In non-pathological cases it's easier if everyone has the same retreat threshold, instead of 300, 299, 298, etc. point armies potentially having slightly different values. Basically when the TO says "this is a 300 point event" everyone is locked into numbers based on that 300 point list.
My issue with this line of explanation is that the ITS missions tend to favor last turn button pushing pretty heavily. In missions like armory if you grab the armory on bottom of 3 your opponent literally cannot win. So the solution to going first in this type of mission is to alpha strike the shit out of the other guy and try to ensure he has very few orders/pieces to get the zone/buttons on the last turn. Leaving 80 points alive for retreat means they can easily have ~7 regular orders on their last turn to get places and hit buttons.
Which is something you have to balance, making sure you have enough forces holding what you need to hold off those last orders. It could be said that's part of the fun. Removing the Retreat! shut off takes away part of that balancing act.
It could be said that's part of the fun, but I think that's a post hoc justification for the status quo - I have a sneaking suspicion that walking back Retreat! to the core rules would make the game better and more fun (and remove the gotcha moments that the current setup has). It would also solve the "I start in Retreat!" situation.
Oh hey pot, calling kettle black again? That post has pretty much summed up your responses to date. You don't seem to care why's it's there, what background it might have and you have very little justification for removing it other than you don't like it. And somehow you still expect hell Lois to justify it to you. What a waste of time.
Seriously, if multiple people are reading your posts in a particular way, it's probably the posts, not the readers...
No, it hasn't. The "fluff" justifications for the ITS Retreat! rules are just wrong or off base. I have no doubts about that. The gameplay/tournament workability arguments might hold more water, but I haven't heard them from the people who actually conceived of it or who are in charge of curating the rules.
A lot of people thought that "Black Lives Matter" somehow meant "Only Black Lives Matter." Misinterpretation happens.
Because it isn't how real warfare works. To be fair though, nothing about how wars or armed engagements happen in the Infinity universe is even remotely close to realistic (Uprising, Commercial Conflicts, Neo-Colonial Wars etc).
You post in here asking for an explanation from a particular CB employee, and when other people try to offer explanations you dismiss them outright, while reiterating that you want that particular employee to justify their decision to you. You need to take more time to think about how people who don't know what you're thinking/feeling are going to perceive what you say and do.
Well, it's a war game.... The idea of spec op teams composed of individuals from different units and military specialties is not the way in which militaries organize themselves, or conduct operations. These elements will come together in larger scale engagements, usually around the company level, but there are very real tactical and operational obstacles to overcome if you tried to do this at the squad level. No military planner or commander would ever send an enlisted rifleman, with no security clearance let alone the proper training, on a black ops, deniable mission. What real warfare is is hard to describe to someone that hasn't experienced it. But what I was getting at is that if you told a Green Beret, Force RECON, or SEAL that their mission would be cut short because they killed too many of the enemy, they'd laugh to death. War (and by extension, combat) is simply the application of force to make someone do what they don't want to do, or accept something they don't want to accept. Wars are won by forcing the enemy to give up the fight. The easiest way to do that is through casualties.
It's not their own commanders telling them to pull out. It's the operation losing its deniability by being caught Red handed by international authorities or larger forces. You're right though, Infinity isn't war. It's more like espionage, where collateral damage and maximum casualties are not the goal. Players bring this preconception that "killing the enemy is doing good or winning" and therefore retreat is a "punishment for doing well". Except if the mission is about achieving a certain objective with (an implied) time limitation. Spending your time attacking the enemy force is actually failing the mission. Paradiso was very good at describing this and having the missions feel very cinematic. But at the same time went too far in encouraging non-interactive play. ITS took that and evolved.
The turn limit represents the time limit. What's wrong with using the Retreat! rules from the rulebook though? Why does it need to end the game?
