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Very Difficult Terrain and Idle

Discussion in '[Archived]: N3 Rules' started by TheDiceAbide, Apr 14, 2019.

  1. TheDiceAbide

    TheDiceAbide Thank you for your compliance.
    Warcor

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    With Dazers being a thing now, more people are going to experience Very Difficult Terrain. One effect of this terrain is that you cannot declare two short movement skills. So is a unit then not allowed to move and Idle? Will units in camo states be forced to do a second short skill which may reveal them?

    I know it’s silly, but RAW it really doesn’t seem to work out well.
     
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  2. solkan

    solkan Well-Known Member

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    I’m going to just quote the first example:
    A trooper in Active Turn with a MOV Attribute of 4–2 is outside a Very Difficult Terrain area. She declares the Short Movement Skill Move and makes contact with the Very Difficult Terrain, whereupon her Movement ends immediately, even if she would normally be able to move the rest of her MOV (for example, if she had moved 3 inches, she would forfeit her remaining 1 inch). She would need to declare a new Order to keep moving, applying the effects of Very Difficult Terrain.​

    Note that there isn’t anything in the example about being forced to declare a second skill.

    The problem is basically that the order expenditure sequence isn’t written quite properly to explain that you don’t have to declare two skills in an order. Idle serves for part of it, but doesn’t quite work.

    Because Close Combat has the same problem—the order expenditure sequence only talks about declaring two skills, but if you look at the list for Engaged:
    So step through the sequence if you start the order Engaged:
    1. Activation.
    2. Spend the order
    3. Declare the first skill
    4. ARO
    5. It is impossible to declare another skill at this step. ??
    6. More AROs.
    ...

    So, no, because close combat needs to be not broken, you don’t have to declare anything after the first move.
     
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  3. xagroth

    xagroth Mournful Echo

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    Aside from http://infinitythewiki.com/en/Order_Expenditure_Sequence having points 3 and 5 (declaration of short orders both). This means you are forced to declare 2 short orders or 1 long order per spent Order Token.

    That being said:
    http://infinitythewiki.com/en/Idle Short Movement skill
    http://infinitythewiki.com/en/Camouflaged Cancellation clauses: The Camouflaged trooper declares a Skill other than Cautious Movement or a Short Movement Skill that does not require a Roll (except Alert).

    Leaving aside that most Infiltrators or camo markers have Multiterrain (thus negating the terrain problems), you are, indeed, able to declare Idle without breaking Camouflaged state.
     
  4. Sabin76

    Sabin76 Well-Known Member

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    I think the point was that you CAN'T declare 2 short movement skills in a VDTZ. If you've already moved, you cannot "declare idle" and would, then, be forced to declare something that would reveal you.

    For what it's worth, I'm of the mind that you can simply forfiet your second skill declaration. As pointed out above, if you can't, CC breaks the game.
     
    #4 Sabin76, Apr 14, 2019
    Last edited: Apr 15, 2019
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  5. xagroth

    xagroth Mournful Echo

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    You cannot.

    Lo and behold. New difference from the Spanish game to the English game.
    @ijw I summon thee here to note this one too (for the long list of translations CB needs to review)

    http://infinitythewiki.com/es/Terreno_Muy_Difícil
    • En Terreno Muy Difícil no se permite repetir una Habilidad Corta de Movimiento en la misma Orden.
    http://infinitythewiki.com/en/Very_Difficult_Terrain
    • In Very Difficult Terrain, troopers cannot declare two Short Movement Skills in the same order.
    So the spanish version says that you cannot *repeat* a Short Movement Skill in the same order. That is different to the english version preventing the declaration of 2 short movement skills.
    In Spain you can move + idle, or even (ghasp!) Discover + Move, the one thing you cannot is to move + move, or discover + discover for example. Elsewhere, it seems you can't even avoid breaking camo... XD
     
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  6. Triumph

    Triumph Well-Known Member

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    What the fuck? Is it just me or does the Spanish version seem to crop up with more weird language problems than the English one?
     
  7. Sabin76

    Sabin76 Well-Known Member

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    How, exactly, do you complete an order in the engaged state then? You CC, or dodge, or reset and then...? Engaged has a rather short list of skills you are allowed to declare:

    Idle is conspicuously not on this list. Nor is it specified that it can be used in CC in the skill itself. It does, however, have this particular passage in the effects section:

    • Whenever a trooper that received an Order in the Active Turn chooses not to perform an action with one of the two Short Skills of that Order, that trooper is considered to declare Idle. [emphasis added]
    Which, to me, gives express permission to omit a skill declaration which then becomes an idle. Perhaps it would be cleaner if you could just be allowed to declare an idle at any point you like in the active turn, but that's not exactly how it's written.

    Your translation find is rather interesting, though. I'd like to see how that shakes out.
     
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  8. xagroth

    xagroth Mournful Echo

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    Because CC gives a reduced list of things you can declare. There is not such caveat in the normal order expenditure, which is the reason of the "no reset for you" exploit against HI/TAGs (have a hacker with SS2 because of Fireteam Bonus, for example. The TAG/HI walks into a repeater, and since you ARO "like if it was in your Zone of Control" you can delay ARO to second enemy short order, which cannot be Reset because in active turn demands you to be the target of a comms attack. Thus the Exploit label).

    Anyway, the indication you make of "if second short order not declared, then it was an idle", does not contradict my indication that there must be a second short order. The problem is simply that Idle is a Movement order, so in the english version you can't declare move+idle... but do execute move + idle; while in the Spanish version you can do a move + dodge or similar...


    I do not wish to evaluate the editions. There is enough headache for me whenever I find a discrepancy. The game devs being spanish (in fact, galician, which has its own language derived from a mix of Portuguese and Spanish... and as we saw in some old screen captures, at least Bostria had his Laptop set to Galician as the default language...).
     
  9. Triumph

    Triumph Well-Known Member

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    Well that sheds light on the problem in a whole new way.
     
  10. Sabin76

    Sabin76 Well-Known Member

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    The problem in the English version is that you have nothing you can declare as a second short-skill, in other words, the game crashes. That's the crux of the problem if you are not allowed to forfeit a skill declaration (again, I'm of the mind that you can). How can something turn into a Move + Idle, if you've only declared move? You haven't declared anything that can be turned into an idle because you can't:
    • In Very Difficult Terrain, troopers cannot declare two Short Movement Skills in the same order.
    Anything you COULD declare that would be then turned into an idle would break camo. This is why I strongly advocate for a more liberal reading of the effect bullet in CC (that you can forgo a skill declaration if you want and it just turns into an idle).
     
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  11. MindwormGames

    MindwormGames Well-Known Member

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    Why is Idle a Movement Skill anyway?

    Why does it even have a label?
     
    #11 MindwormGames, Apr 29, 2019
    Last edited: Apr 30, 2019
  12. xagroth

    xagroth Mournful Echo

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    So you can declare it, instead of "I dance in my spot" to provoke an ARO before declaring your BS attack, and to be applied to non-legal/non applicable orders. By being a Movement order/ARO, also, does not break Stealth, thus representing just the "freeze" of a miscalculated action instead of suddenly turning into some sort of wailing siren XD
     
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  13. JoKeR

    JoKeR HAWZA Instructor
    Warcor

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    @xagroth & still it more effective to declare move on a spot, cause it gives your model a 360 vision for whole order... idle is useless skill, but it need to be in a game for cases model forced to idle.
     
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  14. solkan

    solkan Well-Known Member

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    I’ll just ignore @xagroth until they explain what second skill a trooper that starts the order Engaged in close combat declares. Since the order sequence requires a second skill to be declared, and Idle isn’t on the approved skill list.

    If you say “Oh, you don’t have to declare that because you can just use Idle” to the Engaged issue, applies just as much to the situation of the camo marker in very difficult terrain.
     
  15. xagroth

    xagroth Mournful Echo

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    Aside for the little detail of Spanish ruleset saying you can, indeed, declare 2 Movement short orders, only those can't be the same one.
     
  16. Sabin76

    Sabin76 Well-Known Member

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    Just to be clear: we are both arguing that a non-terrain_skill camo trooper in VDT does not need to break camo, yes? It's just the mechanism for doing so that is different?

    English rules would require you to be able to forfeit a skill declaration that then turns into an idle, whereas the Spanish rules allow you to declare an idle after you've moved because it's a different Short Movement Skill?
     
    #16 Sabin76, Apr 30, 2019
    Last edited: Apr 30, 2019
  17. xagroth

    xagroth Mournful Echo

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    Ehr... but you are forced (in english) to declare a second non-movement skill. That will take you out of camo, since it's a clause to get out of such state...
     
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  18. Sabin76

    Sabin76 Well-Known Member

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    Sorry, I've edited my post to include the word "would" to make it clear that it's a point of contention.
     
    xagroth likes this.
  19. MindwormGames

    MindwormGames Well-Known Member

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    Yea, I see the point of it now, because Activation limits skill combinations by Label, e.g. Short Movement + Short Movement, Short Movement + Short Skill, etc.

    Still, it seems that Idle having the "Movement" label is otherwise problematic.

    I think it would have made plenty of sense to just carve out Idle as an exception, e.g. "Troopers may always declare Idle as a Short Skill or Entire Order Skill regardless of any other rules restricting skill declarations."

    Wouldn't that solve all problems with the Idle skill?

    'Once Activated with an Order or Automatic Reactive Order, a Trooper must Declare a valid combination of Skills. Note, however, that Troopers may always choose to Declare the Idle Skill, which represents that the Trooper is waiting, delaying, or is otherwise taking no meaningful action. It is important for Activated Troopers to Declare Skills, even if the Skill is Idle, because Declaring Skills may grant enemy Troopers AROs, trigger Mines, or otherwise change the state of the game. The only Troopers that truly do nothing are those which are not Activated.'

    Anyway, this is academic. I think it is perfectly reasonable to allow Troopers to declare Idle whenever they are activated, and that's how we house rule it over in NOLA.
     
  20. xagroth

    xagroth Mournful Echo

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    Yes, but the real problem is the discrepancy between the translations. Fortunately, in the Interplanetario (where people using spanish and english versions of the rulebook) "advanced" things like Terrain are not used (bear in mind this year Frostbite will be Extreme Mode, however).


    Anyway, Idle is a mess. You are not supposed to be able to declare Idle as ARO (you renounce your ARO, because the list is closed and does not include Idle), yet in the Jumper Level Z the Apsaras (instead of recycling as much as the Puppeteer's text as possible) are considered as having declared Idle (instead the more coherent "having performed an idle" of the puppeteer). I think the most elegant solution is to rule the Spanish rule as the right one and the English one needing a correction in the translation, which is why I asked IJW to note it down.
     
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