Solium Infernum - Better to Reign in Hell than Serve in Heaven

In Solium Infernum you take on the role of a scheming archfiend in Hell, vying to become its next ruler. Originally released in an earlier incarnation many years ago, the 2024 release finally gave me an excuse to dive in, and it is a game I have been curious about for quite some time.

At its core, Solium Infernum sits somewhere between a 4X game and grand strategy, mixing warfare, sorcery, and political intrigue as the main tools for advancement. It is not a game about rapid expansion or overwhelming force, but about positioning, timing, and outmaneuvering your rivals. In that sense it immediately sets itself apart from most of the genre.

The game is wonderfully atmospheric, with a very distinct visual style and art direction that fits its infernal setting perfectly. It does a solid job of onboarding new players: the tutorial is competent, the in-game Codex is excellent and explains every system in detail, and there is also a healthy supply of community-made guides and videos for those who want to dig deeper.

The map is a hex grid that wraps around on all sides, effectively forming a globe. Everything is visible from the start, which neatly removes the “explore” part of the traditional 4X formula. What remains is a game far more focused on diplomacy, intrigue, and careful planning than on discovery or raw expansion.

Warfare exists, but it is deliberately constrained. Before declaring a full blood feud—essentially open war—you must first succeed in vendettas, smaller and more limited conflicts. Only blood feuds allow you to assault an opponent’s stronghold and eliminate them entirely. This structure makes open conflict costly and deliberate, rather than something you fall into by default.

The emphasis on diplomacy and intrigue is one of the game’s strongest features. Schemes, threats, favors, and sorcery often matter more than armies, and neglecting these systems can leave even a militarily powerful archfiend dangerously exposed. Focusing too heavily on Wrath, for example, may make you strong on the battlefield, but vulnerable to manipulation, curses, or political isolation.

Victory is determined by prestige at the end of a fixed number of turns. Almost everything you do—warfare, plotting, diplomacy, sorcery—can generate prestige, but it is also a finite resource with competing uses. You can spend prestige to acquire greater titles and ranks, each conferring powerful bonuses, but the same prestige is also what ultimately decides the winner. Go too far in one direction, and you risk weakening your final position.

Another important constraint is the action economy. Each turn gives you only a limited number of actions, and the main way to expand that is by raising one of the core powers—Wrath, Deceit, Prophecy, Destruction, or Charisma—to level four. Since you usually start with modest values across the board, choosing which powers to invest in becomes a key strategic decision.

The game vaguely reminds me of an old Swedish board game, The Hell Game, where you also played a devil competing for dominance in Hell. Solium Infernum, however, feels far more balanced and refined, with its systems tightly interlocking rather than pulling in different directions.

So far I have mostly experimented with a more war-focused archfiend, and even there the game has consistently pushed back, forcing me to engage with intrigue and diplomacy whether I wanted to or not. That balancing act is part of what makes the game compelling, and I am very much looking forward to trying other archfiends and playstyles.

Solium Infernum is not a game about conquest for its own sake. It is about manipulation, restraint, and choosing the right moment to act. In a genre often dominated by expansion and optimization, that alone makes it feel refreshingly infernal.