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Infinity with alternating activations

Discussion in 'Rules suggestions' started by FlipOwl, May 3, 2022.

  1. FlipOwl

    FlipOwl Well-Known Member

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    Hi,

    I don't know if this really qualifies as a rule "suggestion", but I think this is as good a forum as any to put this.

    The preamble is this: I love Infinity, and think it's a really solid game. However, having played mainly ITS for several years, I have noticed that I get a bit fed up with how the game often boils down to accomplishing / mitigating the alpha strike. The order system is really cool, but the fact that you have 10+ orders to pump into an attack piece to create and capitalise on any breakthrough make many games boil down to a few critical roles. Don't get me wrong, there are times when there is a lot of back and forth, and this is where I think the game shines.

    Me and my regular gaming partner have decided to put some time into testing what happens if we play Infinity with alternating activations. This is not me saying that everyone should play like that, but it would be interesting to see other people try it. I'm thinking this thread will be our test log of the experiment, and you lot can pitch in if you have ideas.

    First: Rules!
    Everything follows normal N4 rules, except where it doesn't. We basically change five rules: Turn structure, order count, initiative, camo and hacking. The changes are not that drastic, and I will explain them below:

    Turn structure: Instead of one player spending all their orders in sequence, players take turns spending one order at a time. ARO functions normally. Any order is eligible, TacAware, Lt, Regular, Coordinated.
    Instead of spending an order, a player can spend a Pass Token (more on those later) to simply wait out the opponent's activations

    In the impetuous phase, both players will activate their impetuous troops with the player with initiative going first. If one side has more impetuous troops than the other, that player must activate their surplus in one go on their turn, until they have fewer remaining. For example, if on side ha four impetuous troops and the other has two, the side with four would have to activate three of their impetuous troopers and then the opponent would activate one, and then alternating until none are left. This is probably the most convoluted part of the mod, but hey, it's impetuous, it's not supposed to be simple!

    First rules revision, inspired by @Mahtamori: Impetuous activations should make up their separate pool, and the side with fewer impetuous orders should get Impetuous Pass Tokens to make up the balance. These Impetuous pass tokens should not carry over into the orders phase, and neither should they modify the initiative roll. Much simpler and cleaner than our initial idea. Thank you!

    Order count: At the start of the turn, BOTH players generate all of their orders simultaneously. Both players count the total number of ALL types of orders (Including TacAware, Lt etc). If one player has fewer orders total than the opponent, that player gets a number of Pass Tokens to make up the difference. These pass tokens can be used to either bait out the opponents activations OR be saved to affect the initiative roll for next turn.

    Initiative: Initiative is a D20 roll + your Lieutenants WIP + any saved Pass Tokens. Initiative is rerolled every turn, and the winner gets to pick to go first or second for that turn.

    Camo: Or any marker state, really, can situationally get insanely strong with these rules. Therefore, troops cannot reenter marker state while in enemy ZOC. Enemy markers do not prevent entering marker state in this fashion.

    Hacking: Hacking is another thing that gets a bit of an extra boost, since any hacking ARO can be followed up by an active turn hacking attempt in the following order. Therefore, hackers have to Upkeep their programmes. What this basically means is that all hacking programmes that impose states work like supportware, and end if the hacker uses another programme.
    We have one thing that we haven't tried yet, but that we think would be cool, and that is for EVO hackers to be able to take over the Upkeep of any one programme while it's running. We will probably try this in our next game.

    Other minor changes: Because of the new structure, we have tried this with reinforced tactical links (No LoL) and so far only with one combat group. We have decided that you cannot choose a new lieutenant if you lose yours, giving you a hefty disadvantage to the initiative roll, and losing you your lieutenant order, but not turning all your orders irregular (the consequences of "classic" LoL would be catastrophic with the way alternating activations play out)

    So, I intend to keep posting updates as we test and refine this. Please feel free to try it, comment, ask questions and give feedback. And yes, the pass token mechanic is a blatant steal from Malifaux by Wyrd games. It is just such a good mechanic for balancing alternating activations that it would feel remiss not to use it.

    I will post some thoughts from our first game in the comments below.

    Cheers!
     
    #1 FlipOwl, May 3, 2022
    Last edited: May 3, 2022
  2. FlipOwl

    FlipOwl Well-Known Member

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    In our first game, PanO faced off against the Combined Army.

    Some noteworthy lessons:
    "ARO" pieces can be much more effective if they stay hidden. A prone sniper on a roof means that the enemy has to move from cover to cover or will be shot by the sniper in the active turn.

    Marker states are extremely powerful defensively, since moving to discover will often place your model in a position where it can be engaged by the camo'd trooper in its activation.

    Moving single attack pieces is a bad idea. They will be flanked and killed with combi rifles. Coordinated orders got used a lot to move into position, never to attack.

    Close Combat becomes a form of area denial. Not so much an attack strategy. I like this. A Daturazi was holding a strategic location, and I had to move a Nökk up to engage it, knowing that it would beat me in cc or chain rifle me. I only did this to force it to leave its hidey hole and get shot by the Nökk or my Aquila. Good interaction.

    Airborne deployment was difficult to use to do a lot of damage, but cost a lot of orders to counter, so still a very useful strategy.

    TAGs are very good. The Overdron took six wounds before going down (getting repaired between shootouts). The Tikbalang commanded a large swathe of the battlefield with it's mobility, but always had to stay mindful of its positioning not to get flanked.

    It did not feel like a loss to trade expensive pieces for cheap ones. My Aquila went down dealing with an Ikadron who otherwise would have threatened my Tikbalang via its repeater. All in all, it was the combination of troops in the right place at the right time that carried the day, rather than hinging on specific pieces.

    A very interesting first game. No major revisions to the core rules of the mod (the new way of rolling initiative that we decided on is already included in the rules above).
     
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  3. Mahtamori

    Mahtamori Well-Known Member

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    This all sounds really interesting and exciting. Do you think having fake/pass impetuous activations to even out the difference would add tactical depth or just take up time? (Also adding the idea that Spotlight is a Supportware (Malware?) to the list of things that might address the worst part of Pitcher spamming)
     
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  4. FlipOwl

    FlipOwl Well-Known Member

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    If I understand you correctly, you are proposing the impetuous phase to basically work like an additional order pool. I like that. I think it's elegant. In our game we only had one impetuous troop each, so didn't get to really see our proposed rule play out. I think we will try your suggestion.
    I will update the OP to reflect this.

    And yes, Spotlight also requires Upkeep. I have thought how forward observing should work in relation to this. I think the simplest solution would be to just making an FO have to Upkeep the Targeted state that it puts out, but to be honest, actually using FOs for targeting is such a rare occurrence that I hadn't given it much thought.
     
    #4 FlipOwl, May 3, 2022
    Last edited: May 3, 2022
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  5. solkan

    solkan Well-Known Member

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    I think there’s a problem in the situation where one player has impetuous activations and the other doesn’t. “I’m going to activate X of my dudes, and all you can do is pass” seems bad.

    I think it would be better for the player without any remaining impetuous activations if they had the option to spend their regular orders or pass. That way, the disadvantage of impetuous is that impetuous gets in the way of spending orders on the more disciplined troops—impetuous has to go first if you let them go at all.
     
  6. toadchild

    toadchild Premeasure

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    I am very interested to hear your experiences, this sounds like a lot of fun!

    I’m assuming this is just a simple roll-off where the high roll wins, rather than a FtF roll.
     
  7. FlipOwl

    FlipOwl Well-Known Member

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    Hi,
    So fun that you have ideas!

    This is actually a way of doing it that we have discussed. The reason we decided against it is that we think it would be a big drawback to having impetuous troopers. Consider the scenario where an AD-trooper has just landed in the backfield of a player with four Hungries in the midfield. It will now have three to four orders to rampage before the opponent can do anything but expend those impetuous orders. Of course, if we would like to disincentivise taking impetuous troopers, this might be a solution for the future.

    Correct. A simple roll off with modifiers. We think that is cleaner and gives more incentive to take high WIP lieutenants.
     
  8. solkan

    solkan Well-Known Member

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    The thing is that impetuous orders are optional to use in the regular game. So it would make sense in the alternating activation system for a player with remaining impetuous activations to be able to say “I waive my remaining impetuous activations” if they want to avoid a situation where they are inconvenienced.

    As long as you make them optional, then “I have four Hungries to activate, but you just landed an AD trooper in my backfield. Do I keep my impetuous activations or spend an order?” is just a fair decision that the player has to deal with.

    “You have X impetuous activations and I can’t do anything while you do them” isn’t.
     
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  9. FlipOwl

    FlipOwl Well-Known Member

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    I think it’s just a matter of how you look at it. In the regular game, you have no more agency during the opponent’s impetuous phase, and impetuous orders are used to try to overwhelm the opponent’s defenses, so not a big difference in my opinion.
    I appreciate the idea, and am open for trying it, but the interaction with pass tokens needs to be worked out, i.e. what happens to the pass tokens if a player waives their impetuous orders all at once as you propose. The easiest would probably be to just readjust the pass token balance based on the number of impetuous orders waived, but it might be possible to game this a bit. That’s why I think it needs testing.
    What would be your preferred way of handling the pass tokens vs impetuous in this regard?
     
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