Titanomachina on Tabletop Simulator: Updated Buildings

Something that I have been weighing for a long while is how to upgrade buildings so players, even the colour-blind, can read the board at a glance. I've managed to get my 3D artist (@bigmillerbro1 on Twitter) to whip up some files that can both be printed and uploaded to Tabletop Simulator. Hopefully these will satisfy a number of requirements, including being easily magnetized, easily printed, and easily recognized. 

Current ones on the left and new ones on the right.

I just need to update the ownership picture in the rulebook, making no other changes to the rules, and they'll be ready to play in the new year. Hopefully they'll be an improvement to people's Titanomachina on Tabletop Simulator experience, and hopefully I can get some printed in appropriate colours in PLA plastic. 

Titanomachina: Engagement & Complexity, delivering value for cost

A fascinating tweet by game designer Eric Lang, to whit that most games are too complicated, clicked my thinking cogs and I wanted to address a pet theory of mine in game design that I've applied to Titanomachina. Here's the theory: 

Game players will tolerate any amount of complexity if it delivers sufficient engagement. Talking about the cost of complexity is worthless without examining the value of engagement.

What does this mean? Well, it means you can make the most ludicrous Rube Goldberg-machine in the history of games, full of edge cases, complications, and a vast amount of rules, and people will happily engage with it as a game and especially as a product if they feel that they're getting more value out of doing so than the effort (time, money, attention) costs them. 

Over a decade ago I made a crack at a career in finance. Likewise the value of my income from finance did not offset the feelings I had about it, and hence I changed careers. I certainly miss the money, but I don't miss the 'work.' I also took away a lesson on why people might give me money in exchange for financial services instead of anyone else providing them. Part of that lesson was that they perceived the value of doing so outweighed the plainly usurious cost. This notion of 'cost vs value' is very insightful for why people do things, even with commodities, whereby they buy things that cost more (more money, more time, more effort, etc). Because, and drum-roll please, they think it's worth the extra cost; the extra cost in complexity in a game is worth the value that game delivers. 

Warhammer is, I think, a fantastic example of this as while I no longer feel it's worth the effort, plenty of other people are busy throwing thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours at it. In part this is because Warhammer delivers far more than just a game, it delivers a set of hobbies all neatly tied up by their relation to one of the fictional worlds on offer. You don't have to like playing Warhammer to enjoy it if you like reading game books, reading comics, reading novels, buying models, assembling models, painting models, collecting bric-a-brac, playing video games, or chatting online about it. But people do indeed enjoy playing Warhammer, in vast numbers. 

Warhammer is not like a conventional board game where you buy a box, play with the contents according to the rules included, and then chuck it in your Kallax shelves so you have space on your table for another box. Certainly there's overlap, and there's plenty of people looking to make their games have a better table presence, but Warhammer delivers more. It delivers more models, more rules, more paints, more products, and so on in a game of toy soldiers that I find tedious in its most basic form. There's a huge number of people, customers even, that find the value it delivers worth so much. 

It's fascinating to me, that Warhammer isn't too complicated for commercial success, even if it is too complicated for me now, and it's too complicated for me because that complication does not deliver enough value, and not too complicated for so many other people because it does deliver that value for them. It shows, I think, just how far you can take these things. Is it accessible to everyone? No, but it isn't inaccessible to everyone either. 

Is complexity in games a good thing then? If it helps to deliver the engagement that makes players think it's worth playing, then yes, of course it is. Simplicity in games is still very handy though; if you're making a not-particularly-engaging game then you need to make sure that the cost of playing the game fits under the value of doing so. Designing and testing simpler games isn't necessarily easier, but fewer variables and hence lower cost means that less interested people will still be willing to give it a swing. If you can squeeze the cost until it's under that minimal value, then you're going to profit. 

And I think people desperately under-estimate the importance of low cost as a way to get a foot in the door, both to get busy, uninterested producers' eyes on the game, and to get busy, uninterested (sorry, 'casually interested') consumers buying it. Warhammer gets away with complexity because it is less a game than a product ecosystem, but it also gets away with it as a game because that complexity is engaging to sufficient numbers of people, and the value to them outweighs the cost. I don't know if most games are too complicated, because 'most' is extremely vague, but I can certainly agree with Mr. Lang that some games are too complex for the value they deliver. 

I'm giving Titanomachina away for free out of necessity because I can't afford the easy ways to 'sell' people on its value; I occasionally suspect that people might be more convinced if I charged money, but it's really more of a marketing issue (to whit, the budget for marketing ran out). I suspect what would be required would be more conventional art and robot designs, but thankfully I get to make the Titanomachina that appeals to me and not what gets bought, played once, and put away in favour of the next new shiny game. I hope that some people find Titanomachina to be an engaging hobby game in a board game sized serving.  

Titanomachina on Tabletop Simulator: The Rule Book

As part of the recent update, including roads, cards, and rules, I should put up a link to the rule book available in the Steam Workshop as part of the Titanomachina set in there.

December 2021 Rule Book on Tabletop Simulator

Titanomachina on Tabletop Simulator: The Mega Gun

I have been struggling to make the Mega Gun stand out between the Gun Battery and the Macro Gun, first giving it a high Effect, but low range, and then reducing the Effect but adding the Shield Breaker trait. None of these changes has really felt like it distinguished the Mega Gun or made it equivalent to what I'm classing as 'Main Guns' (Plasma Howitzer, Macro Laser, Macro Gun, Mega Gun) as opposed to 'Secondary Weapons' (Plasma Shotgun, Laser Battery, Gun Battery, Rocket Pod), and definitely not 'Close Combat Weaponry' (Claw, Hand, Buzz Saw, and Laser Blade). But I had an idea from the way I'd laid out the cards for the Limb systems (Arms, Legs) so that they could move the Titan and attack in the same activation: stacked vertically the action options can draw from the same pool of Effect. 

Here's where I make a mea culpa, because I got rather carried away and designed (and announced on Fark) that the Mega Gun would be able to make two attacks at the same Effect, effectively doubling the weapon's effect and any operator bonus applied to it. Even at Effect 1 this would have meant that a Master Crew operated Mega Gun would be able to do 2x Damage 4 and 2x pushes, which is crazy effective for Charge 1 (disregarding the costs of the Master Crew and getting into position). A player who I should be giving developer credit to at this point pointed out that it was crazy, and I reviewed the design math and yup, that needed walking back. Nonetheless, being able to attack twice (now drawing from an initial pool of Effect 2) for a total of 5 damage with Master Crew operation is pretty reasonable and in line with the other weapons, particularly the ability to push twice. That's not including the advantage of being able to clear buildings twice as fast. 

The downside, of course, is that the Mega Gun is still Range 3, which means that players are going need to close that gap. Probably a very handy defensive weapon, as well as good for catching other players lurking near the edge of the board...

Titanomachina on Tabletop Simulator: More Road Tiles

As part of the big update I released on Friday night, December 10, 2021, I updated the road tiles and added two new road parts. The tiles themselves went from double-sided with weathered concrete on one side and asphalt on the other to doubled-sided with asphalt on both sides. I'm thinking of ways that the board can be ditched entirely in favour of tiles, although anyone playing Carcassonne will recognize the difficulties of laying down tiles and then attempting to play over them. The relation of components and usability to rules is a pretty interesting one, and I should probably read more about it and see how it's been done. 

Nonetheless, the concept now is that players have access to two stacks of tiles shared between players, enabling them to map out roads on the board. I've added the requirement, to the rule book, that tiles need to line up with other tiles or the edge of the board, meaning that the roads need to make sense when they're set-up or detected. I think it helps that of these two stacks of tiles, one is straight roads on one side and a four-way roundabout on the other side. In theory this is the only stack that would be needed to cover the board in roads. But I added another stack with an L-bend on one side, and a T-junction on the other, as I like how they look, and I'm pleased I was even able to make them. The company I like to use for prototyping produces these tiles in stacks of 48, or as many will fit into increments of 48, and two such stacks will cover an entire 9x9 with some to spare (or, you know, accidentally lose).

Of course, I'm hoping this encourages players to think about the game's modularity feature by which Titans, buildings, and even roads can be swapped in and out and switched around for novel situations and battles.  

 

Titanomachina Update: The Grapple Trait

After some deliberation I've decided to introduce a new trait, Grapple, and change a couple of weapon systems so that they have it. Specially, I'm going to give the Hand and the Claw the Grapple trait, instead of the Hard Rounds trait for the Hand, and instead of the Shield Breaker trait for the Claw. This trait will enable a Titan activating that weapon to 'pull' enemy Titans, as well as 'push' them with Weapons and Limbs with the Hard Rounds trait. 

As with the Hard Rounds trait the effect of the Grapple trait will affect the target Titan differently depending on where the attacker aims. 

Should the attacker go after the rightmost target, relative to them, the target Titan will be slewed 45° to its own right (or left, relative to the attacker). 

Should the attacker go after the leftmost target, relative to them, the target Titan will be slewed 45° to its own left (or right, relative to the attacker). 

Attacking the central target on the enemy Titan will enable the attacker to move them sideways into the square of the attacker's choice, left or right. This may cause the Titan to impact on buildings, much like when they are pushed into them by Hard Rounds. 

Notably this update isn't going to happen right away; I'm going to wrap it up in a general update of the cards as I'm revising the iconography to better communicate what's going on at a glance, when players look at their cards.

Titanomachina on Tabletop Simulator: Immortal Combat!

Because I am of a certain age I like to imagine the soundtrack from Mortal Kombat (1995) when starting a game, but there was a comment by my esteemed opponent (here Harvey24) that he was reminded of A Clockwork Orange (1971) in terms of ultra-violence and a distinct disregard for collateral damage, so I was suddenly in the mood for Beethoven. 

Appropriate soundtrack aside, I drew the Rapacious personality and so took Styxx's Configuration 4 (Digitigrade Legs, Big Arms, Turret, Macro Gun, Plasma Shotguns). Harvey24 drew the Sagacious personality and chose Rhea's Configuration 1 (Plantigrade Legs, Arms, Sponsons, Laser Batteries, Macro Gun, Hand). That gave me the initiative, and so I decided to set up Styxx in the middle of the board, with shields evenly distributed in expectation of attack from any quarter. Hereafter I'll refer to us as the Titans whom we're role-playing, Harvey24 as Rhea and myself as Styxx. Rhea was starting at 19 for habitat buildings, and I was starting at 9(!) for buildings. 

Things started off slowly and carefully as we both decided to announce our respective presences by destroying some buildings. I had a 10VP deficit to make up, and Rhea was determined to stop me!

Taunting Styxx, Rhea moved out into the open, still hunting the green habitats while back up against the edge of the board and vulnerable to a ring-out. Any such attempt would have resulted in a victory for Rhea, as She was still far ahead on buildings, and the +5VPs for a ring-out endgame wouldn't also provide Styxx with victory. 

Taking Her time, Styxx begins an advance, lazily lashing out with both plasma shotgun and swinging leg to keep smashing those yellow habitats (and any other colour unfortunate enough to be stacked as buildings!). Rhea bides Her time...

Styxx continues Her slow advance, making sure to stop and kick a yellow habitat into the ground. 

Rhea's preparation does not go in vain, and operated by the adherent crew previously activated, Rhea skids past Styxx on the left to avoid Styxx's right-hand plasma shotgun, and cranks up Her own port shields. 

Labouring to get that plasma shotgun on target, Styxx activates Her right arm and hauls around to get Rhea in Her sights again. 

Rhea swings Herself out of the way, again ducking past Styxx on Styxx's left and lands an elbow in a green habitat again. Thanks to Styxx's rapacious personality She spots a green habitat where sensors had previously read an empty lot. She continues to charge Her systems, getting ready to unleash hell. Notably, however, Rhea activates Her sagacious personality and seizes the initiative...

Styxx brings Her left arm into play, turning the 180° into a 360° and now bearing down on Rhea with not only a plasma shotgun, but Her recharged macro gun. 

Rhea continues to use the initiative to skip around Styxx, again forcing Her niece to come about and re-target. Fortunately the Styxx in this configuration has two capacitors, both the Plasma Cell and the Plasma Capacitor, allowing Her left arm to use full power and swing Her around yet again...

Almost shot in the back, in the sponson yoke, with a initiate-operated macro gun, Rhea managed to block with Her prow armour leaning back taking the hits on the shields protecting Her chest and arms. 

The barrage continues as Styxx vents Her fury on the aunt that had tried to elude Her weaponry, and Rhea manages to block with the extra armour plating on Her left, port side. While Rhea's shields absorb the impact, She is still shocked by the actinic discharge of ichorplasma. 

Running low on power, and needing a quick breather, both Titans' crews scramble to repair damage and get shield coverage back up. 

Both Titans begin to glow as ichorplasma is shunted around their hulls, charging their systems, and the crews prepare for the next clash. Styxx once again finds a green habitat where sensors and census had not registered one before. Rhea activates an initiate crew to operate some system in anticipation of the next round.

While Styxx readies Herself to pounce, Rhea activates an arm, operated by the initiative crew, to get moving out of the way and to square off against Her niece. 

Styxx opens fire with Her macro gun, aiming to keep Rhea's own macro gun out of the fight while the plasma shotguns charge, and Rhea is slewed to the right under the hammering impact of high explosive shells. 

Rhea backs off, and Styxx activates a capacitor for full power to the macro gun, running the barrels hot. Rhea raises Her hand to block, and in doing so brings Herself square again to Styxx. Her back up against the edge again, and shields depleted, things are looking grim for Rhea.  

But Rhea still has the initiative and edges along the road sideways so that She can use Her laser battery to pick off another green building, reasoning that so long as She can stay in the lead She is actually safer on the edge there. 

But Styxx's blood is up, and the calm, cold-blooded patience that had served Her so well is abandoned as She realizes Her aunt is back on Her heels. Styxx advances, smashing habitats as She goes. 

Here's where things start to go wrong for Styxx. Rhea can't see Styxx, and activating a sensor to scan finds a yellow habitat blocking the line of sight. Styxx logs it and spotting another green habitat stomps into position (smashing another yellow habitat) to push Rhea off the board for a ring-out victory. 

Styxx smashes the building in between Her and Her aunt, casually brushing it aside to line up Her bulk for a swift kick. 

A shot of opportunity from Her plasma shotgun, to disrupt Rhea's ability to defend Herself, and to hopefully provoke a block, and then Styxx sails in with a flying kick to Rhea's prow. Rhea successfully blocks with her macro gun and takes the hit on Her shields. Styxx gambled, and now has nothing left having over-extended Herself. Rhea's crew, an adherent and an initiate, are activated to operate (co-operate, if you will) something. 

That something is a hand. Using the initiative, the hand's Shield Breaker (2) trait and +3 operate bonus Rhea tears off Styxx's right-hand plasma shotgun, and sends Styxx reeling back. Where a ring-out would have seen Styxx win by ~2VP, Styxx is now down 7VP (+4VP for the destroyed plasma shotgun, 3VPs ahead for buildings). Ouch!

Styxx opts to get back on track and charge up Her systems, activating an initiate crew to conduct some damage control on the right arm where it was damaged when the plasma shotgun was so violently and ostentatiously torn off. Rhea raises Her shields, getting ready for another frontal assault. 

Not that Rhea intends to be the victim of such an assault, and She backs up into Styxx's reduced fore-quarter. In a fit of pique, realizing the score is against Her, Styxx doesn't give chase, but launches Herself in a flying back-kick into one of the tall towers near where Rhea started the contest, knocking off the yellow habitat at the top. 

Rhea prepares to strike, reading an initiate crew to operate a system, and charges while Styxx does likewise while spotting another green building that hadn't registered on the map before. 

Rhea activates a Her left arm, and swats a green habitat in the process of swinging Herself around to again face Her niece cowering behind the tall building off Her port. Styxx decides discretion is the better part of valour, and social awareness is part of discretion, activating Her sensors to detect another green habitat far off where Rhea is unlikely to destroy it. 

For Her part Rhea can see plenty of other green habitat buildings and activates Her macro gun to turn one into a crater. 

Roaring now, and ready to shove Rhea off the board for good this time, Styxx activates an adherent crew to operate Her left big arm, and swing Her around the building and into contact. Rhea swiftly activates crew to operate Her own systems, once again co-operating for maximal effect. 

Stepping backwards, Rhea circles the pink habitat protecting Styxx's own port side, and boots Styxx right in the deflectors, sending Styxx staggering right. With a charged macro gun queued up, Styxx panics and activates Her turret; a ring-out may be out of the question, but She'll still hurt something dammit!

Rhea spots a yellow habitat right behind Styxx, preventing Styxx from simply reversing out of the vulnerable position She is now in. In terms in inflicting actual hurt, the macro gun's stream of high explosive shells does little but burst the shields protecting Rhea's prow and left arm, destroying the extra armour on Her prow, slewing Rhea left and aggravating Her.

Realizing Her predicament Styxx comes about, careful to stomp on that very same yellow habitat, while Rhea is once again activating Her adherent crew. 

Rhea closes for a flying elbow with Her right arm, forcing Styxx to choose between being pushed out for a ring out, or not being able to attack with Her plasma shotgun. Styxx blocks the attack with Her shotgun, and while it takes no damage, losing only a shield token and getting slewed to the right, She is running out of systems that can block. 

In the final round Rhea continues hammering Styxx, who blocks with Her right arm, and finally, out of systems that can block, is sent sailing off the board by Rhea's side kick just as Her master crew spots something on the sensors... (I had a sensor ready and was about to find four green habitats in the corner there). 

The final score is 18-7 for Rhea! Rhea scored 9VP for nine yellow habitat buildings on the board (looks like I made up that 10VP deficit...), 4VP for destroying that plasma shotgun, and 5VP for causing the ring-out. Styxx scored 6VP for green buildings on the board, and 1VP for that extra armour (woo!). 

This game had many notable features, the least of which was that the ending score was lower than the starting score for both player! 

Likewise there was only a very small amount of actual damage done thanks to heavy use of both crew to repair light damage (that could be exploited in further rounds) and shields to raise and restore shield token coverage. With Styxx starting with only 9 habitats, I had to smash both buildings and the other Titan, and my opponent Harvey24 played a great defensive game at the start dancing around me. Styxx, particularly in this configuration, really rewards patience as a player needs to charge it up quite a bit in order to get off the combinations and rates of fire needed to get some momentum. You need to be willing to wait entire rounds while doing almost nothing; the rapacious personality really came in handy, and I dropped it whenever possible to get it moving through the deck. 

However, where I was playing 10+ cards a round we observed that the charge time for certain preferred systems such as the Plasma Shotguns was considerably shorter than usual, presumably because they could be stacked at the top of the other 9+ discarded cards going on the bottom of the deck, and didn't have one or two rounds of draws to wait to be drawn into my hand. The combination of this, meaning I got my plasma shotguns every three rounds or so, and the two capacitors meant they fired much more often than the usual math might indicate. So long as I kept up a slow, careful barrage things would go very well, especially since the shock would likewise disrupt my opponent. 

The turning point is rather obvious in that I charged in trying to go for a ring-out (previously I would have tied the game, discouraging me from trying for it earlier) and exhausted my Titan, allowing my opponent not only to rally, but to deliver a devastating blow. Bad timing and bad tempo, for me. In destroying my Plasma Shotgun not only did my opponent manage to cancel the punishing rate of fire I was managing with two of them and two capacitors, but scored 4VPs, pushed me out of position, and grabbed the momentum for themselves. 

Aside from over-extending my Titan when I should have taken it slow and methodically, I didn't once seize the initiative from my opponent, allowing them to virtually dance around me, and leading to me getting hurled out of the ring instead because my opponent could use the agility of their Titan to get into position where hitting me first counted for everything. Had they not scored the ring-out, then the score would have been 13-11, and without that plasma shotgun 9-11 (and possibly better with the ability to inflict damage via said shotgun). 

To Claw or Not to Claw?

I'm still working on whether to change the Claw, weird little 'e' on the card that needs to be corrected aside, and I've hit the sticking point of whether to make it a more powerful Hand, capable of pushing an opponent, and giving it something a little more unique like the ability to push target Titans sideways. That's ignoring the question of how to jig the Charge to Effect ratio so that it's still a big, nasty weapon by comparison to the nimble Hand. I think Charge 3 is too much, and keeping it for the Plasma Howitzer is probably best. 

Current Claw 2

Now the tricky part about pushing a target Titan sideways is how to apply the pushing rules giving that they're currently limited to the case of either pushing a target into a new square, into buildings preventing it from being pushed into that square, or slewed around 45°. Turning the direction 90° isn't all that difficult, and probably pretty easy to diagram. The problem is the skew, as that's rather an important part of play, enabling players to open up targets that might have been artfully concealed behind the bulk of the target Titan. In the current pushing rules hitting the target Titan in the middle of its three available targets presented to the attacker pushes that target Titan back and away from the attacker. Hitting the target Titan in the leftmost, relative to the attacker, of its two or three available targets presented to the attacker pushes that target Titan 45° right (or clockwise). Likewise the rightmost, relative to the attacker, of its two or three available targets skews the Titan 45° left. 

It seems like pushing sideways should reverse this somewhat, so grabbing the leftmost target would turn a Titan 45° left, and the rightmost target would turn a Titan 45° right. I suppose you could say it's a pull rather than a push. 

(A) Claw is meant to grab, gouge, and pull and to a degree the paralyzing effect of a claw latching onto a Titan is covered nicely enough by the Shock trait. The Shield Breaker trait is a kind of conditional +0.5 bonus for the weapon to place its effect between 2 and 3 depending on the breaks that players can engineer. All the range 1 weapons have it, and even the Mega Gun has it. My thought was that the Claw's ability to lock on and pull should be better represented by replacing this 0.5 with a straight +1 Effect for Effect 3, and the ability to push enemies sideways for a Terminator-style clinche.  

Proposed Claw 2 A

Alternately, (B) maybe Shock should be the relative advantage of the Plasma Shotgun and the Plasma Howitzer, as range isn't really a particular advantage in this game, and hitting harder than the Range 3 Plasma Shotgun means that I'm just playing whack-a-mole with the weapons in terms of differentiating them from each other so that players can build asymmetrical strategies. So instead I thought bringing the Charge down to 2 like the Laser Blade, and exchanging the Shock and Shield Breaker for two Hard Rounds traits, the ability to push away, and the ability to push sideways. 

Proposed Claw 2 B

The downside to this approach is that there's no particular reason to combine a Hand and a Claw, as a Claw can do the work of both.  

It might (C) be something to enable the Claw to pull and have the Shield Breaker trait as a third option, and maintaining that Charge 2, Effect 2 so that it's both like a bigger, nastier hand, and its own thing, which is pulling targets instead of pushing or shocking them. 

Proposed Claw 2 C