of Suicides, Temple of Lust, Foul Fountain, Iron Staircase... Most important feature of the Places is Prestige income. Beware, though, because they're garrisoned. A Prince gets a very strong personal guard, so you should be able to conquer most of them. Either way, it's time for a couple words about combat.
Legions have 4 basic attributes: Hit Points, Ranged Attack, Melee Attack, Infernal Attack. If you enter a canton with a neutral place of power or a hostile legion (requires vendetta), combat starts. Usually there are two rounds. In each round there are three phases. First, Ranged attacks of legions are compared, and the loser takes damage equal to diffrence. Then it comes to Melee, and later Infernal. Wounds can be healed by spending a turn next to a friendly Place of Power. Your stronghold counts as one. Intellect and Martial level 3 speeds up Healing.
Now you should have the basics to evaluate your chance of winning a fight. Actually, it's mostly deterministic with only a bit randomness here and there. Being victorious, by the way, is a healthy source of Prestige. If you face a particularly strong place of power, Martial atribute allows you to augment your legion with a Combat Card. They're special tactics which for small price in tribute add one-time combat bonuses.
If a fight looks very dangerous, just circle a place of power to stop others from accessing it and leave it for later. Note that losing your personal guard in combat isn't
that bad. They're a bit like Nazghuls in that they always eventually come back, if weaker than before.
Now about Infernal
Bazaar.
The 4 types of tribute used to purchase stuff and pay for services are suitably hellish. They are:
Souls, Ichor, Hellfire and Darkness. I won't go into much detail, but some types wares tend to need more of some types of resources, and may not require others at all. There are also patterns in costs of rituals, such as Deceit always costing Hellfire and Darkness.
You don't just buy extra legions. You place a bid. Anyone can place a bid, and the winner get it. Commiting more tribute than necessary gets you a higher bid (souls are worth twice as much here). You should be fighting over purchases pretty soon.
After a couple of turns of moving your legion around and demanding tribute, you should be able to afford extra legion(s). Additionally, the land grab should be mostly over. Buy some toys and bully some rivals to provoke them into war.
Other kinds of things to buy:
Praetors. They are like leaders and also like heroes. Attaching a praetor to a legion grants bonuses mentioned in description. Additionally, players can initiate vendetta by
Single Combat. This is useful if you don't share a border with someone. Just be aware that arena fights are quite random and always to the death. A legion can only have a single praetor attached.
Artifacts can be put in slots of your legions to boost them.
Relics differ from artifacts in that they're put in your places of power or ritual slots (Intellect increases number of them). Relics grant global bonuses.
Scrolls are assembled to permanently modify stats of praetors and archfiends(!). I don't remember if some of them also modify legions. Scrolls often come in parts, and you need all of them to make them work.
You can pay tribute to increase your avatar (Archfiend) stats. This gets more and more expensive at higher levels. I think this is what counts for 'consuming souls' for purpose of Gluttony personal goal.
Regency:
each turn, another player becomes a Regent. Regent has the advantage of the first to move in a given turn. Note that order slot number is important: first all players perform their first action, then second etc. Did I mention turns are simultaneous ? Anyway, regents also draw an Event card. Events are often random and capricious, but can give you an edge. Using them is anonymous, and you're never told. I know the interface is horrible... if you want to check which event you draw, go to Orders >
Manage Events. Intellect has extra control over events.
Secret objectives:
'Manage Objectives' allows you to opt for extra, secret objectives. You can only keep one at a time, but you can cycle them. They're generally not as hard as main objectives, but give you lesser reward in Prestige. Be aware that failing at a secret objective causes a big loss of Prestige.
Secret objectives and events are interesting because they're great for plotting against players, and you never know for sure how the things will eventually turn out.
That's it, in a nutshell. I skipped a lot of topics, like special abilities of legions, preators, artifacts, relics. I skipped perks available at character creation. This game holds many surprises.
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http://www.gamasutra.com/features/20051128/adams_01.shtml
[Last edited by b0rsuk at 12-03-2009 05:48 PM]
