I disagree, if you know you have one blast template worth of terrain of your choosing that can be placed on the objective or some critical path, you can plan ahead with your list including troopers that have a specific terrain ability and not have the ability as an afterthought.
Putting it into the core N5 rules would invalidate the Battle Conditions deck - there are 5 cards in it that allow for placing specific types of terrain zones (2 templates) on table. I don't think CB would want to invalidate the Operations Deck that quickly, it is here for how long? Less than a year? (I honestly don't remember). We might see what we have seen in the past: one or another type of terrain being pushed forward during an online campaign or ITS season. So yeah, you'd know what kind of terrain you'd be facing in a given scenrio, but that would not be a N5 rule, just a campaign / ITS rule.
Can you try to formulate your opinion as your opinion and not widespread consensus? I can in no way confirm that the majority thought N4 was/is "crap". On the contrary, it seems most people agree it was a big improvement over N3, with a bunch of issues that I guess everyone would have loved to have addressed sooner than with this edition change. And to claim that N3 was a "truly balanced game" runs counter to a lot of other experiences as well, to put it mildly. I loved N4. I would have loved it even more if CB hadn't waited so long to address its issues. But I'm excited for N5 and certain it will be an even better game than the one we have already.
Im just resuming the opinion of mostly all spanish players is whatsapp/telegram channels, and many international players as well. There are more players unhappy with N4 than happy ones. And the proof is that N4 has significant less life span than previous editions. (at least since i can remember, i entered the game in N2 last years) In N3, playing mostly CHA and some ocasional MO, i never felt that i could not compete against any other army, being a totally mediocre player. Now, i have 6/7 different sectorials and i know i will not be compiting for top spots in tournaments because they are old, abandoned armies.
No one in the 2-3 infinity comunities i usually play liked the circular terrain templates in the past ITS seasons. They felt a forced inclusion, with little to none impact in most of the matches, and 90% of the time, we forgot about them, as to name a datatraker or set a defensive turret. They keep adding irrelevant stuff to the missions we all know that make the game more and more difficult to new players. This mission had turrets? or it had a free merc motorcycle? twin O-G terrain templates for each player? None of them?
Not necessarily, battle conditions deck is for Resilience ops something distinct from regular scenarios who could simply have a single terrain template as part of the deployment, on the other hand battle conditions deck usage could be expanded for use in regular scenarios either as a random choice or as a preselected card, there are ways for this to happen without invalidating the battle conditions deck. Yes, because they created little, if any, tactical advantage for the army or could be predicted on the army list creation, anyway its nothing major, but something I believe might be an interesting plus for armies that have terrain rules.
TBH, the circular terrain rules do suck, and outside of ITS events we ignore them entirely because they add nothing of value and don't even make sense. "Behold, this one circular spot is Mountainous!" If they did something interesting I'd be down. I think I would prefer to see pieces of irregular terrain, or just more tables using terrain rules for larger areas in general.
I remember that in the, maybe 3-4 Interplanetarios, some tables have own terrains rules and were specified at the table itself. But in the last year interplanetario, a total of 0 tables had terrain rules to apply. If big tournaments dnt make the effort to add terrains to the battles... (here enter the top players, who usually dont like the extra layer of difficulty and sometimes, randomess, of the terrains). The best approach i saw for terrain rules lately was the new cards in the objective deck. X+Y terrains got Z effect, all terrains got +2", etc etc... interesting, but not enough. And, as more as a subjetive thing, i dont think circular terrains templates fits tematically with the 90% of the urban themed tables that we all play in Infinity. look, a perfectly, round, infinite height mountain appear in the middle of this Neoterran city
@AmPm I am listening to your ideas on how to make terrain rules relevant easy and accessible in missions when (almost)nobody makes tables that include terrain rules. There are ways to interpret it and make sense, for example a pipe explosion has shattered the ground locally and has enough debris and smoke to block LoF, but I can agree they thematically can be out of place.
You lay down irregular materials to block out zones of whatever type before placing buildings, you put in forests/gardens/rocky outcroppings/water features/etc and build the rest around it. Or you just make everything that isn't in a certain area that terrain. We had a space station and everything outside it was 0-G and that worked fine. There are a lot of great ways to do it, just not the ways that CB uses. My point is that the circles are poor and I think also take away the impetus to put actual terrain into play on a table.
Not all clubs or FLGS have the resources to have multiple biomes for all the tables in tournaments And could happen than a certain mission with a certain terrain combo could make the mission unplayable. Certainly is not an easy problem to address to make terrains playable, widely used and enjoyable
Then speak for your Spanish WhatsApp community. I can just as well point to my German WhatsApp community and the international players I know who mostly have a very different opinion. I also have 6-7 sectorials, none of them from N4, and they all feel very much able to compete at tournaments. That's why I asked you to frame it as opinion, not fact. But I agree, I would have wished for CB to pay more attention to older armies over the span of N4 as well. Let's hope they do better with N5.
Since my regular opponent has been insistning on playing basic kill-out games for some time, we use Battle conditions card to spice these up a bit. Works fine. I still don't like the idea of one player simply getting a free terrain template of their choice to deploy anywhere on the table. Nb. I agree the "round template of terrain" isn't a good solution, - to paraphrase Churchill, it is the worst solution, except for all the others. If someone has a better solution, I'm all ears. Though please do keep in mind it needs to be cost-effective and repeatable across the various Infinity tables across the world. CB has apparently acknowledged the limited effect the terrain skills have in the game, given that most Infinity tables around the world seem to be urban sprawls of one kind or another: in N4, Terrain:X skills seem to be free or almost free (with a tiny little bit more weight given to Terrain: Total). Once again - make a given ITS season or FoW (or another) campaign (or specific scenarios of it) happen, narratively, in a specific environment. That's fine with me. This season is about conflict in Svalarheima. Heavy winter conditions. Troops with training in mountain warfare (Terrain: [Mountain]) will be in high demand. Next season, we switch do Varuna, and it is Aquatic Terrain. Under such rules, if you know the mission in advance, you know the terrain. You'll be able to plan for it. Thus, both the Terrain Skill will be relevant, and the player will be able to plan to bring & utilize it. And that would apply regardless of being active or reactive player.
How about just consolidating all the Terrain rules into one "Difficult terrain" rule, and those troopers who have the rule get a bonus? Simple enough?
Simple. For my taste, too simple. I know, I'm a difficult customer ;) but I like the narrative space the differenttypes of special terrain allows us. Also, I'd prefer it the other way around, personally - the "special terrain troops" not getting a bonus, but everyone else getting a penalty. Because it is not like you start performing better when in a dificult terrain you've been trained for. Merely, you suck way less in it (because you trained for it) than someone who didn't train for it.
Also include Saturation and Visibility effects. I liked the QAZ templates because you can use them to defend an objective or deployment zone. The ability to receive a wound passing through it made a tactical risk assessment. Should I go through here and risk dying, or take the long but safer route towards the objective.
that's how it worked in the past, and was changed because we as humans react better to get bonuses for having certain skills than get penalized for not having them (and i still forget to apply both bonuses and penalties when playing several times) Terrains make sense in already fixed scenarios, like Campaing Paradiso, so having a terrain applied to the complete ITS season could be interesting. Next season we'lll arrive to a totally new planet, yet to be terraformed. All scenarios that season should be Desert or Mountain...
