Private information: Cost and SWC

Army has game management tools built right into it, the idea you're supposed to not use it during a game is a very strange house rule at best!

 

Alright, then you can refer to your local etiquette, make sure your playground is aware of your house rules and etiquette and then have fun with everyone involved.

 

I'm guessing I know the TO who encouraged that sort of behavior...

 

You underestimate the amount of gatekeeping/power tripping that some in the community really want perpetrate.

 

I just can't get my head around this notion that recamoing your sphinx sends out tendrils of illegality into the wider universe that make your opponent looking down at their own list to see the price of their own sphinx a violation of etiquette, if not the rules. Or if it's not, how anyone could accept looking up someone's private info in a mirror much but not accept looking up the profile in Army. It's so bizarre.

 

I mean, on page 1 of this thread, everyone acknowledged that TOs have the authority to make house rules.

If the TOs in @kinginyellow 's area have made a house rule banning looking at Army during a game, they can do that. I don't see the need for it myself, but it doesn't particularly bother me either.

If those TOs have made some sort of more vague house rule about "you can check Army but not for certain purposes," that's a much more problematic rule in terms of clarity. An ethical player would have trouble knowing when they can and can't check Army. An unethical player would have no trouble checking Army whenever they want and fudging the reasons.

Either way, the OP asked what the rule is about public information. The answer is clear. The point and SWC costs of any profile is public information, for reasons already gone into in depth. You can look it up in any way not prohibited by a house rule.

 

But he literally just said he read and agreed to what Inane posted earlier, which clearly explains the opposite. At this point I'm not sure if trolling or not.

 

? Mate I feel like you are trying to say stuff about my meta due to you despising the TOs in the states around mine but literally it was 2 players, one who volunteered over this. So no, this had nothing to do with TOs at all. Chill.

 

Because I disagree but the general consensus of that resolution is by the easiest for all involved. I have played in 7(?) States who all played the same as I do and I know only 10 or so people have posted on this thread while many more people who play will agree or disagree with this result regardless of our typing.

So effectively just saying I disagree, but no benefit to just disagree when the perfect middle ground was right there?

 

You're arguing by comparing using a official app to cheating using weighted dice or preventing someone from breathing by the rules.

And then supported your claims with an example of the most unsportsman attitude I've ever read on the forum thusfar.

I'm not even sure if you're trolling at this point.

I gave a lot of examples a couple of pages earlier as to why banning game ressources can foster a toxic environment by giving more power to players who want to deliberately be unsportsmanlike, discouraging collaborative play and widens the gap between player based on their inexperience.

The only advantage to banning such a tool is being able to win games based exclusively off of player inexperience and potentially preventing something that could slow down the game (which is also a separate issue since you can easily use game ressources without slowing down the game, or use chess clocks)

 

No. The response was it was neither private no public:

 

It's neither "Open" or "Private" information as defined by the rules on this page https://infinitythewiki.com/Open_and_Private_Information

It is however "public" information in the sense that it is part of the ruleset.

 

The rules define information on an army list as either Open or Private. I was using "public" to refer to information that's not on the army list at all, so neither Open nor Private. It's in the same category as information about the location of the bathroom or the TO's favourite brand of whiskey or the rangebands of a rifle. We may not be disagreeing :-)

 

You know, that might be why I have been coming off as trolling. I was not and may have been stubborn but what I have been arguing. . . Isn't what is being discussed.

I literally thought in game it was public/private (far to much software coding is these are the 2 things and they are opposites). Not open/private which they apparently are :)

I have been fighting that it literally is not involved in the ruleset as is dice being weighted. Of course the example is extreme as it was to show that rules have a limit and the rest is etiquette and game environment. The game environment is of course better if dice are fair and of course everyone has house rulings that dice must be as fair as knowingly possible. The debate is the game is better with army being available to use. Which you were advocating that it is significantly better if it is available than if it is not.

I literally am talking to the wrong discussion xD

Cool, then my discussion of literal rulings. . . Is irrelevant.

 

Since we may be approaching something like agreement, let me try to formulate how I see information being dealt with in the rules.

Each player made their own army list, so only they know what's on it. The only way their opponent will know is if that player tells them.

All other information relevant to Infinity is equally accessible to both players. Whether it's the layout of the table, or how Stealth works, or where the local pizza joint is, or how many points a Sphinx costs. I'll refer to all information not on an army list as "public" information for that reason. The rules say nothing about public information.

The rules do address information on a player's army list. Specifically, they address when that player has to reveal such information to his opponent.

What the rules say about information on a player's army list is this: certain specified information on the list is Private. The player doesn't have to share it for as long as it remains private. All information not defined as Private is Open. All Open information must be freely shared with the opponent.

The rules don't say anything else about information. Specifically, they don't limit in any way a player's ability to access public information, or to use Open and public information to deduce the Private information from their opponent's army list. That information is only protected from forced disclosure, not from deduction.

A TO can make rules about what a player can or can't do during a tournament. They can prohibit players from accessing the Army app, which would limit the ways players could look up public information during a game. However, that doesn't make the information itself any less public.

tl;dr: if you ask me what weapon my Bolt has, I'm required to answer. If you ask whether my Bolt has Chain of Command, I can and should refuse to answer. If you ask me whether Bolts have a Chain of Command profile, it's up to me whether or not to answer, same as if you ask me where the bathroom is. There may be etiquette considerations with either question. But you can look those answers up for yourself anyway.

 

To put it succinctly?

Asking what the ARM stat of a TO marker you suspect to be a Sphinx = bad

Suspecting a TO marker to be a Sphinx and looking up what the ARM would be on the device you already have Comlog and the wiki open on = fine, unless the locals have a house rule against it for some reason

 

That said, to talk about what should be acceptable. I have already brought up my metas opinion, but we are talking about what ideally should be the answer.

I dont like the idea of attempting to put the entire list into army. But I love the idea of asking specific questions. I just don't see how you can do one but not the other.

For 2 reasons I dont like the entire list, the first is just time. Games need to be able to be played within a reasonable amount of time. I know most communities are against death clocks (i am not, most metas in the us are, that I am aware of). A death clock would be an ideal answer to this as it means spending 10 minutes putting the list into army to figure out if van zhant is possible or hes a couple points short and can only fit in spetznaz parachutist would be up to that player how he sees to use his time. That example it may absolutely be worth it, but the difference between a garuda FO and an ekodomoi is largely semantics to that player in most cases and he may decide thinking out his turns is more worthwhile.

The 2nd is I personally am not a fan of the exactness of it. While it is fair to have an issue with having the ability to ballpark a parachutist is capable of fitting. Be able to exactly tell that it cannot be van zhant over a spetznaz by the fact that he is missing 4 points is a bit to strong for the ideals of what a hidden trooper is supposed to be. Being able to tell them that a decent number of points is missing but most players cannot get down to that level of accuracy to a faction that they are not experts in. A distinct piece of infinity is the ability to have profiles that are not revealed or models that are only known once they hit the table. The alternative would be closer to 40k drop troops, who are tactically fine but does miss what private models was going for.

But you are right, being able to ask specific but abstract questions are super important for a player that without can hurt someone that is unsure about a faction. Aleph's cheapest lt is 23 points and generally brings like 1 or maybe 2 models that can legally be an LT. So just being able to ask what can be an LT is helpful to someone not experienced to aleph. Does your faction have combat jump / hidden deployment. What price ranges are they. Let the points of the entire list be vague but gives the player the choice of "do i think its a cj or hd model". Instead of knowing straight exactly what they have.

But both have a problem of what is the limit. Courtesy lists are given after deployment and atleast most if not all games that I have played, the deploying player goes over who has what were only after they are done. Which makes it a question of without death clocks and without a time set aside for a player, what are the limits of what can they do?

If i can browbeat my opponent or i am faster at entering his list than vice versa into army, I have an advantage. If he feels pressured to act quickly and get the game started, he may not have the time to enter my own. I now have the exactness of his models but not vice versa through social or speed of entering his list. We have changed the problem from memorization to others.

 

Or the fact that your opponent just bought a Cutter mini. Which may go *some* way to explaining the significant Points hole in his deployment.

 

I think this is a good point, but I don’t think that it’s at the level of “army use during the game is cheating.”

A lot of the arguments against use of Army at the table boil down to wanting to limit the tools available to everyone’s favorite fun-destroyer, That Guy. The WAAC bad sport who is willing to ruin his opponent’s experience to get a leg up...we’ve probably all met or played one by now.

I think my view on this boils down to enforcing standards of good sportsmanship. Referencing Army occasionally during play seems, to me, reasonable as long as it doesn’t bog things down. I would consider doing it just to avoid interrupting my opponent to ask a question while they’re deep in thought—if it seemed like a reasonable question to ask—since that actually might speed things up a bit by saving a moment of their time.

At the same time, trying to use the threat of it to browbeat someone seems like bad sportsmanship and I’d immediately assume I was playing a That Guy...at which point resolving to avoid him in future and maybe calling a TO in case of competitive play would be my next steps.

One compromise would be a phones-down rule during deployment with an exception for snapshots of HD placement, if the concern is list reconstruction during deployment. I don’t know if that’s really necessary, but frankly I don’t object to house rules or tournament rules against using Army at all, as long as that’s announced in advance.

Conversely, I think blanket accusations that any use of Army as a reference during play is cheating are...hyperbolic at best, but also a touch of poor sportsmanship because there’s an implicit assumption that the other player is likely to be acting in bad faith. I would prefer to begin with an assumption of good intent on the part of an opponent until they demonstrate otherwise.

Plus, every That Guy I’ve ever played has shown a talent for creating bad experiences no matter what tools are handy, it’s just the specific flavor of suffering that varies. I don’t know that adding open access to Army would make it much worse. I do know that That Guy has ruined my day playing a good half dozen different game systems over the years, and I feel fortunate to have avoided him so far in the Infinity community.