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PhantomViper wrote:

DeathGod wrote:It is definitely a start, at least providing a little bit of narrative, but without skills and/or leveling somehow Infinity (and any other skirmish game) will always fall short of its potential.

EDIT: In my humble opinion, of course...

Just curious, but have you ever played Infinity?

I've dangled my feet in the water, and this is what's keeping me from jumping in head first.

Kilkrazy wrote:It's an option that will be useful and fun if you play a role-playing campaign based on the rules. Otherwise it will tend to lead to unbalanced games.

I agree with this statement, in a friendly campaigns it works good... also something people need to do is not just upgrades but injuries, running low on ammo and supplies… ( like killing the supply line scenarios) these thing can make the Super hero upgraded Character not so super.

Was someone playing at the bottom of a swimming pool? Do you mean you have just tried some demo games or some such like? I have to say it is unusual in my experience for someone to witness the game and then not want to jump in head first straight after (not even bother changing into swimming gear!)

I agree about some of the units becoming too powerful, stuff like Hac Tao with HMG or a Cutter is already pretty horrific, if they had even more skills and abilities it could take 'ramboing' to an even higher level, or a situation where there is too much disparity between levels of units (something that some people would argue is already quite pronounced).

Another point with Infinity as well (although really this could apply to other wargames) is that most of the guys on the board are supposed to be highly trained. So, while Fusilier Angus might learn to shoot a bit better, a Tiger Soldier who has already been part of extensive training and fought in special ops for many years already represents the peak of his profession, with the best equipment that the Yu Jing government can provide. Would there really be a noticeable improvement (enough to make a stat increase?) for that soldier? And what stats could you increase? Perhaps BS? Certainly not PHI, ARM or BTS, that would make no sense. I think while the idea is nice of improving soldiers, in practical terms I think it could seriously undermine the delicate balance of the game - something that the developers spent a long time (was it 4 years?) beta testing to try and get right.

There is the scenario book coming next year, and already on the official forums some great player-made linked scenarios and games. I think it might be possible to introduce some campaign elements - perhaps game advantages (choice of mission, increase or decrease of SWC, points bonus) to a small degree which would allow some campaign progression without undermining the balance of the game.

To be honest, I could care less if "leveling" changes tabletop play in any way. What I am wanting is growth of character in a campaign setting. Not a tournament setting, not a one off game, but in a campaign. I want to be able to differentiate my Hexas from the guy three tables down by more than their paint jobs.

"Leveling" can be more than stat increases and borrowing special rules from other units. In fact, it should be more. Maybe added skills will alter scenario choices, or how a fighter operates within given scenarios. Maybe a fighter can choose alternate ammo, making him more effective against, say, TAGs, while less effective against infantry. Maybe you can add in options for background - a PanO religious trooper coming from a pagan convert background, for example - that subtly changes the fighter's gameplay but greatly enhances his impact on a campaign's story.

These are the types of things that make the great skirmish games great and the poor skirmish games forgotten. "Leveling" doesn't have to be about power, but MUST be about growth.

@DeathGod: What you are describing is a great _narrative_ skirmish game. Narrative skirmish games also differ in that they do not start with very elite troops that have specialized skills and cool gear.

Infinity is a _tactical_ skirmish game, which is quite a different beast. It is set up for those who want to make careful, intricate plans, and execute really interesting tactical scenarios- the kind that are a lot harder to get out of a narrative game where abilities etc. are a lot more random. Infinity does tactical skirmish very, very well, and is very carefully balanced to do it. [In fact, it has a lot of mechanical similarities to Advanced Squad Leader, pretty much the greatest tactical skirmish game ever].

I've played a lot of both kinds of game (including tons of Necor and now a good amount of Infinity). They are really apples and oranges, and they don't mix well in either pure form. Suggesting that Infinity isn't very good because it isn't a narrative skirmish system is really missing the point of the game's existence.

Now that's not to say that someone couldn't create a really, really well-balanced narrative system where every possible evolution has been tested really well. Maybe that's what you should do.

Rather than suggest that Infinity become a narrative game, you should probably take it upon yourself to design your own happy medium between the two forms- or to explore and see if there's already one out there. but pooh-poohing Infinity (especially when you're not well experienced with the system) is pretty silly.

I think that there are 2 ways of campaign here:

- One way is making a 300pts army list, play the first battle. Whether you win or loose you'll get some bonus for reinforcements and proceed to the next battle. Your army now is made by the survivors of the first battle and a few reinforcement units. And this goes on and on during the whole campaign. Your soldiers become veterans and their stats grow.

Ok, while I like this particular model of campaign here, there is one main problem: CB has leaked that the campaign will be full of missions.
I don't know if all of you guys know how this game changes when you have mission objectives, but this game has like 40 different troop profiles for each army, with 4-6 equipment options each. That is why designing your army list in Infinity is HUGE, that is why they have this extremely awesome app for making your army list. Part of the Infinity experience is that you can design a completely precise, mission-oriented, army list. You can play Infinity for years and never repeat an army list.
If you make an Infinity campaign using the model described above, you¡ll be missing the richness of this game system.


This image was published by Ravage Magazine for a campaign system created by the French Infinity community (Aegis) and had some supervision from CB.

So, what would be the other model? A system that allows you to make a new army list when the mission is scheduled.

Also, they need rules for the "Cube" troops, and baggage drones.

There are all kinds of campaigns and systems that would work in an Infinity setting. I just played a campaign of Combat Commander dealing with US paratroops in Normandy, and had a blast. The winner of each game got their choice of scenario next time, while the loser received some sort of advantage (reinforcements, artillery support, a jeep, etc.). It sounds like the new scenario book will be doing something along those lines, that is linked scenarios.
I still say Infinity could do some kind of growth-based campaign. You wouldn't need to start with elite troops that got even better, but rather with green troops that become elite. I saw some previous posters complaining about balance. I'm very leery of that term in a dice-based table top game. If a campaign isn't balanced....so what? Save that for tournament play.

Don't suppose you know any way to get a blown-up image of that map Bobbafett?

Savnock wrote: but pooh-poohing Infinity (especially when you're not well experienced with the system) is pretty silly.

If I gave the im pression that I disapprove of Infinity, than that's my bad, and was not my intention at all. I was talking about what is preventing me from taking the plunge (which I define as dropping a couple Benjamins, not the 150 points I've already done). I have to agree, Infinity does tactical skirmish very well.

To take a different track and give an example I'll use video games. For me, I am much more likely to drop $60 on a game that has alot of replayability. That's not to say that, say, a RTS like Dawn of War is bad, per say, but I prefer a game like Fallout that I could replay 100 times and have 100 different experiences. Bringing it back to Infinity, there's only so many times I can line up my models against the other guys' models and play Kill 'Em All. The Metallica album is awesome and can go on infinite loop, but I need more from my wargames.



Automatically Appended Next Post:
Something I thought of while reading some other posts about the forthcoming book of scenarios was Battletech in its early years. For those who don't know, FASA had created a universe that was incredibly rich, with diverse factions and characters, and built upon in both sourcebooks and some very, very good novels.

Battletech the tactical game was very similar to Infinity. Similar to what BobbaFett was saying, Battletech game options were almost infinite (with a very well balanced Mech Creator, so you could design your own). That being said, after awhile games got pretty stale. FASA's solution was historical campaigns, with linked scenarios recreating important battles and heroic deeds from the fiction. You could replay some of the great battles between House Davion and House Kurita, or refight the Invasion of Tukkayid and prevent the Clans from rampaging through the Inner Sphere. These campaigns were not as diverse as what I am wishlishting, and did not have the character growth I'd like to see, but they would be a great bridge between what there is now, and what many of us would like to see.

Sounds like the aforementioned New Book of Scenarios may be precisely that...

I just wanted to post up a huge kudos to Corvus Belli. They just send out a tournament pack overnighted from Spain (can't imagine how much that cost) packed to the gills with blisters and swag for the upcoming Con in Denver, Colorado US. It didn't have the weapons packs in it though do to a mixup in shipping :(

For a company their size spending prob $250ish bucks for their fans was pretty damn cool of them. Please note though that they don't do this for everyone, we kinda have a rivalry going on between Spain and Colorado on who can run the biggest tournament. If you are in the area Nov 5th grab a ticket for the Con and help us beat their record.

Congrats to CB AND to Blue Dagger - anything that grows the game of Infinity is a good thing!

Pacific wrote:Don't suppose you know any way to get a blown-up image of that map Bobbafett?

All I know is that the French Infinity community had a lot of exclusive stuff through the Ravage Magazine. They' made lots of scenarios and, in their website, they had a campaign system with that map.
I've been looking in their website, but I cannot find a Hi-Res image of the map.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Ok, I have just wtached this video from Doremicom.




And it looks like at MACE 2011 in North Carolina they'll have Infinity demos and tournament.



All by this guy.

Savnock wrote:Rather than suggest that Infinity become a narrative game, you should probably take it upon yourself to design your own happy medium between the two forms- or to explore and see if there's already one out there. but pooh-poohing Infinity (especially when you're not well experienced with the system) is pretty silly.

Done!

Well, started, anyways... looking for feedback and suggestions.

Posted in the Skirmish Games forum: http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/403003.page

That looks like a pretty interesting (and involved) post, if I get the time I will definitely try and contribute.

Whoa! I actually met that Doremicom guy two days ago at the local SciFiGenre Infinity Day in NC. He's really enthusastic and an overall greatguy.

DeathGod wrote:

Savnock wrote:Rather than suggest that Infinity become a narrative game, you should probably take it upon yourself to design your own happy medium between the two forms- or to explore and see if there's already one out there. but pooh-poohing Infinity (especially when you're not well experienced with the system) is pretty silly.

Done!

Well, started, anyways... looking for feedback and suggestions.

Posted in the Skirmish Games forum: http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/403003.page

Way to put your money where your mouth is! I look forward to seeing where you go with this.

Savnock wrote:

DeathGod wrote:

Savnock wrote:Rather than suggest that Infinity become a narrative game, you should probably take it upon yourself to design your own happy medium between the two forms- or to explore and see if there's already one out there. but pooh-poohing Infinity (especially when you're not well experienced with the system) is pretty silly.

Done!

Well, started, anyways... looking for feedback and suggestions.

Posted in the Skirmish Games forum: http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/403003.page

Way to put your money where your mouth is! I look forward to seeing where you go with this.

Now I just need some feedback! Is the basic structure viable? If it is, its time to start taking suggestions for Advancement Ladders.

Rumours says that the Infinity website will be updated this friday.
Probably the constant massive use of f5 during the first minutes will crash the server... again... as usual.

And we already know that Hussein Al-Djabel comes with this bunch.



Then, many people is hoping for:

Sforza
Sogarat
Merovingian starter pack
Haiduk

and POST HUMANS above anything else.

It is pretty obvious that a TAG is coming in November.

Please dear Jeebus, SFORZA us! Nothing else is really close enough to proxy well.

BlueDagger, might you be willing to relate your experiences/lessons learned as an Infinity TO to the rest of us (either here or on the CB boards)? It would help a lot for those of us in areas with nascent leagues.

"...and POST HUMANS above anything else" indeed.

There are so many opportunities they can take with this.

A TAG? Dare I say, Ariadna?

I think that's the big one everyone is hoping for! But, I don't know sadly, hopefully Absolutionis will do his usual detective work closer to the time!

Pacific wrote:I think that's the big one everyone is hoping for! But, I don't know sadly, hopefully Absolutionis will do his usual detective work closer to the time!

Of course we all would love that, but as others have pointed out before, entirely-new units are not likely to come out before the line of miniatures in published books is somewhat more finished.

Well, that is not exactly true.
There are troops from the first book that still don´t have miniature (Jotum, Dragao, Raicho...) and they did release troops from Human Sphere years before the books was released. I bet that we can even see something shiny even before 2012.

Pacific wrote:hopefully Absolutionis will do his usual detective work closer to the time!

Hah, I just got lucky (twice) and checked a site at the right time.

We're counting on you, Absolutionis!

Help us, Absolutionis. You're our only hope!

Hello there!

I've found these images on the spanish Infinity official forum, which were taken from the O-12 german infinity community. These are photos taken in the Spiel 2011 at Essen, Germany, if i'm right, where two of the Corvus Belli Staff members took new minis and concepts:

Minis:

Loup Garous, i think it's a box of 4 minis:



Traktor Mul:



Concepts:

TAG Dragoes:



Al-hawwa (don't know if this is the correct name, sorry):




Cheers

Drools at the Drago, that is going to look so insanely good. For those unfamiliar CB is ridiculous good at making their models look incredibly like their concept art.

The Traktor Mul is exactly how we all imagined and they nailed it!

HOLY CRAP ON A CRACKER, I AM BUYING THOSE LOUP GAROUS!

Also the Traktor Mul is adorable. It kinda looks like a baby Crassus Armoured Transport with rocket launchers strapped to its roof.

The Traktor Mul is fething gorgeous!