1. This site uses cookies. By continuing to use this site, you are agreeing to our use of cookies. Learn More.

Private information: Cost and SWC

Discussion in 'Rules' started by WWHSD, Apr 4, 2021.

Thread Status:
Not open for further replies.
  1. WWHSD

    WWHSD Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Jan 1, 2018
    Messages:
    96
    Likes Received:
    79
    Because it’s better to have conversations about house rules and etiquette when you’ve got people calling each other “cheaters” and “WAAC” because they don’t agree on the meaning of single bullet point in the rules?
     
    Hecaton and toadchild like this.
  2. Triumph

    Triumph Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Nov 23, 2017
    Messages:
    5,715
    Likes Received:
    6,472
    Which is tame compared to any intent thread, ever. As I understand it, they would rather let people fight over it on the forums rather than making a captains call on it and risk alienating communities that play the other way by telling them that they are playing it "wrong" which is why we've never had the intent debate clarified ever despite concrete promises to do so.
     
  3. the huanglong

    the huanglong Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Nov 26, 2017
    Messages:
    2,023
    Likes Received:
    3,657
    The one thing I miss about having profiles and points costs listed in the rulebook until a couple of months ago is how indefensible it made the notion that accessing points costs is cheating.
     
    Dragonstriker, Hecaton and inane.imp like this.
  4. toadchild

    toadchild Premeasure

    Joined:
    Feb 22, 2017
    Messages:
    4,262
    Likes Received:
    8,073
    And yet, the same arguments were made even back in N3.
     
  5. nazroth

    nazroth 'well known Nomad agitator'

    Joined:
    Apr 25, 2017
    Messages:
    1,128
    Likes Received:
    3,139
    A word of advice to all noobs and vets alike: If during a game you behave like a dick, people tend to treat you as such in return. You gonna gotcha opponents hard, they will auto-adjust to gotcha back. You gonna be like "I don't need to answer that" - is what you gonna get. I've been playing Infinity the Game since pre-N3. Even though people tend to either love me or hate me, I had maybe five games total where my opponents were all tight ass, none responsive, passive aggressive pricks who wouldn't tell me stuff like if their army had access to any AD: Combat Jump. These people are usually tryhards AF and tend to loose badly. All the other games I had, and we're talking hundreds of games by now, were cool, courteous, respectful - even if at some point emotions took over for a moment, which happens in tabletop wargaming. In my opinion Infinity is all about player to player communication during a game and it really works most of the time. Even refusal to provide some information can be phrased in a way that will keep a healthy gaming atmosphere. This shouldn't be regulated, as some here suggest - this is just standard human interaction. Infinity has all the guidelines in place plus in the end it's up to TO to regulate use of Army app or not (just like chess clock) and if someone feels offended by particular meta way of play - just don't go to an event. Vote with your feet.

    edit: To be clear, what I mean by "being a dick" is a way of communicating not what information you try to keep to yourself or which side on the "information share" debate you on.
     
  6. the huanglong

    the huanglong Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Nov 26, 2017
    Messages:
    2,023
    Likes Received:
    3,657
    Funny thing is, people often assume that advocating the open and voluntary sharing of information that can be deduced/determined is done out of personal competitive interest, but at least in my case the opposite is true.

    Take this example, I'm opposite a guy who is clearly struggling to remember what he's proxying his stuff as and what the profiles he is proxying for actually have, and he's sinking minutes into examining a particular fire lane, so I ask him "what are you trying to do?". Normally when I ask this question I'll usually get an answer like "can this guy get to here without being shot", which I'll answer with either "no, because" or "no models on the table will gain LOF". Instead he tells me "I don't have to answer that", which is true. So what does he do? He spends 4 orders moving a monk to throw smoke in front of a Gao Rael Sniper in a triad. When he walks into the smoke and I declare my ARO with the Gao Rael, he tells me "You should have told me he has MSV2" (I then give him a 5 order do over out of the goodness of my heart, in a tournament).

    upload_2021-4-5_14-43-8.png
     
    #86 the huanglong, Apr 5, 2021
    Last edited: Apr 5, 2021
    Dragonstriker and inane.imp like this.
  7. Amusedbymuse

    Amusedbymuse Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Dec 1, 2019
    Messages:
    535
    Likes Received:
    376
    Im sort of a newish player, as is my friend with whom I play regularly. Local tournaments nerby give both players an hour each for everything they do, including deplyment. We triend that once for fun, and ofc both of us failed miserably, both being out of time during turn two. So if I were to play in that tournament and my opponent would start recreating my list in Army I wouldn't mind, but the clock is ticking.
     
    inane.imp likes this.
  8. Diphoration

    Diphoration Well-Known Member
    Warcor

    Joined:
    Aug 9, 2018
    Messages:
    1,349
    Likes Received:
    2,533
    Time contraints are a real issue, and hopefully the TO has a clear way on how they deal with these issues.

    That being said, slow-play and such are a separate issue that is independant from the question at hand. (Someone can burn down clock time with literally any action in the game.)

    A player can sensibily use army to verify informations without burning a single second off the clock. While their opponent is deploying, they can easily answer all their questions about the opponent's faction without bothering their opponent in what is arguably the challenging and demanding part of the game.
     
    WWHSD and nazroth like this.
  9. wes-o-matic

    wes-o-matic feeelthy casual

    Joined:
    Dec 22, 2019
    Messages:
    633
    Likes Received:
    1,051
    Oh my god. Seriously? I love you all but you're killing me here.

    It's right there in the rules. Key language underlined and in red to highlight it.

    First: What exactly is an Army List?

    Cool. So your Army List is your specific list you built to play during the game, not the whole range of troops available to your faction.

    Next: What info is/isn't Private?

    Salient points:
    1. Only information on a player's Army List can possibly be Private Information.
    2. Only the things on a player's Army List that are explicitly Private can be Private Information.
    3. The Cost and SWC of a faction's available troopers is not on an Army List.
    4. Private Information only protects you from your opponent asking you about it and permits you to not disclose it during Deployment/until a game event forces you to do so.
    Nothing in Army is or can be Private Information except specific information on a specific Army List that you've built/loaded in for yourself. Logically, a troop profile you add to a given Army List doesn't stop being part of the overall trooper inventory for the faction, so its presence in your Army List doesn't make it suddenly invisible in the larger set of data.

    Your opponent cannot ask you about points or SWC of the models/markers/etc. in your list/on the table, whether you have any Troopers off-board/hidden, whether you have any HoloMasked troops, what's under a Marker, which Troopers on the board have CoC or Counterintel, or which Trooper is your LT.

    That's it. Period. Fin. Full stop.

    This is not hard. Using Army or not during a game is, like so many things (doors, railings, intent, do-overs, error corrections, windows, what is or isn't a ladder, etc.) a matter of player consensus. Suck it up and add it to the list of things to check about before a game/with a TO. Don't get too attached one way or the other, just try to have fun, this is a recreational activity FFS.

    Thanks for coming to my TED talk or whatever.
     
    #89 wes-o-matic, Apr 5, 2021
    Last edited: Apr 6, 2021
  10. wes-o-matic

    wes-o-matic feeelthy casual

    Joined:
    Dec 22, 2019
    Messages:
    633
    Likes Received:
    1,051
    Also, just to take the piss for a sec...RAW you're required to write down all private information before the game starts. Is anyone transcribing all of Army just in case?

    No?

    Then "only the stuff on my specific personal Army List" isn't hard to wrap one's head around as a statement of scope.
     
  11. Hecaton

    Hecaton EI Anger Translator

    Joined:
    Nov 23, 2017
    Messages:
    7,205
    Likes Received:
    6,535
    Deducing private information isn't against the spirit of the rules. If it's against the spirit of the rules to deduce it using Army, it's against the spirit of the rules to deduce it using your memory.
     
  12. Nuada Airgetlam

    Nuada Airgetlam Nazis sod off ///

    Joined:
    Jan 26, 2018
    Messages:
    3,071
    Likes Received:
    3,019
    Yep, exactly. If deducing it is with the help of the list of all units and their profiles for the enemy army is against the spirit of the rules or even "cheating", then knowing the same data by heart is equivalent to "card counting" in a poker game.
     
  13. Diphoration

    Diphoration Well-Known Member
    Warcor

    Joined:
    Aug 9, 2018
    Messages:
    1,349
    Likes Received:
    2,533
    How do you count cards in poker? :upside_down_face:
     
    El tito Zylito and chromedog like this.
  14. redeemer

    redeemer Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Dec 20, 2017
    Messages:
    260
    Likes Received:
    180
    lol Nuada was probably thinking of blackjack
     
    Nuada Airgetlam likes this.
  15. Nuada Airgetlam

    Nuada Airgetlam Nazis sod off ///

    Joined:
    Jan 26, 2018
    Messages:
    3,071
    Likes Received:
    3,019
    I probably meant blackjack. I don't play card games.
     
    El tito Zylito and redeemer like this.
  16. Sabin76

    Sabin76 Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Nov 23, 2017
    Messages:
    1,708
    Likes Received:
    2,086
    To put it bluntly: not the reason you think it is private. i.e. not to prevent a player from doing exactly that. The point of the points cost and SWC of "this trooper right here" being private, as has been expressed multiple times already, is to prevent your opponent from being able to tell that the Umbra Spitfire I took is, in fact, the Lt. because it costs 40/1.5 instead of 42/1.5. If that Umbra happens to be the only model on the table that could be Lt. (and I don't start my turn in LoL), then it's my bad for not obfuscating that fact with other options.
     
  17. meikyoushisui

    meikyoushisui Competitor for Most Ignored User

    Joined:
    Nov 28, 2017
    Messages:
    1,803
    Likes Received:
    2,804
    This is the first time I've ever heard a satisfying explanation of why this rule exists. Thank you.

    I still think the rule could be phrased better, since anything a player could reasonably memorize should be open information (in my opinion), but this is at least acceptable.
     
  18. Nuada Airgetlam

    Nuada Airgetlam Nazis sod off ///

    Joined:
    Jan 26, 2018
    Messages:
    3,071
    Likes Received:
    3,019
    Yeah, I was going for exactly that upthread with the Tankhunter example, but Triumph did not notice or ignored that argument. Maybe 2nd time's the charm ;)
     
  19. Triumph

    Triumph Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Nov 23, 2017
    Messages:
    5,715
    Likes Received:
    6,472
    I ignored it because it's an asinine argument to make, there are so few profiles where this twisted logic actually functions, whereas it functionally makes the private information of cost for every other unit in the game worthless. Trying to argue that the points cost being private should only be relevant for a handful of units is stupid, particularly when there are whole missions that revolve around scoring with that private information.

    Basically Sabin76, I deemed it an argument dumb enough to be worthy of Nuada's opinion, so naturally I ignored it the first time around.

    This idea I find particularly stupid, the idea that we are simply giving the same advantage to players who can't remember profiles as the elite players who can remember all the profiles.

    What elite players are these?

    Anyone who tells you they can remember all the profiles and all their costs with perfect recall is frankly, probably full of shit and lots of it. There's what 9 factions in the game? Average 50 units with 4 profiles each? You're looking at like 1800 profiles. You'd either need to find someone who studies Infinity like its their literal job 5 days a week or has a photographic memory. Pretending we need to cheat the private information mechanics to combat these players is laughable at best.
     
    #99 Triumph, Apr 6, 2021
    Last edited: Apr 6, 2021
  20. QueensGambit

    QueensGambit Chickenbot herder

    Joined:
    Jan 31, 2019
    Messages:
    2,213
    Likes Received:
    3,456
    Um, so, Chain of Command is Private Information, which is only relevant to the handful of units which have Chain of Command (except the Farzan). So I guess it's stupid that Chain of Command is Private Information?

    And since all units with CoC have different point costs than their decoy non-CoC equivalent point costs, keeping those point costs Private is just necessary in order for CoC to be Private. But I guess that's stupid too.

    And I won't go into the pointless rudeness in your post, though I hope @psychoticstorm will.
     
Thread Status:
Not open for further replies.
  • About Us

    We are a company founded in 2001 in Cangas (Spain), and devoted to design and manufacture games and figures. Our main product, Infinity the Game, was born with the ambition to satisfy the most demanding audience, offering the best quality.

     

    Why are we here?

     

    Because we are, first and foremost, players.

  • Quick Navigation

    Open the Quick Navigation