Infiltration - Tips & Strategies

If your equipment draw includes a resource to unlock tec locks consider advancing quickly to the second floor. The locks are worth more there, possibly up to 8 DF tokens.

In two games I have played the Starting Room that was revealed happened to be the Research Admin Office. – this room card allows access to the Secret Room. In each game, the first player ( decided randomly by die roll) Interfaced, entered the Secret room gathered alot of DF files and (and in one game a Prototype) and in each game this player won the game.

This prompted an immediate house rule that makes the game a bit more fun and it involves the two Level One ( Blue) Room Cards Research Admin Office and Moving Sidewalk.

During set-up, when shuffling and setting up the facility, remove the Research Admin Office and The Moving Sidewalk room cards. Shuffle the remaining Level One Room Card, draw and reveal to everyone the Starting Room. Place the Characters on the room, then shuffle the two removed cards back into the Level One Room card deck and randomly lay down the rest of the first level rooms.

This insures that the first player doesn’t receive a huge advantage in the game (simply by going first) in the case of the Research Admin Office Room Card, and also that the Moving Sidewalk Room Card provides a bit more of a challenge when encountered later in the facility.

Just keep forging onward. You’ll risk getting nailed by environment actions sometimes, but it’s usually worth it.

Unless everyone is close to an exit at the end the game, you’ll likely have something that can increase the alarm anyways and trap everyone.
Those trapped cut their data files in half, so you might as well forge on collect everything, and drop the hammer when the time is right.

When playing the Specialist variant listed in the rulebook consider switching it up a bit with this variant. To do this, give each player their designated cards:

-Gabriel Correa Santiago: “Disrupter Laser” and “Remote Drone”
-Hugo Cash: “Call for Backup” and “Sledehammer”
-John “Animal” McEvoy: “Diesel” and “Gauss Pistol”
-”Marilyn” 7Y3T9D: “Slider” and “Qianju PT”
-Monica Singh: “Flechette Pistol” and “Movement Tracker”
-Mr. White: “Informant” and “Secretaries”

Next have each player choose only ONE of these cards to keep and put the other face down in the middle of the table.

Once all extra cards have been added to the pool they are shuffled and added to the item deck and shuffled once more.

Deal 3 cards to each operative and proceed to start the game as normal.

In case anyone else is as obsessed about storage as I am, I have designed and posted tuckboxes for the game and posted them in the files section on BGG. Feel free to print these out and have the coolest copy on the block.

http://boardgamegeek.com/filepage/88937/small-cards-tuckbox

http://boardgamegeek.com/filepage/88936/tuckbox-for-large-cards

During a game of Infiltration, you are a cyber-thief sent to steal secrets – download data mostly, and not get caught. Your score is totaled from the value of the Data Files (DF) you get while in the facility. There is however a way to virtually seal your victory: steal a Prototype.

There are only 4 Prototype Cards included in the game (although any player may only have one) and several ways to get your hands on a Prototype Android: several Room Cards allow you to Interface with them and take a Prototype card. And there is a Secret Room that (if found) actually allows two Interface actions – each to steal a Prototype.

So why are they so valuable? A Prototype card, if in a player’s possession if they escape the facility, is worth 10 additional points. Or in other words, one Prototype is worth 10 “1-value” DFs, or five “2-value DFs and 3 and 1/3 “3- value” DFs.

So let’s say you collect 10 random DF tokens. Based on percentages, (and being optimistic) half (50%) of them will have a value of one (1). Three of them (35%) will have a value of two (2). And two (15%) will have a value of three (3). That’s a total of 17. (that’s the liberal side of percentages!) Add a Prototype to that mix and you have a score of 27.

Another player, without a Prototype card would have to collect (based on the percentages above) an average of an additional 5 more DF tokens just to tie. With competition fierce and the often lack of DFs available, this is more than it seems. (Because often times you will grab nothing but “1-value” DFs).

So if you see one, grab one. Percentages say, it’s an almost assured victory.

Infiltration come with two options for Action cards that allow you to grab those Data File tokens from Room cards. Download and Extract.

A brief rules review. A Download card allows the first player to Download in that room in the same round to take 2 DF tokens, anyone else downloading in the same room on the same round can only take 1 DF token. The most you can ever download in a round (barring any special items or effects) is 2.

Extract allows a player to take more DF tokens if they are alone in a room, (4) slightly less is 2 players are extracting ( 2) and only (1) DF token if there are 3 or more players Extracting in the same room.

But is “Extracting” really an Advanced rule? Let’s look closer…

Download When players use the Download card as an action, there is a more even distribution of DF Tokens. Simply, no matter how close another player is in proximity ( the same room) the most you can get is 2 DF tokens. If all payers in a 6 player game are in the same room, as long as there are enough DF tokens, everyone gets a little something. The primary effect is, there is not as much worry about separating from other players – movement effects that carry you further into the facility are not as important since it means you will only get a turn or so of more DF tokens (again max of 2 per round) and it doesn’t really cause a huge swing in the final scoring.

The side effect of this is that all those Item cards and Interface effects that affect other players and Room cards that are adjacent or in the same room can really achieve their full potency. You can stay closer to other players and really affect their game play and options in a round – without losing much in the way of DF tokens. Keeping other players in close proximity makes the game very interactive and cutthroat. It also makes the game work better with 2-4 players.

Extract Extraction cards immediately add the ability to get 4 DF tokens if you are alone in a room. This promotes player separation in the Facility ( gaining distance from other players so you can get he most DF tokens per round. Play becomes more spread out and a lot of times, more independent. This takes the bite out of those cards that affect other players and adjacent rooms and could promote more of a “chase down” effect. If you really want to ruin another players plans, you may have to get to them first. There might also be a bigger difference in DF tokens and scores at the end of game. Extract does allow for a better experience for 5-6 player games since with so many players, you are often all concentrated in a certain area of the facility.

The game is balanced well, but using Extract cards doesn’t really make the game a more advanced version, just a different play experience. It allows a choice in the fundamental way the game unfolds depending on your play style ( cutthroat vs. independent) and depending on the number of players.

Download or Extract? What sort of Cyber-thief are you?

We love to play Infiltration, but the setup time is tedious for length of the game. One way to shorten the setup time significantly is to put the DF tokens in a bag you can’t see through (cloth preferably, but it does not really matter). This eliminates the need to turn over all the DF tokens and try to mix them around before the game and between games. Just toss them in the bag and start playing.

Infiltration Quick Tip ~ Put the DF Tokens in an Opaque Bag

This has been a public service announcement from Granny!

Infiltration is a “Push Your Luck” game in the vein of Incan Gold… but a much more difficult path to escape. After a few failures, you might stop venturing too far from the entrance, but that would be a MISTAKE! Why? Because, on the second floor there are two shortcuts outside… the Executive Elevator and the Blackmail card. Should you risk getting one of these? Yes! There is almost a 75% chance one of these will come up (it’s actually 73%… but that’s only a tiny matter of 2%… right?). So, the alert meter rises quicker, but you have a good chance as you venture forth to making it out before anyone else does. Don’t be a coward!!!!!

Strategic Tip ~ Don’t be Afraid! Run to the Second Floor!

So says Granny.

REASON: It is just my partner and myself that play this game in our house. And since he has been gaming years longer than I have (due in large part that he gave in to his geek long before I did and was able to acquire friends that would play games with him)- he wins about 80% of all the board games we play. He can see how game X is a little like game R and will form successful strategies from there. He even has his own victory dance. It is a little funny and a little annoying, so I developed this kamikaze move for Infiltration…

I only use this when he starts retreating and ends up using the secret room or jet packs to get way ahead of me. I download as much as I possibly can and slowly retreat. I figure out about how many rolls it will take to hit 99. I then use any item cards I can to increase the alarm.

This is an effective suicide mission. The one time I used it, it killed us both before he could escape with his loot. He was in the last room and only needed to use his retreat card at the time. His expression was priceless! hehehe

Again, this strategy is just a suicide mission, as the title says. It won’t help you win; it will just help you not to be the only loser. When the ship is going down, I do not want to be the only person on the boat- the more the merrier. Please don’t click that this was not helpful just because it is merely a last resort tactic. Thank you.