Is the game getting too complex?

Yep. I mostly agree with what you say. I like the tactical complexity of the game and I'm happy with it for the most part.

But what's the point if it's difficult to get people started and even people who've been playing it for years quit because they can't keep up with it?

I really think there is a lot of margin for improving the rules making them easier and keeping the tactical complexity. I'd say we should avoid thinking that difficult rules equals game complexity and depth.

Game complexity and depth is desirable, hard to understand and remember rules simply are not.

 

Well, same happens everywhere. At some point people become comfortable with the feeling that they know the game through and through, and whether you add new rules or just significantly tweak simplistic unit stats, they will eventually say "Nah, can't be bothered to re-learn anymore". It has relatively little to do with straight complexity, I feel.

As for beginners, like I said above, it boils down to preference in many cases. Sure, some would "compare some dice and never play again", but don't forget that a lot of people you play with these days are here because drop troops can actually drop, sneaky bastards can actually hide and thoroughly trained troopers actually possess a useful kind of initiative in combat.

I agree with this, but I don't think we're at a point where it's changing what rules do is required. What needs to go is stuff like having to skim through 4-5 wiki articles to not only figure out what Symbiont Armor does, but more importantly, what it does not. Consistency would be welcome. Just look at NCO which works "as if you use your Lt Order", except it doesn't.
Stuff like that.

And for the love of God, we need a glossary of universal terms and writers getting punched in the face every time they don't follow it. It's getting ridiculous at times. Did you know that there isn't such thing as "Regular / Irregular Order" in Infinity? Yet apparently even CB themselves have forgotten it.

 

I think CB has made major effort to getting new people into the game.

Like, there's three Starter boxes. Apart from CA and Tohaa you can start any faction from a two player battle box which gives you dice, scenery, teaches you how to play etc. I think we may actually see a two player box for those two as well, which could be cool (some say those factions don't sell well; I say if you make it the people will buy it). And there's the 300pt boxes for just "hey you want to play and find making an army daunting? Buy this!" which don't even overlap with the actual starters so you've got a clear 300pt box plus starter equals full force with options.

I'm not saying the efforts are perfect but for a small company making a relatively complex tactical game for players who are mostly going to be veterans of other games systems, they do quite a lot in terms of making the game accessible and a lot of this SKU business comes from making the game more easily stockable, which is a big part of making it accessible too.

I personally wonder whether CB internally is geared towards marketing their game to veteran gamers from 40K or whatever, or brand new gamers? Probably the former as it's a really good way to take advantage of GW pulling kids in to get them into the hobby (something that, regardless of your opinion on GW games, everyone in this hobby and industry should be thankful for. GW is doing really well right now and thank God for that).

 

Absolutely agree. I'm a sucker for rules and I will read them all several times anyway. But not everyone is, and also my memory is not exactly perfect. So it gets tiring going over a bunch of connected rules over and over.

All and all, CB does and absolutely great job. I'm proud to say it is the best wargame I know, and it's made in Spain (I'm also Spanish). And certainly does much better than the big sellers GW. But exactly because I love what they do I want them to see them getting better and better, and I really thing there is some room for improvement on this matter.

 

Oh, sweet baby jeebus, this is so true!!!

 

I'm really curious about this.

 

Me too...

 

Save for the rules themselves specifically calling them Regular and Irregular Orders when the order count portion of the tactical phase is introduced...

 

http://infinitythewiki.com/en/Regular_Order
http://infinitythewiki.com/en/Irregular_Order

 

Fair enough, that was my mistake.
Not sure what I was headbutting against during some Isolation discussion a while back.

 

There are a few rules that we identified as "need to go/be split up", but I don't think anyone has mentioned Veteran Lv2 in this thread.
Veteran Lv2 has nothing to do with Lv1 (one is about keeping Regular status, the other is just two completely unrelated skills, one of which also has Lv2 and the other Lv3, just to make things more confusing). And it's only on exactly one unit. Not only that, the statblock for that unit even lists SS Lv2 and Valor: NWI in the Army.
It looks like's there's no point to keeping Veteran as a skill with levels. Just give Vet Kazak Veteran, NWI and SS Lv2 as separate skills.

Also WarmaHordes is best used as an example of "what community not to foster and how not to release a new edition of your game", not "what other games should be ran like".

 

But does that have anything to do with rule writing?

 

It turns out new editions are usually when rules are written or rewritten.

 

I'm just not familiar with what exactly the problem with changes is about. Interactions in actual game, clarity, production?

 

Because Change Facing doesn't allow any movement other than turning on the spot.

 

It doesn't do the exact same thing as Dodge, it doesn't let you move 2" on a success.

EDIT - obviously it's personal opinion whether that's a distinction that's worth having two ARO Skills for, but it's qualitatively not doing the same thing in the game.

 

I don't think it's a small difference. Change Facing is far less 'powerful', so being able to force an enemy trooper to declare Change Facing instead of Dodge gives you an advantage.