Space Infantry - Soul Crushingly Hard - Advice?

[Ryan Shannahan]

I've completed around four campaigns of the Jovian Wars Prelude campaign. When I make it to the end I'm lucky to score a Defeat rating. A Major Defeat is a more common rating.

I love nearly everything about the game. My only complaint is that the game seems, well, soul crushingly difficult to succeed in when playing a campaign. I don't mind losing, but it turns into a bummer when I can see that defeat is inevitable when I'm only three missions in to an eight mission campaign.

Now I might just not be playing well, and I hope I get a few responses with advice that helps me improve my gameplay, even a bit. But here are a few problems I see with the campaign:

1. The enemy becomes more dangerous via Alert Levels as the campaign progresses. (Not a problem by itself, but...)
2. The player is penalized in numerous ways for losing a mission. Not only does the player lose VP (not a complaint), but the participating and surviving soldiers don't gain as much XP for participating in a failed mission. Considering that the enemy will only get stronger without the player being able to counteract that, and considering that the improvements gained by experienced troops are rightly lost when KIA, it seems too harsh a penalty to the player that troops who survive a fail/abort mission receive less XP.

I am on the verge of using the "easy variant" described in the rules which allows the player 130 squad points per mission. I'm also considering instituting a houserule that would award XP for a fail/abort result of 3 XP per surviving soldier plus 1 bonus XP per the rules for succeeding a mission. I'm hoping that just one of these will give me a fighting chance against what is either poor play on my part or the failure begets failure design of the campaign. I would love to see (at this point) a mechanic that gives a minor penalty to the enemy when the player has a successful mission. Something that might offer a minor offset to the Alert Level increase and the penalties the player receives when failing/aborting a mission.

I absolutely love the game. But it's been a bummer considering the time involved in playing a campaign to see little to no chance of success near the beginning of the campaign.

So, anyone have any thoughts or advice? I hate using easy variants and houseruling things, so I'm hoping I can scare up some helpful advice or a new perspective here. I've perused the limited strategy discussions on BGG but haven't found anything that's worked for me.

I've got about 25 logged plays of SI on BGG (most of them campaigns) but I'm probably sitting around 30 plays total.

Thanks,

Ryan

 

[Gottardo Zancani]

Hy Ryan, sorry for the late reply but I've missed this notification....

Many players arised the topic of the "difficulty" of SI, especially on the late campaign. Considering the many options added since the beginning of the game design I agree with you that probably the penalty for a failed mission can be a little bit too harsh, since you loose XP, VP and you won't get any Strategy Option to re-attempt the mission.

I've decided to change the rules for chapter 7 considering your suggestions (and those of other players): Units will always gain 3XP, regardless of the mission's result); this also reflects a simple idea: you learn more when you make a mistake.
If the mission is successful you gain one additional XP that you can freely allocate.

The revised AL system that will apperar in the latest rules drops the generic modifiers to the Encounters (for example a class A is considered A+2): instead the Mission Cards will include specific modifers for the Mission objectives/rules (and also some Enemis will become stronger, sorry...). This should mitigate a little bit the difficulty, and in addition you could better "control" it since is not pervasive (currently each class A encounter is "upgraded").

Zak

 

[Ryan Shannahan]

Zak, thanks for your reply. I was going to start my next campaign using the very same XP rule for failed missions that you are incorporating into the next edition/ruleset. Glad to hear about the progress on the next edition and some of the changes.

I'm eagerly awaiting the opportunity to pre-order!

Ryan

 

[Gottardo Zancani]

Just curious: did you try to use the Battledrones (Steel Bones minimodule) ? They are still in WIP but I'd really like to get some feedback from one "veteran" player like yourself.

 

[Ryan Shannahan]

I downloaded and looked at the minimodule but haven't printed or played it yet. I've been focusing on the two campaigns in the original game. Trying to refine my play to see if I can get better.

I'll look into it in the next couple of weeks and see if I can't play Steel Bones and get back to you.

 

[Gottardo Zancani]

Thanks a lot in advance!