Has anyone ever tried to play solo (playing both sides)? I don't have a lot of people to play with. I've played other wargames solo and it's worked rather well. I think Infinity would play well solo too. I wonder how I'd handle invisible troops. Any ideas, thoughts, recommendations?
I don't think Infinity is the best game to play solo... maybe you could practice a first turn versus yourself to see how well you can handle AROs or how well your defense stand, or practice with tricky models like Oniwabans, Achilles or a TAG, but not much more... Make a post in the New Users or ask in your local stores; you could probably find some players around you. Spoiler: Or try chess...
Where are you located? If there are really no other players around your area, try to find a friend who likes XCOM and would be interested in trying to play a board game version of the game (I mean, a real tactical board game, not that dice rolling nonsense created by FFG). Demoing the game to other players is the only way to grow the community. You may also ask other warcors on the forum about giving you some advices in growing the community, or even having one arrive to your area to host a demo!
Playing solo can be done depending on how you present the scenario. A "i'm bad at making defensive deployment" training can be to make a list, not oriented for that, and then try to break it playing a first turn with other lists of different factions. A "I need to learn to deal with Total Reaction bots" can be done by placing some and trying to take them down with as few orders as possible, etc... The problem of practice matches against yourself is the makers, hidden deployment, Holo1 and AD troops, since there is no surprise at all, but can be used to get a grasp about how to play certain missions. The biggest disadvantage and problem, however, of playing Infinity against yourself is that it becomes extremely easy to create and reinforce erroneous interpretations of rules (in my first practice game, I erroneously played like AI Beacons were also repeaters, and in my first real game against another player I thought a troop with the Veteran classification was a Veteran troop with NWI... so the Myrmidons should last a lot...).
This seems like the only real thing you could do solo. Set up "missions" for yourself to try and handle an opposing army with lots of AROs pointing at you, or deploying your army defensively, then trying to kill it with drop troops coming in from the back etc. A full game relies too much on hidden info. Not just hidden deployment etc. but also having to ARO based on not knowing whether that hacker that just walked in front of you will hack you or shoot you in the face, so having to decide between resetting/dodging/shooting/something else. Also worth mentioning where you're from in case anyone can help you find opponents, and look for a local facebook group to find players.
+1 for setting up a scenario for yourself. One thing you could do for the OpFor is have them all act as though they are "pseudo-impetuous", where each of the Opposing Force's models move towards the nearest enemy while engaging from cover if possible. That way you could play your own force intelligently and trick the "AI" with your own camo tokens and the like without relying on pretending you don't know what they are while playing the other side. Could be interesting if you setup the OpFor with superior numbers where you have some objectives you need to complete.
I've found solo play is a good way of learning how units behave on the table, so I often do a small solo-scenario if you will, in which I focus on a specific unit trying to achieve an objective it will be facing regularly in real games. This usually involves a reduced amount of units and reduced gaming space to keep the amount of preparation as low as possible. Trying different approaches with a given unit can help you gauge its performance in various situations. Since the overall game very much depends on the actions of your opponent and your reactions to it, I don't think there is any larger benefit to playing against yourself, though.
I can totally see the benefit of solo play. If anything, its an exercise of deployment since most models in the game move very little.
I run through scenarios against myself frequently. I own multiple armies and am confident in my rules knowledge so I'll use these solo runs to test out my armies and tactics against each other. Obviously you lose the element of surprise so AD and hidden deployment may not shine as they would against an unawares opponent, but KNOWING where those models are helps you drill defensive play and learn how to use your units to mutually support themselves.