Solium Infernum - Diaries @ Fidgit

Tom Chick has updated his diaries with "When War Gets Personal". In this one he talks about the leaders of your armies called praetors. Here is a snippet:

Imagine if Japan fought World War II not by attacking Pearl Harbor and then exhausting her industry in a four-year war at sea. Instead imagine they got to set their own terms for the war by proposing a one-on-one combat with America's most powerful general. So the US would send Patton or Eisenhower into battle. And then Japan would send in Godzilla, who they'd kept hidden away all those years.

That's what Solium Infernum is like. Wars can either be the bloody brutal clashes between armies jockeying for position, or they can be quick surgical encounters between two praetors. When you declare war, you get the advantage of setting the terms for victory and the time limit. This is usually a matter of how many spaces you'll capture, how many legions you'll kill, or how many special locations you'll seize. But praetor combat a fourth option with a completely different set of rules. So even if you're outnumbered and outgunned - or if you want to declare war against someone with whom you don't share a border - a good praetor can be the key to a successful war.