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How do you play Infinity?

Discussion in 'Access Guide to the Human Sphere' started by psychoticstorm, Jan 23, 2018.

  1. Dropkill

    Dropkill Member

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    Yeah even the pail guys would kill that defence lol its pretty obvious u can see the prone fig before the other one
     
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  2. T. Rex Pushups

    T. Rex Pushups Well-Known Member

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    Hmm if CB wanted to limit pie slicing (their call not mine!) I think making it so that LOF requires 3x3 mm to be visible both ways.

    Then people could choose to risk the template of death for the option of creating a face to face wall of death.
     
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  3. daboarder

    daboarder Force One Commander
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    That would no limit it at all, you will always (outside of vertical elevation) fulfill the requirements for one Sillie before the other (in the horizontal plane), this gets exacerbated by sillies blocking LOF.

    As to using that defence, You can and I do use it occasionally, however even outside of slicing it has limitations, DTWs Spec fire and shotguns being major ones.
     
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  4. T. Rex Pushups

    T. Rex Pushups Well-Known Member

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    And that is literally the only issue I have with intent.

    So everything becomes sub millimeter level precise. And that precision changes how the game plays.

    I don’t want the hand steadiness or measurement estimate expertise differences to define who wins. I want there to be a level of give such that a less than a millimeter difference doesn’t enable the slice.
     
  5. the huanglong

    the huanglong Well-Known Member

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    Getting a bit off topic, but for a real ARO wall of death, replace that 20 points of Alguaciles with 10 points of dogged Jaguar chain. Takes just as many hits to clear, but is far riskier for the fusilier and costs half as much. It also takes more orders to position multiple models. Even without perfect pie slicing, trying to stack multiple AROs is just not viable. In my estimation good players won't do it even if they could occasionally land an extra ARO on the clumsy.
     
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  6. daboarder

    daboarder Force One Commander
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    Except it doesnt, as IJW pointed out your two models need to be 12 away from the corner, with 25 mm bases before you hit sub mm differences in the LOF. In the image you showed the differences in their LOF are huge, bordering on Cm's.
    Even Pail has no trouble slicing that. and even then its only ever a single corner.
    But lets not digress further and devolve this into a conversation on geometry
     
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  7. T. Rex Pushups

    T. Rex Pushups Well-Known Member

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    I know it doesn’t work but a new player would definitely think it should. Real-world no way both people don’t see enough of the person exposing enough to shoot back.

    But the biggest thing that grinds my gear about how the LOF rules are written is that in the slice position we all agree works the slicer can easily see enough of the person who can’t see him such he could assign a burst to him. And if he did so then both models would have LOF.
     
  8. daboarder

    daboarder Force One Commander
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    No, he shouldnt be able to, the 3x3 is a mutual requirement and LOF is mutual, if the active player has LOF to the reactive the reactive player has LOF to the active. In the instance you've described neither have LOF to each other.

    http://infinitythewiki.com/en/Line_of_Fire_(LoF)

    Specifically:

    • The troop must be able to see, at least, a part of the volume of its target with the size of the target's head, or a minimum size of approximately 3x3mm (the size of the black squares on the Silhouette Templates).

    Which you'll note makes no limitation on active or reactive troops

    and


    Mutual Awareness
    In Infinity, Line of Fire always assumes reciprocity, following the rule of thumb "if I can see you, you can see me". This means that as long as any troop can draw LoF to its target, the target can draw LoF to its attacker as well (assuming, of course, that the attacker is within the target's front 180˚ arc).
     
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  9. Nincoreween

    Nincoreween Macross Frontier Commander

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    The sake to play and hobby is a big factor here for me, Like chromedog said, "I play to play," for this one of the reasons I don't play another game that we all might have been into at sometime. You know it, "40k", life is stressful and at the end of the week being in the classroom with the kids and job I love to do, just sitting back and playing a game just to have fun is what I am into. Yeah, I know my list is full of over pointed models and I don't power game it, but charging my Joan into battle with her knights is what I like to do. Always here the Corvus guys say, "are we having fun!" Keep it fun!
     
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  10. T. Rex Pushups

    T. Rex Pushups Well-Known Member

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    Ah, My reading was coming from the perspective of thinking that "point" in bullet point number 3 meant that exposing say a 1mm slice and only that would create a triangle that could see that 3x3 area and that without the mutual clause the person getting shot wouldn't see them at all.

    I still think that a 0.5mm-1mm difference between the slice and being seen by both is something that will catch out and frustrate new players while seeming gamey to them.

    In my experience it definitely seemed to do so when I was slicing the pie in my games.
     
  11. daboarder

    daboarder Force One Commander
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    thats part of why discussion before the order is important, it lets you make sure that you are both on the same page as these kind of things can happen when playing either PBI or PAIL.
     
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  12. cazboab

    cazboab Definitely not Cazboaz.

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    The mutual awareness clause does not say at any point "if I can't see you you can't see me"(and it shouldn't, at least not like that), and it can in fact be read as an exception to the requirement for a 3x3 section to return fire on someone who has a 3x3 section on you...
    This interpretation creates several silly situations that frankly border on indefensible ludicrousnesses, 3x3 being a mutual requirement is pretty much the only reasonable outcome for game balance. I can suggest real world reasons why a pin point from the originator is enough, and why that would reasonably cause return fire from the other side, but we're dealing with a game were hiding behind a stack of milk cartons provides the same protection as hiding behind a tank, so the real world is definitely in the back seat, but it still looks like a 3x3 is only needed at one end if you read the mutual awareness rule as absolute...

    Adding an FAQ that 3x3 is required to originate (or not if it isn't, but I think it probably should be) doesn't really make pie slicing harder or easier IMO and doesn't really fall on either side of PBI/PAIL, but it would be real nice to keep the rules universal.
     
  13. Andre82

    Andre82 Well-Known Member

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    I am largely a friendly win at any costs but within the rules and showing sportsmanship kind of guy.
    I have no interest in a beer and pretzels match, if you are not doing your very best to win then we can be teaching each other bad habits.

    We started with and assumed PIAL was the rules and that what a unit could see was open information we still do.
    As we got better we would allow some steps to be skipped as it was to everyone's benefit and would not have an impact on the game AKA defacto intent play.

    When a newer player (or an older player who was maybe being salty) would try and get clever by using PAIL as opposed to intent he would be punished by... well making them play PAIL.

    As an example
    Player 1) Anyone have line of sight along this path?
    Player 2) I don't know... I guess you will have to move it to find out.
    Player 1) ...Or I can ask for the location and open information on each model to make sure I don't overlook any as I manually check each sight line myself.
    Player 2) Yah I guess you can do that... mind if I just tell you that this guy can see you if you move past that cover and skip all that?
    Player 1) I am fine either way so it is up to you.

    As for advantages and disadvantages.

    PBI as I understand it.
    Is fundamentally the same as PAIL it just skips showing the work, but the work is still assumed there and can be checked in a rules dispute. Is much faster and has much less arguing/debate.
    Makes for a more competitive friendly game as less TO calls are needed and everyone agrees on board state.
    A weakness of PBI is that it takes a slight bit more work to explain why it works to newer players.

    Honestly considering examples of PAIL so far have been more confused as to what you are allowed or not allowed to do, Wolfs video for example, my group is not even sure what high level extreme angle play even looks like under PAIL
    We are honestly unsure if it can even be done and would KILL to see a rules correct example of the harder angle from a player doing everything he can to get his movement correct.
     
  14. psychoticstorm

    psychoticstorm Aleph's rogue child
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    Guys what did I say about rules discussion and commenting on other posters ways of playing?
     
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  15. Zewrath

    Zewrath Elitist Jerk

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    I know I am late to the party here but watching all these different threads about intent play, I think there's a huge communication issue between both sides, by labeling it 'play by intent'.

    This is how we typically play at my local gaming club and I heavily suspect many do so to more or less the same degree:

    Me: "I activate this model, I want to move as far as I can in this direction. I will start moving in base contact with the wall in front of me and will then spend the rest of my movement, going the the direction I declared, while hugging the wall"
    Opponent: "Okay"
    M: "Is there a point, at the end corner of this building, were only 1 out of your 2 Alguacils have LOF to a S2 model?"
    O: "Let's find out. Okay, if you move the S2 back to this point, only 1 of my 2 Alguacils can see"
    M: "Okay. I spend and order to activate the model again and I move towards that point, if I have enough movement to do so, but I will stop at that exact point, even if I have excess movement left."
    O: "Okay, my Alguacil will ARO"

    What I am describing here is descriptive play, this is fully supported by the rules, as defined by the Order Expenditure Sequence:

    'IMPORTANT!
    All details and choices related to the execution of a Short Skill, Short Movement Skill, or Entire Order Skill must be specified when it is declared. For instance, if you declare a movement, specify the entire route; if you declare a BS Attack, specify which Weapon will be used, who the targets are, how the Burst is divided, etc. ...'

    - http://infinitythewiki.com/en/Order_Expenditure_Sequence

    Furthermore, me asking for who can see what from their current, non hypothetical, position, is simply the logical conclusion of the open/private information section, along with the now infamous blue box.

    I want to make the distinction between calling it "intent play" and "descriptive play", because the reason why I think a lot of controversies arise, is that you can apply "but I intended..." in many other various situations that has nothing do with descriptive play. For example, I had an opponent in a tournament. I declared that my Rui Shi would move in LOF against a Murloc, so he declared "Smoke Dodge" at which point I asked him slowly, "are you sure that you want to Smoke Dodge against my Rui Shi?", he confirmed firmly and I even finished by saying "So, you're sure?". After calmly confirming for the second time, I simply announced that it would be a normal roll then, at which point "Oh, I forgot it had MSV:2. I intended to get a FtF roll". So, after disclosing to him that the Rui Shi had Spitfire and MSV:2, when I presented my deployed models, after giving him an courtesy list that gives him every possible detail about that specific model, after asking the person multiple times "are you sure about your ARO?", then I would be branded as a "gotcha'!" player?
    No, in Infinity I want to defeat my opponent because I made better decisions than him and I played by the mission and objectives. I'm not obliged to babysit and organise the ARO's of my opponent in the most optimized manner, which is what seems (to me) to be the main point of the players that argues against intent. The word "intent" also causes
    contraverseis in situations like:

    A: "I intend to move to this point, were no one have LOF. Can anyone see that point?"
    B: "Nope! Go ahead"
    A: "Okay, I'll just move now"
    B: "Right, I will reveal my TO and ARO"
    A: "But you said no one had LOF and I intended that no one would have LOF at this point"

    This is why "intent" is a terrible word for this entire debate and this is why I suspect that you're talking past the crowd that argues against intent and vice versa. When Plebian says in his video, that he will move in and out again, from a corner unit A & B had LOF in the previous order, he's not playing with intent, this is descriptive play, which is fully supported by the rules. When player A annonces that he want's to "slice the pie" to player B, were both players have etablished the possible LOF that is Open Infomation then, again, they are both playing with descriptive play as fully stated in the rules. Furthermore, the "play it were it lands" is not actually something you can enforce by RAW. You cannot even force me to move 0,000001 mm beyond the exact point that I specified because that would violate, not only the description that is stated in the order expenditure sequence but also the entire section of how the Move short skill is written (which actually even has the literal word 'intent' in it):

    'MOVING AND MEASURING
    You can measure immediately after declaring Move and before determining where the trooper ends his Movement.
    The sequence of events would be: Move declaration, clarifying the direction and the intention of the trooper's final location, measuring, and declaration of the real movement's ending point.'

    - http://infinitythewiki.com/en/Move

    So if you're telling me that i'm forced to stay 0,1mm over the point I described, announced, declared and measured to be valid and within range, because I have shaky hands, sneezed, budged a piece of terrain, wind was blowing or what ever, you're literally cheating. Mind you, I'm not trying to be accusatory here, even if the wording is strong but after watching multiple instances of pro-intent players accusing the other side of being toxic "gotcha'!" players, while being unable to understand why the other side "can't understand" how intent is "clearly" in the rules, I've come to the concussion that both sides have a different view of what intent actually means, so no one can make arguments that resonates with the other part, which only leads to frustations, ad hominems and multiple closed threads.

    Just my thoughts on the entire matter.
     
  16. daboarder

    daboarder Force One Commander
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    It wasmt a discussion about intent. Just pointing out trex had missed part of them. I think we are good
     
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  17. realder

    realder Member

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    I play in the same meta at @Mahtamori and as he already has stated, we use intent when we play.

    There's a fair number of ITS events per year and we welcome players of all skill levels. The ARO mechanics and the collaborative way we use intent makes the game fun, even for new players at ITS events with tight time limits on rounds. If we didn't play using intent, I believe our meta would not be nearly as active.

    I prefer playing with intent. The game is more fun and has a better flow when playing with intent. Playing without intent takes way longer and feels choppy. To be fair, I think I've played two games without intent.

    I have never felt like anyone is pie slicing, pie slicing would be worse than playing without intent when it comes to flow and speed. We usually go:

    • I want to move a dude to a corner to shoot at something from cover.
    • At this point I ask,or just check, which models has LoF to the point where I intend to move.
    • Then I might say: "I want to move along this wall, keep out of sight, and peek around the corner for my first short skill".
    • [The dude is moved along the wall where the baddies don't have LoF to him for as far as his movement will take him or until he peeks around said corner]
    • If the dude don't make it to the corner, tough shit, he ran out of movement and the opponent declares ARO's.
    • If the dude makes it to the corner, yay dude! Then the opponent declares ARO's.
    That's about it.
     
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  18. Ieldin Soecr

    Ieldin Soecr Well-Known Member

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    I'm playing in Munich Germany and the meta here is heavily "Play by Intent", both in tournament and in casual games.

    Play by Intent in that case means the following behavior:
    1. Active and reactive player share informations regarding LoF and LoS from and to miniatures/markers/points on the table.
    2. These informations are shared ether when asked, or if one player thinks it is important for his opponent to mention it (for example if he moves into LoS of a CAMO-Marker he can't see from his side of the table). In Addition Informations about troopers, loadouts, skills and other informations are openly exchanged
    3. Pie-Slicing is allowed and used. Because of this the stacking of AROs is not used that often (Also because of widespread use of template weapons)
    4. Defensive Intent is also used (e.g. "This model is placed so it sees exactly that corner")
    5. Takebacks depend on the situation and the players but are practiced.
    6. Normal order sequence roughly looks like:
      1. Active player declares active model and first short skill
      2. If move, he declares the position he wants to reach and what he wants to see
      3. Reactive player confirms or refuses the possibility of that move.
      4. If refuse, he states if the move is possible under different conditions (e.g. the active model sees different things) or that the move is impossible
      5. The reactive player also states if he would allow a takeback or move with different conditions.
      6. Agreement about the result of the first short skill is made between the players.
      7. AROs are declared
      8. Second short skill is declared, following the procedure above
    7. That the reactive player refuses a move by the active player is relatively uncommon, as most orders are pretty clear cut. Maybe 1-2 Orders per turn.
    8. Players normally ask about LoS of specific miniatures or of specific areas before declaring an order or even before deploying.


    My take on this:
    As I have learned playing Infinity that way it feels natural to me and, as I have not played against a lot of people from different metas with different play styles, I did not have any problems with it.
    As far as I can tell this way of playing has evolved because of the following conditions:
    1. Miniature design: Many miniatures, from all armies, can not be placed physically the way the player wants to, so he has to state his intent to be able to perform certain moves (e.g. My trooper wants to stand on the wall facing it so he can see the corner left and right. But because of his stretched out arm the actual model is 1/2" further back.).
    2. Terrain/Game table: A lot of the terrain we use is ether so light that it gets moved during the game all the time, making a consistent game state impossible, or is designed/build in such a way that perceive model placement is not easily achievable (wobbly model syndrome).
    3. Template weapons: Especially shotguns are used often, so models tend to be spread out.
    Positives of this method of play from my viewpoint:
    • Negating design limitations of models and terrain
    • Negating physical (trembling hands) and mental (being exhausted) limitations of players (casual games are normally made in the evening on workdays)
    • Constant communication and a consisted game state for both players
    • Less to no moving around the table (We have very little space around our tables)
    • Shifts the focus from the physical to the tactical layer of the game, which helps newer players to concentrate on the more complex aspects of the game.

    Negative points for me are:
    • Shy or insecure players can be manipulated by their opponent (e.g. Active player demands takeback from reactive player)
    • Models are placed sloppy in regards to rotation at the end of an order (the actual placement is as close as possible to the intended position but they look in the weirdest directions)
    • Less incentive to get new terrain which is better suited for Infinity

    As I lack experience with other ways to play I cant give a qualified evaluation of these but I hope I will get some experience this year playing in different areas and metas.
     
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  19. TriggerPuller9000

    TriggerPuller9000 Poverty Orde Wingate

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    Generally I play somewhere between the two extremes. If it's blatantly obvious that the active turn player can position his model as he declares, we play it by intent and keep it rolling. If it's a particularly janky maneuver then the reactive player is well within his right to ask his opponent to 'make it work' on the tabletop. As an example, if models are vertically 'in line' save for a millimeter because one model is a hair further back due to a rooftop terrain feature, most people in my group wouldn't even attempt to pie slice.

    IME, playing with people who don't try to push the boundaries of 12-dimensional quantum Chinese Checkers just to avoid an ARO provides the best experience.

    One thing I've encountered, and am not OK with, is reactive turn players declaring that they 'intended' for their models to be positioned in ways or facing in directions that they are in fact not. "I meant to put this guy further back behind cover" is really just the reactive turn equivalent of "I intend to poke out X far from cover" but for some reason it feels exponentially more janky. It also is a situation that could easily arise from the frequently-referenced 'bumped terrain' paradigm, but I see less discussion about the reactive player's intent.
     
    #59 TriggerPuller9000, Jan 26, 2018
    Last edited: Jan 26, 2018
  20. atomicfryingpan

    atomicfryingpan Well-Known Member

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    How a turn goes for me.
    Check out the board and game state and plan my strategy. The questions I will typically ask is about load out and model facing. I don't ask if I go here what can see me. Then I start my activation.
    Me: "alright I'm activating the fusilier, he's going to move for his first short action."
    I like to place an order token next to the model to show I'm choosing to activate him and to help keep track of orders.
    Me: "he's going to try to go this spot." I place a silhouette marker. "And he's moving along this route." I describe the path of movement. I then measure and if I can make it I replace the market with the model, if not he goes as far as his mov value will take him.
    Me: "alright any aros?"
    Opponent checks for his aros and lines of fire. Obviously depending on what's where there are many different options. I'll just kind of run through some common ones.
    Common 1v1
    Opponent: "this alguacile here who will shoot you with a combi. That's the only aro I see, do you think you have line of fire to something else?"
    Me: "nah just that so I'll shoot ya with the combi. Gonna be my 3 dice to your 1."
    Proceed to measure distance and figure out target numbers with modifiers and then roll dice. After rolling we resolve the rest of that order and make all necessary armor and guts rolls.

    1vMultiple.
    Me: "alright any aros?"
    Opponent: "this alguacile here who will shoot you with a combi and this mobile brigada who will shoot with the hmg. Is their anyone else you have think you have LoF to?"
    Me: "nah just those two. So ill go ahead and shoot with the combi and put 1 into the alguacile and 2 into the brigada."
    Measure, roll, all that good stuff.

    So one of the key things we do with aro declaration is we ask if our opponent who is the active player sees something we don't. Usually doesn't happen but when it does it goes like this.

    Me: "alright any aros?"
    Opponent: "this alguacile here who will shoot you with his combi rifle. Do you have LoF to anything else?
    Me: "I'm pretty sure I can see that wild cat over there from here."
    We check LoF we use silhouettes if we have to.
    If it's agreed that we see him then.
    Opponent: "ok yeah you can see him so he'll shoot with his combi as well. Your second skill?"
    Me: "alright I'll shoot with the combi putting two into the cat and one into the alguacile."
    Measure, roll, resolve...

    If we checked and I didn't have LoF to the model i thought I could see then we would continue on as normal like the 1st example I gave. Doing this I've never had an argument with my opponent during a game whether casual or tournament. In a casual game if the lof was super close and hard to tell we would just roll for it, even we have LoF odd we don't. I've only had to do it one time that way out of a ton of games.

    Now as far as moving into LoF and back into full cover.

    Me: "alright my orc is going to slide out to here." I put an order token next to him and then place the silhouette to where he is going. "Then move back to his starting position." I would just leave the model where it is. I'll do a quick measure to make sure its within my mov value. Opponent would then go through his aros and ask me if I saw something else and we'd go through the process I described above.

    If I'm repeating orders. Let's go back to my first example the 1v1 fusilier vs alguacile. Let's assume neither of us died and are still in the exact same space.
    Me: "I'll idle with the fusilier." I place an order token next to him.
    Opponent: "alright my alguacile will shoot again."
    Me: "I'll shoot ya back."
    We wouldn't remeasure we would just proceed to roll and resolve.

    So that's pretty much how we play. I think I'd be placed in the play it as it lands group which I'm totally fine with. I think the major difference between me and the intent players is when we ask about who has line of fire. Intent players will ask about LoF and before the activation of a unit where as the group I play with ask after a models activation. I personally don't think my way or their was is more or less sporting. Both styles are communicating and cooperating. Granted that probably comes down to the players and their personalities.
     
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