Quintin Smith has penned another great (creative writing) piece on what he liked so much about SI. I love the thought of Quintin awake at midnight pondering his next move and mumbling to himself about Mad Plots, Scrofula’s Tricks and Infernal Monsoons. To have played a part in that helping to create that makes it all worth while 
Tom Chick and Jason Lutes talk about SI and AE but make sure you listen to the whole thing as the discussion of emergent narrative is absolutely awesome and thought provoking…especially the examples cited. I’m in the early game design planning stages (when I get burned out on bug fixing and AI tweaking stretches) of my next project and emergent narrative is going to be a big part of the experience that I want to provide.
Also, just to set the record straight: The writing talent on display in the flavor text is completely attributable to Russell Marsh. And Russell tells me that he has made some very subtle literary allusions throughout the texts.
Another lounge lizard at QT3 has contributed to the community knowledge base with a great infernal accounting of everything that is for sale in the Infernal Bazaar.
Thanks to Diddums!
This is a really interesting and well organized diary of an ongoing PBEM game for Solium Infernum
7inchsplit over at the gamers with jobs forum has posted a gem of a cheat sheet that looks like it was a ton of work. I think I even learned some things while reading it over.
Edit: Credit for the cheat sheet apparently goes to Jake Mix Thanks!
IMPORTANT UPDATE TO THE UPDATE:
If you are reading this for the first time then no problem. If you already installed the 1.04 update then I offer my sincere apologies but you will need to down load it again. I seem to have left some critical AI code commented out that was for testing and it will cause you errors. So please reldownload and apply the update again and it should read 1.04a
I’ve finished the update for 1.04 and it will be up on the support page soon.// Now is 1.04a
It is compatible with all old save games. I strongly recommend that all hosts for PBEM games upgrade as it has some important fixes for orders resolution. All players should upgrade as well and the order in which you do it is not important as 1.03 and 1.04 are compatible.
You can grab it here: Solium Infernum Update 1.04a Self Extracting EXE
A simple .zip file is here: Solium Infernum Update 1.04a ZIP
Change Log
Fixed bug where fizzure was not clearing the ownership of the Canton (hex)
Fixed bug where Goal_SatisfyLust was not behaving correctly and failing to drive demands towards viable opponents to set up possible capture of PoP
Fixed bug where AI players could repeat attempts to accomplish objectives that had already been accomplished because they were not being removed from the strategic goal pool
Fixed bug where personal guard could be bribed by a Pilfer, Coerce & Bribe ritual
Fixed bug where Infernal Juggernaut ritual could increase legion movement points above 5 which is the max movement for a legion.
Fixed bug where Orb of Oblivion removal of Pandemonium while it was occupied by a Usurper would cause script error
Fixed bug in Bone Breaker combat move for detection of opponent’s previous combat phase shield value
Fixed bug in Dark Augury for revealing perks where VOID value indicating no perk in list could be treated as a perk
Fixed bug where Combat Deception/Sowing Confusion ritual against Lies and Rumors decoy would create script error.
Fixed bug where *Random* avatar was displayed as choice for human player selection
Fixed decision making process for choosing hex for deployment of reconstituted personal guard.
Fixed bug where player could challenge the Champion of Pandemonium while he was excommunicated
Fixed bug where Vendetta Win Secret Objective was not updating correctly
Fixed bug with Dark Augury ritual where check to ensure unknown information was gained first, interfered with access to seeing items in opponent’s vaults that were already visible.
UI Improvements
Added cancel orders option to legion pop up menu
Removed “Ding Dong” sound prompt from some of the ritual info pop ups to decrease annoyance coefficient
Added Confirmation Dialogue Box to switching human players to AI from the host control panel
AI Improvements
Improved AI Goal_CapturePoP to coordinate multiple legions based more on success rate and less on shortest range to cut down on failed attempts and setbacks.
Improved Antagonism algorithm so that AI is more likely to stick with demands against antagonist during early/mid game. Algorithm still cedes to focusing on prestige leader in late mid\late game or case of runaway leader
Improved heuristic for accumulating needed resources for bidding on relics that will accelerate player position i.e. +1 Order Slots, +1 Critical Attribute
Rebalanced (reduced) goal pool values for secondary and tertiary goals that are supportive in nature
Fixed critical bug in AI target selection for capturing opponent Places of Power. Algorithm was selecting worse ranked PoP rather than best.
Fixed critical bug in AI algorithm for destroying enemy legions in Vendetta and during Excommunication. AI’s could pop capture hexes sub goals onto stack even when odds of combat were good and ended up getting sidetracked.
The strategy game enthusiasts at Cyberstratege have put up a review of Solium Infernum. (in French of course) There is a cool graphic with a stitched together map using separate screen shots.
If you are interested in testing this beta version out of update 1.04 for Solium Infernum than you can grab it here.
It’s very stable and has some nice fixes. I just would like some more eyes on it testing in single player because I made some slight changes to the AI Architecture that required some “rewiring” and I want to make sure that I haven’t broken anything in the process. It is completely compatible with all save games and multi-player games going on. If you happen to come across a script error then please send it in
Here is the update log
Bug Fixes
Fixed bug where fizzure was not clearing the ownership of the Canton (hex)
Fixed bug where Goal_SatisfyLust was not behaving correctly and failing to drive demands towards viable opponents to set up possible capture of PoP
Fixed bug where AI players could repeat attempts to accomplish objectives that had already been accomplished because they were not being removed from the strategic goal pool
Fixed bug where personal guard could be bribed by a Pilfer, Coerce & Bribe ritual
Fixed bug where Infernal Juggernaut ritual could increase legion movement points above 5 which is the max movement for a legion.
Fixed bug where Orb of Oblivion removal of Pandemonium while it was occupied by a Usurper would cause script error
Fixed bug in Bone Breaker combat move for detection of opponent’s previous combat phase shield value
Fixed bug in Dark Augury for revealing perks where VOID value indicating no perk in list could be treated as a perk
Fixed bug where Combat Deception/Sowing Confusion ritual against Lies and Rumors decoy would create script error.
Fixed bug where *Random* avatar was displayed as choice for human player selection
Fixed decision making process for choosing hex for deployment of reconstituted personal guard.
Fixed bug where player could challenge the Champion of Pandemonium while he was excommunicated
UI Improvements
Added cancel orders option to legion pop up menu
Removed “Ding Dong” sound prompt from some of the ritual info pop ups to decrease annoyance coefficient
AI Improvements
Improved AI Goal_CapturePoP to coordinate multiple legions based more on success rate and less on shortest range to cut down on failed attempts and setbacks.
Improved Antagonism algorithm so that AI is more likely to stick with demands against antagonist during early/mid game. Algorithm still cedes to focusing on prestige leader in late mid\late game or case of runaway leader
Improved heuristic for accumulating needed resources for bidding on relics that will accelerate player position i.e. +1 Order Slots, +1 Critical Attribute
Rebalanced (reduced) goal pool values for secondary and tertiary goals that are supportive in nature
Indie guru Derek Yu authored a nice hat tip to Solium Infernum over at TIGSource and he was pleased with the game focus:
“Now this is how I like to imagine Hell: filled with bizarre demons and monsters, yes, but also rife with nefarious politics.”
Quinns sounds the Battle Klaxon for Solium Infernum in his monthly column. It sounds to me like he has the game down and I’d avoid any PBeM games with him especially if my name was Kieron Gillen