What is SPITE?
Petty ill will or hatred with the disposition to irritate, annoy, or thwart. - Merriam Webster

No, The SPITE Engine you gilded knob.
Someone is awful touchy today. The SPITE Engine otherwise known as the Single Player Intelligence Table Engagement Engine, is a 32 page companion rulebook that works hand and hand with Pilgrim Cell to provide single player and cooperative play for RKE Games.

How?
Intro from the book:


About the SPITE Engine
The Single Player Intelligence Table Engagement Engine provides the ability to play RKE Games by yourself or alongside friends against an imposing and challenging artificial intelligence.

This is done through six stages of implementation:

1. Assigning Artificial Intelligence
Assigning varying levels of artificial intelligence (AI) to opposing miniatures on the game table. This means miniatures do not simply attack you when in Line of Sight, but they act according to the AI Level and scenario they have been assigned.

Some units may rush in with little care, some may wait for reinforcements and yet others may carefully move to flank and attack when an opportunity arises.

Instead of assigning a dedicated and overly complicated AI to each and every unit on the table, it is up to the player to make use of a more simple AI melding it with the units abilities. In turn this takes advantage of all fielded units abilities without pages of complicated tables or charts doing the same.

2. Force Ratio
Because the player is smarter than any practical AI it is always best if you play slightly to highly outnumbered. This allows the AI to engage you more often without certain defeat in regards to itself.

3. Random Spawning and Movement
Randomness is the key ingredient for keeping a player involved and constantly on the move not knowing where the enemy will be next.

A. Random areas that units spawn in.
B. Random troop types that spawn in.
C. Random numbers of troops that spawn in.
D. Random movement and patrol on the table.

Random spawning and movement coupled with AI, Force Ratio and a great Scenario can lead to a challenging and often intense miniature game.

4. Awareness
The great thing about SPITE is that the AI does not mirror your every move. Unlike playing a human player that mirrors every threat and move you make, the SPITE AI reacts as an enemy would realistically.

If you place traps the enemy will not avoid that area where your troops were when they placed them. Unless the AI you are fighting has a great Perception Stat (PER) and makes PER checks every so often it will fall prey to careful ambushes and cleverly hidden traps.

This allows for stealth missions, use of silent sentry removal, surprise ambushes and booby traps all with real world extremely lethal results.

5. Scenarios
Scenarios are the glue that holds SPITE together. A great scenario gives the player a solid mission, assigns a plethora of challenging AI's and has just the perfect amount of spawning units on the game table to make the game fun yet challenging.

Scenarios are made on a per game basis. That means the overall feel of a specific scenario will play to the game you have invested in.

Scenarios will be more often then not, generic to any force. That means all scenarios for a single game will work with any force you have purchased and you may fight against any other force when fielding enemy models, including your own.

6. Be True To The Game
That is to say, don't cheat. If you are getting beat, then you may fold or continue on. I recommend continuing on as you may develop new strategies while being hunted by superior forces. You never know what your units are fully capable of until they have been cornered and outmatched thus bringing out their full arsenal of death under pressure.

Moving On
As you read further along in SPITE I will flesh out the various stages of implementation so that you may understand and fully integrate them when you play your RKE Skirmish Games.

PREVIEW Lords of Co-Op: SPITE Engine