I'm a big fan of the Retreat rules as they stand now. They give enough disadvantage to make whatever you can accomplish under them really heroic and/or tactically interesting. They reward your opponent for savaging you without simply throwing the game entirely in their favor. And they present an opportunity for units with Veteran, Morat, etc. to have a very different end-game playstyle that has good narrative character.
Shooting your opponent of the table wasnt the objective though. You want to be rewarded for not reading the instructions??
So why can't you just blast it after taking the objective? I don't find this rule very well justified by fluff. Why do you have to suicide your troops to "persuade" command to drop the bomb?
I'll try to clarify my problem with retreat. Let's say one side loses badly, goes into retreat, calls for orbital strike. Probably somewhat justified. We don't know why they can't just call the strike whenever they want, but it's not the biggest problem. In practice retreat sometimes leads to games where the guy who capped objectives just runs his troops into lines of fire to force retreat. That's very unnatural situation on the battlefield, where you can suicide troops just to make your side "lose" (go into retreat) in order to win.
But this can only be done in the active turn. Then the other player has another turn to change this fact, cause RETREAT! is checkt at the beginning of each turn.
Both this and abrupt ending of games seem very game'y. There has to be some better way to write scenario rules in a way to prevent purely annihilation oriented gameplay without mental gymnastics on how many points you're allowed to kill.
Probably, but nobody seems to have come up with a better one for Infinity yet, and people have been trying on and off for about a decade. :-(
I really disagree. The first reason I disagree is that because points costs are hidden information, getting your opponent into retreat is a gamble. The second reason is that Morats scrappily escaping with the objective isn't really in character with them; instead putting boot to tail until there's not much left of the opponent besides smoking craters seems more reasonable.
How often does this actually come up? Or is this just theorycrafting? I've got anecdotal evidence for myself, but i'm really curious if this is an issue in other metas.
Pretty much this. At this point we're reached the subjective preference of retreat. @Hecaton why not convince a few players to consistently play without retreat, and take notes about the experience. I'd suggest getting some players to try the kill everyone first then score objectives strategy as far as they can. At this point, I think CB could do with some solid wee studies info the effect not ending the game on retreat has on the game.
I would say once every 20ish games and mostly with newer players who don't know how to protect a backline or have never seen a Van Zant or don't respect what an Achilles can do. I honestly don't think getting rid of the rule would effect my strategy very much if at all truth be told. I think there is a Starship Troopers gif I would use here about the enemy not pushing buttons if you disable there hands Hell really the only time an average player is going to get tabled is if they are playing LI or TRYING to provoke retreat.
eh...and I think... Infinity needs some kind of Infinity-Lite version (not RECON, which restricts use of units and narrows table size). Where rules would be streamlined and some rules, which are not close to core mechanic would be erased (in my opinion "Retreat!" rule is a good candidate to be erased) Retreat! is among hundreds of other rules which you have to constatly keep in your head make Infinity an impossible game to "play by rules"... I've been playing for more then 2 years, and I constatly find out that something I (or my opponents) was doing wrong. Frustrating thing ... 0_0 Aaand we did play without retreat rules in our local community (won't lie - people forgot pretty often about it, even durnig tourneys). Honestly - no difference. Less things to keep in head. There are plenty of other, more interesting rules in a rulebook ;(
If I am honest, I don't really like any of the retreat mechanics that much. That said, I think that Retreat as a concept is acceptable and even good. The idea of dissuading people from just shooting the enemy dead and pressing all the buttons next turn on a clear table does sort of suck. I am not sure how to reach an equitable medium between satisfying for both sides.
It definitely came up during the tournament I ran this last weekend. Time limitations (players were only able to complete 2 rounds in some cases) also had a pretty dramatic effect on scoring.
