Games of 2009: Solium Infernum

After 20 hours of play there were still complexities I hadn't grasped, and if that sounds like a flaw then remember the three things all the gamers on the face of the Earth have in common: we once had no idea how to play videogames; we learned; and we learned because we wanted to. This is a game that says: sod being easy to learn and hard to master, because learning is part of the fun too.

Here's an example of what Solium does differently: if you want to go to war with another player you need permission from Hell's powers-that-be, the Infernal Conclave, and to get permission for bloodshed from the Infernal Conclave you need an excuse to be upset. As a result, almost every turn in Solium sees players demanding things from one another or hurling insults around with the purpose of either offending one another or elbowing opponents into a position where they might offend you.

Insults and demands can be really profitable if their target doesn't let things escalate, turning this mockery of diplomacy into a beautiful web of bluffs, threats and traps. Somebody demands resources from you and you have to look at their territory, borders, forces and powers to try to figure out whether you could take them, or more accurately whether you could afford to. This picking of fights could be the most important part of the game.

As a final twist, when you do go to war you have to set your own objectives and then choose how many prestige points you'll wager on your victory. The objective you pick is hidden from your opponent, but depending on how you play they might guess what you're after and move to counter it as the time limit for your private war ticks down.

This is design that's layered like a delicious lasagne. Similar to how solving puzzles in Braid last year first made you grin because you'd been so clever, then you'd grin again as you realised how clever the game had been, Solium Infernum's design is a tricky thing that keeps making you smile as you grasp subtlety after subtlety.

Another example of this is how rather than each player taking turns, you all fill up limited Order 'slots' which get executed simultaneously. So if during a turn I retreat my army in order slot two and you attack in order slot one, you'll get your battle. But if I equip my army with an artefact in order slot one, you might not get the battle you were hoping for.

Going to war in the late game when everybody's working with four or more order slots creates an awesome dance of second-guessing and double-backing your way to victory where the mass of tricks and powers available to everyone means nothing goes how you expect.

I knew I loved Solium Infernum during one difficult turn, when I found myself sat cross-legged on the sofa at midnight, alternating glances between hexes and demons on my laptop and the pencil and paper in my hands. My ugly grand strategy had developed so many twists and fail-safes that I could no longer contain it in my meat brain and I was scribbling my plots down in the real world. Mad plots. "Don't FALL FOR SCROFULA'S TRICKS" and "MUST CALL INFERNAL MONSOONS" and "hide the tongue of the liar in your vault, the THIEVES are sniffing around".

Solium Infernum is the game of 2009 that let me learn again, and it's so full of ideas and so lovingly put together that it helps achieve a level of optimism about this industry that you simply can't keep up. So you pick your fights, and you pick your games. And I pick this one.