Titanomachina: Developing Capacitors

Capacitors have a troubled history in Titanomachina, as they started from the original notion in Adeptus Titanicus of a Titan have a vulnerable reactor that could be attacked as a kind of one-shot-one-kill way of killing a Titan. I didn't find that mode of play particularly enthralling and so I tried a number of other things including having them draw extra cards to the current 'reactivate the last activated system' While that last thing has worked, per se, it's seriously counter-intuitive and leads to all sorts of weird interactions with the other rules including (and especially) a problem with Operate action whereby a crew-system adds their effect score to the effect score of the next system activated, leading to a nasty edge-case in which such an interaction is simply prohibited (since it would cause an infinite loop). 

Lately, however, I've been considering reverting to the notion of Full Power being an action that allows players to draw cards. At a current Charge/Effect of 2/1 that's not simply a bad idea, it's a bad move on the part of the player to ever use it. Even where we reduce the Charge to 0 you're still giving up one card for another. Now that does have a certain positive effect, especially where you start adding Operate actions before it. That's still extremely pillow-fisted compared to anything else though, as you're essentially trading in cards on a 1:1 (until the Master Crew). It's not great. 

What's not great about it, however, is that it does very little on its own. At Charge/Effect 0/2 suddenly you're giving up one card for two cards. That has some serious possibilities, as it means that where you have a Charge 2 card and a Capacitor left in your hand you can trade in the Capacitor for enough power to charge that Charge 2 card and use it. That a capacitor gives you more power to play with when you discharge it is, to some degree or other, thematically appropriate. Those two cards could also contain a Charge 1 card that can deliver some desired effect, so between providing extra power and extra options, it goes some distance to making up for depriving a Titan of repeating an activation. The simple act of accelerating the player's Titan deck one card ahead could be incredibly useful in some highly specific situations. 

There is also the way this dovetails nicely with the Emergency Power reaction (action played in response to an attack) where instead of re-activating a card with the block or intercept action, it allows a player to draw a card from the top of their deck and play it to block or intercept an attack. There's something of a question about what happens when the card cannot be used to block or intercept, with the default assumption of mine being that the players just put the card in their hand. 

So rather than a kind of replay card, the Capacitor would increase a player's options and the resources to play those options. I think this is the sort of thing I need to play-test first so it's not going into 'production' on Tabletop Simulator at least until January. But it's certainly an idea that I had.

I should note that this came to my mind after once again receiving a comment about how weird it was that Titans could not kick directly forward. I mean, they can after activating a sponson or a turret, but there are still people that find it weird. There's the possibility of moving the legs to the front of the Titan dashboards, but again the thing is that if you're hitting a Titan directly down the middle you're not attacking their legs. Certainly I think it's more about managing expectations, particularly for those who are used to assumptions like those made in games of BattleTech and similar. But it was the notion then of whether to re-orient the dashboards or add Twist to non-sponson/turret systems or some similar fix when it occurred to me that the real problem with turret/sponson systems was that they occur between 1-3 every four rounds with three being not-quite overkill and one being barely enough. Hence the train of thought returning to an earlier version of capacitors and the consideration of reverting in a more successful way. Capacitors will return sponsons and turrets to the player's hand more quickly without needing to add a Twist action to any other systems. 

This also gets rid of an annoying edge-case that makes the game more difficult to explain. The real question is: How does that feel? 

Titanomachina: Possible Production Plan

While I produce (design, develop, run demos, etc) Titanomachina as a hobby, part of that hobby is making sure I can pivot to production. Currently that production would need to be boutique, priced-at-cost, and preferably from the same people I've sourced parts of the prototypes because they've earned my repeat business with their professional behaviour and patience with me (BoardGamesMaker.com). So far I can source from the following: 

Two-Player starter box:

• 48 board tiles (25 road-roundabout tiles, 12 bend-junction tiles, 11 foundation tiles. 
• 50 coloured dice (25 per player)
• 2 plastic standees with stickers
• 55 cards including two complete Titan decks (reaper-configurations) including 12 weapons, 2 personalities, and double-sided dashboard cards. 
• 30 Bingo Tokens (10 per player with 5 spare each)
• White Board Marker (Dry-erase marker)
• Rules booklet (24 pages A5-size)
• Box (9.5"x9.5"x2") 

The box may need to be slightly different proportions, likewise the rules booklet. It's unclear whether the players will need covers for their dashboard cards, although perhaps not with plastic cards? But, I need something for the Titan figurines. One part of me wants to license out the production of miniatures to one of the 3D Printing houses out there producing 3D printed products. First though, I need something to put in the box, and probably something that is perfectly good for the task but improvable. I'm considering finding some 2" meeples. I already got some a while ago, but I haven't been confident of pulling them out to play with people when I have these lovely miniatures to whom I am emotionally attached. I think they would need stickers to help players remember which side is the front and where are the weapons. That would be five stickers per Titan as well as each meeple which I've sourced at $4.25USD at retail, but not at my preferred vendor (although I suppose I could ask). Making those stickers may require paying an artist...

On the other hand, I do believe that all that can be done for under $100CAD per box. That's a pretty expensive proposition for many people, I think, especially when you think of the amount of components. However, the set would have several features that would make their value additive, so that buying extra sets would be good: It's within the budget to produce two boxes, one with each set of Titans, essentially costing the same to produce at a box with just one set. Players can add like with like boxes together for 2-on-2 games, and with antagonist boxes for the full free-for-all four. Which means I could produce a third box, with the expanded cards for regent and raptor configurations, system cards and dashboards, two more personalities, and perhaps utility buildings, finials, and extra tiles? But the value in being able to expand the experience with players as you expand the number of boxes involve means you can scale up to 6 players. 

Certainly I've love to cough up for extra personality cards beyond 6, and maybe buy some new art (at around 200 euros per to match the art...), but in the meantime this is something I could produce so that people could try the game. Because that is what people want to do, they buy games. You could play a game all day, but at the end of the day people want to own a game as well as play it. That's kind of why Titanomachina exists because I wanted to create a game that I really enjoyed and that also was mine to collect, expand, and describe in fan-fiction. If other people treat it like a palimpsest and imagine their own stories for it, all the better. But I do want to share this with other people, because I think there are people that would really like it. 

Titanomachina: Some Improvements and Visual Design and More Changes In Progress

 At the outset I should explain that I am not a graphic designer. I don't really get graphic design per se, but in the spirit of the modern era and perhaps a heaping spoonful of caucasity I'm not going to let that bother me as I re-invent the wheel. People say "Why re-invent the wheel?" Firstly, because it is educational, and secondly the skills and machinery required to makes wheels is non-obvious. Anything can be done, but only some things can be done at the cost available, and that's certainly a mindset I feel that 11 years of Titanomachina have ingrained in me. 

That said I've noticed a design inconsistency with Extra Armour and Shields/Deflectors, in that they have an Effect cog under their Block/Intercept action and Weapons/Arms/Legs do not. I feel like this is un-necessarily confusing for players, and slightly confusing for me as well. Originally it was a reminder that Something Ticks Up One (or Down One) when the reaction is triggered, a shield token or initiative place changed, but that's slightly confusing when one considers the Operate action. The Operate action adds its Effect, its cogs, to the total Effect of the action, and it has a neat little serendipitous cue wherein you can visually show this if you stagger your cards slightly when you place them face-up on the table. Additionally, any Effect on the bottom-right of the hand of cards is usually obscured if you're holding the cards in a fan so that you can read the left-hand side of the cards. Operate doesn't interact with Block, Intercept, or Full Power actions so these don't strictly need an Effect value. Likewise damage penalties don't affect Block or Intercept actions. As long as the system isn't destroyed the reaction works. Full Power is affected by damage, with light damage knocking the system out of use (although now I feel like crew should be able to Operate it if only that the activation of the system requires Effect to be greater than 0 but won't change anything if it is greater than 1). So I'm going to take out Effect for reactions. This should have no effect on game-play, and should make learning the game easier. 

Given that, I would like to make a couple of changes.

The first change would be adding a reaction to Capacitors whereby they can be used to re-activate a Block or Intercept system that has already been activated that turn to Block or Intercept. It would involve creating a new icon and adding it to five cards currently in play in Tabletop Simulator.

The second change would be adding an attack to the vulcan gun, the gun battery, and the laser battery. Otherwise these weapon systems would not change, and where combined attacks (like other combined actions) share the same pool of total Effect these systems would need to be operated to get these full 2/3 attacks because they are Effect 1/2 otherwise. It would be like how Arms have Effect 1, but can combined Walk and Attack; they need to be operated to do more than Walk or Attack with Effect 1.

Going back to the Full Power Effect 1 issue, the problem is that Effect 2 or more is pretty harsh. Almost game-breaking unless the system being re-activated is Effect 1. But it does feel cool to have a crew operate the capacitor to make it work if it is damaged. I think I'd have to be pretty clever re-writing the rules to cover this because part of the crew-capacitor issue is that it either bogs down in a loop, or breaks the order of operations. Maybe crew members can be sacrificed to make it work or something. I'll keep chewing on it. 

Speaking of chewing, I'm not quite ready to implement these changes in production yet, which is why I'm putting this out here for comment. I also need to come up with a name for the Capacitor reaction (Emergency Power? Reserve Power?) and perhaps a better icon. 

Titanomachina: Incidental Change?

In the weeks following a change I get to see how the change affects me and my opponents. It's always fun to see what the change will entail because play-testing can be all sorts of different testing in one. Some of the recent changes have been for, essentially, ease of play considerations and so it has been interesting to see how they're used on the board. More to the point it was interesting to see how an inadvertent change has been absorbed. I accidentally reverted a Master Crew's charge cost of operating a system to 1 extra card. That's what an Adherent Crew had been rated for 2/3s of the Effect. It puts the Master Crew over the card power-curve that generally fixes the cost of effect equal to the effect plus traits and trade-offs. Effect 1 is 1 with the extra bonuses figured into its additionals like 1 for the high explosive trait and 1 for the armour piercing trait and trade-offs of 1 for having an additional action (block, intercept) for a total of 4/charge for its human resource cost. 

In other words I have inadvertently changed the game balance by over-powering the Master Card. This means that it should perhaps have its human resources points change to reflect the cost of such a component, and hence the victory points for destroying it. But I think it enhances the game rather than distracting from a flat power curve. It feels good for players to get that +3 bonus. That's going to be an effective move. Being plainly better than the other crew members means that players may attempt to have a crew entirely of masters, but so far like habitats themselves that would be limited by the number of cards available; there are two playable Master Crew cards in the game. 

Now this reaction is moderated by how effective the ease-of-play and other balancing changes figured into the games. So far I'm not really drawing an opinion on holding operating crew members over rounds as it's not really my habit of play. One of my regular opponents makes it their default strategy to, when in doubt, put a crew member on standby to operate whatever system loads next. Too many times I've done this and found myself with a lack of quality targets when it comes time to operate a weapon or generally the wrong system at the wrong time. Maybe I should consider it more when I'm playing next, but especially after Hal-con I'm finding some interesting things out about the cards.

Firstly, it turns that that there's an ideal mix of cards in your hand, and it's not actually the combination that leads to the perfect round-one ring out. The ideal mix of cards in your hand, by my consideration is the combination that lets you engage with your opponent and do something constructive whether it is maximizing the damage you inflict or minimize the damage they do, or simply to dodge out of the way when about to be targeted, or blocking the target. So you need a mixture of defensive and aggressive posture which you can change as the situation changes. For example, you get an enemy in the arc of your Titan's right arm, and then get slewed right by blocking an incoming impact or grapple with your right extra armour , now you have the target in the arc of your Titan's left arm and enough cards to attack with that instead. Alternately you have a healthy 3+ bonus to your next action so that an enemy elects to move behind cover, and when they do you detect a handful of habitat building blocks and perhaps even shoot over the cover after that detect action. There's also stuff like blocking with a weapon and then re-activating that weapon with a capacitor, but mainly being able to take a hit and even use it to your advantage, like using an impact or grapple to get a free turn, or extra armour to capture the initiative. 

The second thing is that reducing a Master Crew's cost doesn't just put them above a rather-flat charge/effect curve, but it increases the number of other cards that may be played and accelerates the game. A master crew operated gun battery is going to hit really hard at the prior charge-cost of just activating the master crew or a macro gun. There's more defensive options at 0 charge these days as well, and it's not just the low-charge cards, but other cards in every deck will now have an extra card floating around that can be used to activate a system that would otherwise want for cards to be played face-down to charge them. This will accelerate the rate of play a decent fraction, but also has a nice crunchy feeling for the players. I may still increase the human resources value of Master Crew, but it's a new addition to the issue list. I'll cross-list it on the fix-list as well, since it is technically a reversion to a previous valuation of the operate action. 

Titanomachina: Performance Envelopes

Lately it has occurred to me to chart the relative performance envelopes of the Titans and put development on a more mathematically clear foundation. To this end I've whipped up the following chart describing the relative maximums available to each Titan. Damage-wise, this is the total of the Titan's weapons and limbs, and does not include bonuses from crew or any specifics related to concentrating that damage on any particular targets, just raw output. Likewise this does not include damage from collisions, except where those collisions are caused by Impact weapons, which are assumed for the purposes of describing the maximum damage out to have pushed the target back for an additional point of damage. Note then that this means Impact and Grapple weapons are assumed to do one more point of damage than their Effect plus any High Explosive, Armour Piercing, Shield Breaker. This ignores that the weapons actually do +2 points of damage upon successfully smashing another Titan into a building or another Titan as not all pushes or pulls successfully do that. Shock is not assessed as damage. 

Similarly in each case where Capacitors are available they are assumed to give Full Power to whatever weapon has the greatest damage potential (so like a Buzz Saw or Vulcan Gun instead of a Plasma Howitzer in the cause of Eos' configurations 1 & 3). A further assumption is that this is the amount of damage a Titan can inflict in four rounds, although notably Eos Configuration 3 uses more cards than would be available in its deck. If we leave off activating one of Their arms then it's 27/22 in terms of damage/card-cost. 

What is the utility of doing this? Well, for one thing it indicates how the +7 Operate bonus available to each Titan (at a commensurate card cost of 7, including cards played face-up) can be employed. The Styxx Configuration1 can put out a staggering 25 points of damage provided She does nothing else except lash out around Herself at a minimum of three targets. Conversely, Rhea Configuration 1 can direct Her entire crew to boosting Her damage output to 21 and still have four cards left over for Her sponson, and a thruster to get into a better position, and an extra armour system for defense. Notably the Detect action includes the entire bonus that a Titan might allocate, including cost, since this is an easy way to score victory points, or to make up a dearth of them. 

It's interesting to see the ratios that various configurations get, especially for some configurations that are experientially really good. Tethys Configuration 4, for example, seems really under-sold for the horrific amount of damage She can do on a consistent basis, particularly where crew can be used to Operate those laser blades. In particular this seems to under-value armour-piercing weapon despite AP adding one point of damage to any weapon's Effect. I think this is because this is agnostic about the value of damage, with three damage destroying a system or causing light damage to three damage, or even just removing three shield tokens. Lasers, for example, are weak against well-shielded targets because they do not get their armour penetration damage. Against unshielded targets they are somewhat effect in that they also affect multiple systems. When operated, however, they can remove vital systems long before a weapon without the Armour Piercing trait has ground through any protective armour. Combined with weaponry that removes shields efficiently, particularly weapons with the High Explosive trait, they hit harder than their raw damage potential might suggest. 

Furthermore this is agnostic about range, with longer range being a massive advantage because it not only allows a Titan to attack with less commitment to defense, but it allows a Titan to counter any attempts to detect buildings by shooting them from across the board. The maximum range is, after all, 8 squares. 

More sophisticated analysis as I develop it, but as it stands I think these numbers suggest which configurations are preferable for which end-game conditions such as ring-out, knock-out, and time-out.

Titanomachina: Card Updates

Once again I have made a systematic change to all the cards and dialed a few cards in. The systematic change is that cards that can be played face-up without a cost in other cards paid face-down now have a hexagon icon containing no lightning bolts. I've also spaced out the symbols vertically to allow five in each column. You could say I'm future-proofing the layout somewhat. 

Specifically now Shields and Deflectors are changed from the option of two power levels of the same action to having an action and then a Block-liker reaction called Intercept. You could block and intercept a single attack.

Crew are changed from two actions (Operate & Repair) of the same power level to one Operate as 1-3 and Repair always at 1 for Charge 0.

Sensors similarly no longer have a Charge cost to be paid with cards face-down for the Scan action. It needs to be on par with Extra Armour.

 Speaking of, the Block reactions and Telemetry traits have been relocated to the right-hand side of the cards where all the other Blocks are found (and now Interceptor). 

Mega Guns have been renamed Vulcan Guns so that they don't get confused with Macro Guns. 

Titanomachina: Hal-con 2022!

Running demo-games of Titanomachina at Hal-con this year was fantastic. I managed to mainline more Titanomachina in one long weekend than in two months of play. I take back several of the comments I have made over the years about this being methadone for Warhammer. Mostly what I want now is more. There is something fantastic about introducing people to a game and watching as they begin to engage with it, and with each other through it. It certainly revealed things I personally need to work on when interacting with people, and I hope that my carelessness didn't irk people too much. 

Interestingly I received some feedback that rather nicely validates some ideas that I've been having about where and what to improve. I had planned, for example, to implement the change that the crew members that have their Operate bonus in play would not be sorted back into the bottom of the Titan deck. Doing so helped the players remember the bonus, and perhaps it provides a sort of break to the advantage of being able to hold over a bonus. Players also expressed an interest in Deflectors and Shields having a pro-active option and a reactive option, rather than two variations on a pro-active option. This is something else I had considered, giving these systems the ability to put a shield token on a target before the attack is resolved. Like blocking, it affects the target of an attack, and makes for some economic tension as the player decides whether soaking the hit is better or worse than giving up a card that could charge some other, pro-active action. It also helps with their implied defensive function...

I do feel like I need to re-visit collisions, yet again, to clarify them. This sort of thing is kind of why I resisted the concept from the outset, because it's hard to explain. Rather than changing collisions, along with the Impact and Grapple traits, I think it's just something to clarify how it works. Specifically that each point of Effect spent entering a square causes one point of damage to the closest target(s) in the square, and that Impact and Grapple both move a Titan with Effect 1. I don't feel like I was clear or consistent on collisions during the games, particularly in the last one where I believe I had sold the idea that moving through a building merely had a cost in damage and not in the effort required to move through that much building. In my defense it was hilarious to see a player zig-zag through buildings. 

This brings me to jumping collisions. There's a certain fore-sightedness that's required to resolve a jump into a tile full of buildings or into another Titan. You need to be able to either destroy all the buildings, or push the Titan off the tile. Building-wise I think it's more of a matter of emphasizing that not smashing completely through the building is like smashing the Titan into a building. The problem being that jumping Titans can go over intervening buildings and Titans. It might be something to disallow being able to jump over things if you're going to jump into them instead; different flight-path and all that. 

Right now I'm going through the copies of the October 2022 rule book that I brought to Halcon to check the notes and then I'll update Tabletop Simulator with the November 2022 rule book. 

Titanomachina: Solo-Play

Consider a solo-game of Titanomachina where the player, Blue Configuration 1, has the initiative due to it being a solo-game, and draws eight cards: Mega Gun 2, Master Crew 1, Plantigrade Leg 2, Sponson 1, Extra Armour 2, Plasma Howitzer 1, Capacitor 1, and Jump Jets 1. The Titan can only play green actions on cards, so there's seven options there. Of those options, two do nothing except affect how other actions are resolved. Of those five primary actions we have: Walk & Attack, Jump, Attack & Attack, and Attack (I think Eos likes 'Attack'). The secondary actions are Operate, Twist, and Full Power. 

Consider, however, that all of this can be reduced to two simple questions: How do I cause as much outgoing damage as possible, while minimizing incoming damage? How do I split that between my opponent and their buildings? In this case, with no opponents presenting, you're free to try and maximize your tally of enemy habitat buildings. 

By playing by ourselves, in a 'solo-mode,' you can develop a feel for the cards and the patterns of the play. You can learn the timing for something as large and unwieldy as a Titan. 

For example, suppose I chose for Eos to walk into the enemy buildings, destroy them and three shield tokens covering the Mega Gun 2 and Extra Armour 2.  

Since the name of the game is to maximize building destruction, I can now fire my Mega Gun 2 at the pink and yellow buildings two tiles away at a diagonal. 

And given the option, since there are no habitat buildings stacked three high, I decide the Master Crew 1 can wait until next turn, but I need that full power if I'm to maximize the damage it does until three rounds later at the soonest. I play the capacitor to re-activate the Mega Gun using full power, and kill two more habitats, pink and yellow in what is, for scale, eight 50x3 habitat blocks seemingly destroyed. 

In the next round, round 2, I'll draw five more cards to go with the Master Crew 1. Before that, however, I will put the cards I've played at the bottom of my deck to cool down. The draw is Initiate 3, Initiate4, Extra Armour 3, Arm 1 (the left one), and Capacitor 2. 

Might as well put a crew member to work operating that arm...

Operated for a +1 to its Effect 1, I can now play the left arm (Arm 1) to hurl the Titan forward-left for a haymaker swing at the pink building diagonal of it, destroying it.

Full power from the Capacitor 2 is played on the arm to carry that momentum left to destroy the yellow building beside it as well. 

Which is to say that is not the end of the solo-game, but an example of how solo-gaming can be used to explore the game and to train your brain to notice what can be done, and the rhythm of it. Once you get a hand of the Titan against a random set-up, you can start trying to figure out optimal set-ups, tricks, and tactical uses of habitat buildings. Finally, there is the noble art of screen-shots. One of the ways I play with Titanomachina is taking pictures for diagrams to explain the rules, and because I like how it's looking. Can you build the optimal Titan in the optimal hunting environment? Can you keep up with or advance the meta-game? The solo-game is building that plan whereby your contact with the enemy, and the resulting chaos, works out in your favour. 

Titanomachina: About the Game

Titanomachina starts by deciding the order of play, based upon the number on the Personality cards. This order of play lasts until it is changed, and is connected to a Charge 0 action that a Titan cannot be deprived of for the rest of the game. But for the steps of choosing a Titan and setting up a battlefield, the order is constant and one player goes first, second, third, etc. Unlike rolling dice there is no possibility of a tie. None of this fun clap-trap either, like pick the player with the most navel lint, or would probably benefit most from going first. Perhaps amusing the available numbers run evenly from 1-6. You could roll a D6, but shuffling and drawing from a 6 card deck is easier, fast, and kinda sets the tone. You want to leverage that personality with the right build for your starting position. Your first question is which Titan will you choose (including the habitats it starts on the table), given you're drafting? 

The game is designed so that players ask each other a series of questions, such as whether they're going to tank a hit or defend themselves. A Titan might raise its shields, move out of line-of-sight or arc of the weapon about to fire, or block the attack with a different part of the Titan as an answer, but also the question 'Is that all you've got?' 

There are essentially 6 non-exclusive types of weapons: Shock, High Explosive, Armour Piercing, Impact, Grapple, and Shield Breaker. That's not including the Titan's arms and legs (really just impact weapons). Shock affects a Titan's resources to retaliate, forcing blocks to cost twice as much (the blocking card and the shock card). High Explosive gets bonus damage to adjacent targets. Armour Piercing gets a bonus for how deep into a Titan they go. Impact pushes Titans either back, and possibly into some buildings, or forcibly rotates them to expose new targets to the attacker. Grapple does the same, at a right angle, shoving a Titan right or left of the attack, or forcibly rotating them. Shield Breaker destroys shields before they can repel an attack. 

All of this needs to fit into the order in which the cards are played, each deck getting rotated through like a gear. As parts of the Titans are destroyed, the faster those rotations become, but the fewer resources with which to buy actions.

Titanomachina uses a Charge/Effect system whereby a card can be played face up so long as the indicated number of cards is played face-down. A six card hand will usually yield between 1 and 3 actions. One of those actions is often a block, used to interrupt an attack with a new target. Players keep their cards in hand and it's wholly possible for a player to have all 23 cards in hand. Getting there, on the other hand, seems to be a war of nerves, because the first hit carries a tremendous psychological tension. Perhaps that's because it is where these two gears meet and begin to grind into each other. 

Oh, and the habitats are big, glass people silos. Players can use a default set-up, or they can take turns setting up the tiles and placing their starting allowance of habitats. This way players can build their fights from the battleground on up, looking for that edge to turn defeat in that scene into victory. But also the players can discover unmapped habitats on the board using their Titan's Sensors to detect them, replacing losses or bolstering the initial complement of habitats. The important thing is that Titans can be pushed or pulled through them, or even hurl themselves through them recklessly at the cost of damage. 

Instead of heroic super sentai though, the crew of the Titans are grizzled lifers, grappling with their own impending mortalities, and those of others. They are human resource cognitive units ("cogs"), biological hardware for the Titans, useful, if not necessary components of vast machines. They keep the Titan fighting, and the Titan replaces them with new components, read 'Initiates to the mysteries of the Titan,' to march back out to get some revenge, and kill a few brain-cogs. Like all Titan components they are costed in the currency of human resources. 

It ends once a Titan has been pushed off of the board, and out of the designated battlefield, or when it is hit with a knock-out blow, and one player is miles ahead on points. Or it ends after 18 rounds, and the damage done to the Titan is added to the habitats on the battlefield they have saved from other Titans. Each Titan tops out at 24 habitat blocks, but it's easier to detect and destroy buildings than the far better protected Titans. It may simply be that a Titan wins by the barest of margins.

Side-grade for Styxx

My last game piloting Styxx Configuration 3 (Mega Gun, Laser Blade, Sponsons, Thrusters, Digitigrade Legs, Sensors (x3), Capacitors, Extra Armour (x3), and Deflectors) revealed what I consider to be a pair of minor weaknesses to the so-called Raptor configuration, which is where you sacrifice having a pair of arms for some other useful pair of systems. In the case of Styxx, what She gets is an extra pair of sensors now that other sensors have been scaled back to just the Sensor 3 pod that makes up the Titan's head. Being able to detect buildings on either side of a Titan, or behind them, is pretty incredibly handy, and I may not have exploited it to the hilt. What actively worked against me, however, was the mega gun. 

At first I was pretty excited to bounce around the board, making it look like I was trying for a ring-out when I would be looking to pick off buildings and wrong-foot my opponent with the mega gun until I was ready to carve off a leg, or an arm, or what have you. Notably my opponent had Tethys Configuration 4 (Laser Blades, Rocket Pods, Sponsons, Arms, Digitigrade Legs, Sensor, Extra Armour (x4), and Shield) and where I had the Sagacious personality (precisely what I wanted) my opponent drew the Vivacious personality, effectively adding a third sponson! Getting behind them wasn't going to work, and they very cleverly hoarded up Extra Armour and stacked shield tokens on those systems. I wasn't getting through without being very, very clever (or my opponent being very, very dumb), and the result was losing by 8 VPs, and nearly a knock-out. 

Notably also was the fact that my opponent, having hoarded Tethys' four extra armour packs, had a very good set of options for turning my mega gun's Impact trait against me, using it to get turned around! This is 'as intended' in the design. Plus the combination of rocket pods and laser blades was put to good effect damaging my own sponsons, meaning my mobility was limited from the mid-game onwards. I couldn't concentrate my own shields because then Tethys' rocket pods would start to chew into the gaps in my shield configuration. All-in-all, I think that what I really wanted was a weapon with the High Explosive trait, so that Styxx could shank someone in the back without helping them turn around. 

Styxx Configuration 4 has exactly that, boarding a Macro Laser and Rocket Pod where 3 had a Mega Gun and Laser Blade. Notably as well, Styxx Configuration 1 has a Plasma Shotgun, Rocket Pod, and Laser Blade, which is a brutal combination. Rather than duplicating an existing configuration, or going for a dual close-combat configuration, I decided Configuration 3 would be a stripped-down version of 1, much like how the other Titan Configuration 3s swap in or out a weapon in their Configuration 1s. 

In this case Styxx doesn't lose any range, or effect, and gains both HE2 and Shock for the loss of combined attacks and Impact. It would be something of a dead heat, but the Plasma Shotgun has a Charge of 2 compared to the Mega Gun's Charge of 1. I feel like the HE2 means an attack is going to cause damage, either because of concentrated shield tokens over protected areas is going to mean valuable unprotected areas (as well as knocking two shield tokens off the armour), or because the shields will be more even distributed and thus easier to knock out. Then the shock will mean any attempt to block will cost the target twice as much in lost cards. 

Back to the charge cost, Styxx could Jump (2), fire the Plasma Shotgun (3), and then Full Power the Plasma Shotgun again with a Capacitor (3), or activate a Sponson (1), Jump at an angle (2), Operate with an Initiate crew (1), and fire either the Plasma Shotgun or the Laser Blade to amputate something. That's either the first round, or making sure Styxx alternates rounds. Firing twice is going to require at least six cards in your hand, although again Styxx can Jump (1), Attack with Her Digitigrade Leg (3), and then attack again with a weapon or capacitor to re-activate the leg. 

I think the HE and AP weapons complement each other, and that Shock will help offset the Styxx 3's range deficit. It might also make things a tad more interesting without those arms to swing around. I also think that by homing in on these sweet-spot combinations as the default layouts for players they can have a more positive experience trying out Titanomachina on Tabletop Simulator. 

Titanomachina on Tabletop Simulator: Rationalizing Point Values

Part of updating cards, particularly implementing changes that affect the values on the cards, means that I need to go back and update the Human Resource and Victory Point values. Which is a good thing, and following on Great Wickedness' example I've put those in the rule book. I need to update with new diagrams for attacking buildings anyways, and it's always useful to wrap all those changes up in an update, which I try to do on a monthly basis. In particular it's interesting to re-visit the valuation rubric itself, to see if it's spitting out intuitively correct answers, and in particular to engage in a little bit of comparison. Part of what I enjoy about developing Titanomachina is how, having played it for years now, that I feel like I understand it better now than when I initially designed it. 

Certain systems simply feel better than other systems, and have more oomph, and I believe that they're the systems that have more than a 100% effect/charge (where charge is read as the cost of activating a card including itself, so Charge 2 is 3). Stuff with less than 100% efficiency is going to feel underwhelming, like arms. Interestingly though I've noticed that while you can really feel the lack of arms in the Styxx configurations without arms, you'll feel it more if you don't maximize the use of them when you have them. Certain other systems, while not actually doing anything themselves, really have an impact on the game: sponsons, turrets, and capacitors. And it's these latter systems that I have difficulty representing in the scoring/costing rubric. 

Currently the cost/scoring rubric is (Effect/Charge)+1 per trait or combined/extra action+0.25 for each tile of range after the first. That sticks the Capacitor at HR~0.33 because it's Effect 1, Charge 2, (1/3) and nothing else. Likewise the turret comes out at HR 3 which is perhaps excessive when Digitigrade Legs are currently HR 3 each, although those should come to 5 because 3/3+1 for push and +1 for block. Jump jets and thrusters would go down because they do one thing for the cost of doing so. Mobility has a big effect on the game though, so even jumping two tiles can feel significant where the game is often a matter of a few degrees. Sponsons and turrets really kick up the significance of a Titan's actions. 

I think the scoring rubric should be the (Effect + Traits or Additional Actions + Range bonus) / Charge as that's the benefit divided by the cost. I think it's worth rounding up or down depending on breaks like whether a system is unusable after only light damage (Rocket Pod, Hand), The gun battery is treated as having a charge of 1 because it's a weird outlier for both doing a whole lot (attack, block, push, at range 3) and not a whole lot. Basically this gives a premium to those systems with less charge. Weapons with longer range also get a premium, because being able to reach across the board is very valuable when your opponent doesn't obligingly move in close, or moves in close and detects habitats across the board. Which is why sensors have a trait cost of 4 despite being only having a dual-action, as the value of those actions is disproportionate to their apparent costing; detecting habitats is a much easier way of scoring than inflicting damage where Effect is concerned. 

Titanomachina on Tabletop Simulator: Rules Booklet update

I've been updating the rules booklet to better reflect the state of the game, and to add and/or organize all those little details that keep coming up in play. In particular I added a table detailing what systems are required on a Titan for that Titan to activate a Personality card, and engage in the action on that card. I've condensed collisions between Titans and buildings (and Titans) down to the two basic cases (pushed or pulled into an occupied adjacent tile, pushed or pulled into an occupied diagonal tile), tried to make my use of terms like tiles, board, stack, and square consistent. The pages have been laid out to be two-page spreads, so best read on Two Page Scrolling via Adobe Acrobat, or printed out. 

In particular I think I've clarified the relationship between figurines and system diagrams, particularly between arcs, but also Titan targets, and where collision damage happens on Titans as well as buildings. 

Here's a link to Titanomachina's rules booklet on Tabletop Simulator on the Steam Workshop.

Titanomachina on Tabletop Simulator: Meatspace Intersection Alarm!

Being able to put Titanomachina up on Tabletop Simulator means that more people can find it and play it. A Kickstarter would allow me to reach hundreds of people, but this allows thousands. Notably though it is more fun to play in person, and I want it to be a board game in its interface. I want to implement changes so that it's a better physical product as well as a Tabletop Simulator implementation of the game. I also can't script, but there's very little of the game I want to automate. It's about making decisions, not just watching a bunch of RNG events happen. 

So I've been working to draw up how much it would cost me to produce the game through collaboration with Boardgamesmaker.com who have made a bunch of prototypes before. They deliver as ordered, and make sure to check with me when the order doesn't look ready to print. Sometimes it's me figuring out how to correct flaws, or conduct quality assurance. Other times it's me thinking about what I'd want in this product, as a consumer. 

Part of that is dealing with Eos' 4th configuration, the lone raptor in the Eos lineup. I mean, it does some fun stuff, but I can put two Titans in a deck, four if the dashboards are double-sided, and the Titans are pairs of weapon-swaps. So reaper vs reaper is two sets, regent vs raptor is one, regent vs regent is one. That's four decks, two for Rhea & Tethys, two for Eos & Styxx. 

So here's what I want to replace Eos' raptor configuration: Two Gun Batteries, one Hand, and one Laser Battery. Decent, mid-range, and very lightweight weaponry. Two sponson systems enabled a flexible concentration of fire, while all the Charge 0 and 1 systems free up charge for the double capacitors. The lack of Extra Armour on the sides may sting, but with six limbs it should be agile. Four actions in the first round should be possible, like activate Sponson 1, activate Master Crew to operate (+3), active Gun Battery 1 to attack at four points of damage, then activate Capacitor 1 to re-activate it at full power for one point of damage. 

Or, perhaps the capacitor isn't needed but the Laser Battery operated by an Initiate Crew 3 is. That one or two points of damage on top of the Gun Battery 1's four points of damage is one system heavily damaged at the least, two systems destroyed at best. 

It also nails a sweet-spot of making sure players of the Green vs Blue, regent vs raptor set get gun batteries, a hand, and a laser battery into the mix. I think it'll be up to the task of chasing the Green raptors too, because you can't give those bastards an inch of breathing room.

I'd want that in a Titan that would introduce players to the game, and perhaps something of an intriguing challenge trying to min-max the heck out of Eos. Those double-pushes are going to be nuts.

Titanomachina: The April 2022 Configuration Change

People who play Titanomachina online on Tabletop Simulator may have noticed a change on Saturday. Now there are only four configurations available per colour/Titan, and the amount of variation in bodies has been minimized. Hopefully the character of each Titan has been maximized, despite that they all share a common pool of cards. They each have a particular strength. 

I have introduced Extra Armour 4 & 5, Thrusters 1 & 2, Jump Jets 1 & 2, Capacitors 1 & 2, and removed Sensors 1 & 2 from Rhea (yellow), Tethys (pink), and Eos (blue). Rhea adds Extra Armour 4 & 5 in all configurations. Tethys adds Extra Armour 4 and Jump Jets 2 and/or 1. Eos adds Capacitors 1 & 2, and Jump Jets 1 & 2. Styxx moves entirely to Thrusters for Jump actions.

Rhea & Tethys have two reaper configurations, which is to say two with 3 weapons each, and two regent configurations, which are 4 weapons each. Styxx has two reaper configurations and two raptor configurations, which are 2 weapons each. Eos has two reapers, one regent, and one raptor. 

I'm hoping this mix sees players develop preferences for 'play-styles,' including combos, tempos, and all the other stuff we've come to expect from card and card-adjacent games. 

Titanomachina Development: Next Steps

I've considered some ways to open up the game a bit and also to help people learn the game when they try it for the first time. One way would be adding things like different proportions of systems, and in particular shaking up the nomenclature slightly. In no particular order I want to:

1. Turn the Plasma Capacitor and Plasma Cell into the Capacitor 1 and Capacitor 2. They're the same thing, and sometimes it helps to remind people they're really just iterations of the same thing by being consistent. 

2. Multiple the Plasma Jets and Thrusters into Jump Jets 1, Jump Jets 2, Thrusters 1, and Thrusters 2. 

3. Add Extra Armour 4 and Extra Armour 5. 

4. Perhaps make a change to the capacitor, making Full power a 0 cost card to return a played or discarded card to the top of one's deck for the next round. 

5. Enable Titans to move into objects like they were pushed into them. So a 2x2 cube of buildings from a flat face would cause 4 damage to the closest middle target on a Titan moving into that square. Maybe Titans would need to do something fancy to unlock this.

6. Re-jig some configurations. Like these of Rhea, trading in Sensors 2 & 3 for Extra Armour 4 & 5, and placing the Laser Battery 1 in the same position in the reaper configuration (3 weapons) as the regent (4 weapons). And remembering to keep the Capacitor on the reaper... And maybe putting the crew more centrally, and replacing the plasma jets with Thrusters 1 and Thrusters 2. Also evens out the damage potential in each corner arc.

Titanomachina on Tabletop Simulator: New Table!

It occurred to me last night that I should be able to decorate the custom-table with art so it didn't look quite so bare. It turns out that it was both easy, and an opportunity to use the flashy synth-wave artwork I'd commissioned for an earlier version of the board (and that was using for the background). I really like how it looks. 

 

Titanomachina Damage Analysis

Something has been nagging at me, both as a designer and as a player, about the ratios of damage in Titanomachina. Quite early on, when Titanomachina was still an attempt at Adeptus Titanicus II, a friend had critiqued my plans, saying that it gave the defending player too many options and too much power, which would make any actions less impactful. And he was right about how players need to feel power in their actions, particularly in relation to the amount of effort that cost players, which is what guided me to remove dice and anything else that might interfere with the execution of a clever plan. Or that of a simple plan, such as a punch. 

Notably there is no 'punch' in Titanomachina. The attack is a combination move & attack action with an arm or big arm. Of course, combined with crew, or even on its own in the case of a big arm, this allows a variety of changes in range and relative orientation that sells the notion of a punch being a bodily thing lead by that arm system. I like this. Some people might think that the flavour would be then added via artwork and catchy card names, but I think the flavour is in how it plays, and then in relation to the artwork and catchy card names. Titans are big, massive machines with a lot of momentum. They act according to a programme, the order of cards in the Titan deck, and may gradually adapt to a situation as the player puts cards back on the bottom of the deck. This deck also defines a frequency and timing of damage. With 23 cards in a Titanomachina deck, and at least four rounds until any of those cards are back in-hand, you're looking to both concentrate damage in a round to minimise the likelihood that sub-destroyed damage will just be repaired, and gain a kind of momentum for either a knock-out or a ring-out. Specifically, I think, gaining a positive ratio of charge spent (or cards played face-down to activate other cards) to damage is how a knock-out can be achieved. But they are rare. I've played in only a few games where it ended in knock-out, which is where the player in the lead is 10pts ahead of their opponent(s) best score. 

Moreover, some weapons just feel weaker than others despite having better Effect scores, in part because I think they approach a 1:1 because of this number: 7, or the aggregate amount of damage the crew can repair in ~4 rounds of play. Well, 8 if the Titan is Gracious in personality. That's not including damage that was expended on shields. Notably various traits interact with Titans in different ways:

The high explosive trait causes extra damage to additional targets centered on the player's target on the Titan, and does so whether there are shields or not. The rocket pod thus does 3 damage while it remains Effect 1. A buzz saw can conceivably do 4 damage so long as the target and the additional target have at least one shield token so that the weapon's shield breaker trait can do something. The macro gun also does 4 damage thanks to the high explosive trait and hard rounds/push trait, if it can push the enemy into or through a building. All are Charge 1. The plasma howitzer is Charge 3. It also does 3 damage to a single target, and that concentration of damage is significant. While they aren't completely useless when suffering light and heavy damage, their charge makes the trade-off seem like you'd need a high-value, already-damage target to kill that turn. The macro laser does 3 damage, but from Effect 2 and the armour piercing trait, but loses damage if the Effect is used up on shields. The armour piercing trait also enables it to gib high-value targets, and makes blocking with extra armor considerably less safe. The laser blade does the same, and with shield breaker, meaning it can do 4 damage at most against a target with exactly 1 shield token. Three and zero shield tokens limits the weapon's unoperated potential to 3 damage. Being able to grapple stuff into buildings is something the claw can do too, pushing its damage up to 3 with a building adjacent to the target and attacker. 

The plasma shotgun has Charge 2 for Effect 2 and likewise compares unfavourably to the mega gun, gun battery, hand, and laser battery. The hand can grapple for damage 2, improved against shields to 3. The mega gun can improve that with two pushes from combined attacks, for damage 4, though more usually damage 2. The gun battery as no charge cost for 2 damage if you can bounce the target Titan into a building. That's a 1:2 ratio for Cost/Effect. Why? Because you still need to play the gun battery card, so 1 is the basic cost of any action. A Charge 2 shotgun costs 3, meaning that's a plasma howitzer you can't fire that turn if you fire the plasma shotgun. That could be 3x the number of single-card actions. Some other single-card actions would be personalities, Effect 1 move/repair/detect/scan/twist/raise shields, but also twist, raise shields, initiate crew, and gun batteries. 

Firing 3 gun batteries would have an unoperated ceiling of 6 damage, 3 from the effect of the gun batteries, and 3 crashing the target titan(s) into buildings. Interestingly causing only 1 point of damage can be negated by an opponent spending an initiate crew card to repair the damage at no additional cost, but that would also not be a +1 operate bonus to some action. It's not just how the damage is spread, as they could be between 1 and 6 targets damaged on the Titan, spreading the damage around the outer surface of the Titan, damage that might only remove shields rather than destroying two systems, let alone two precious, expensive systems. Destroying one system for such a cost might be justified. There's also the situation where 3 is the minimum amount of damage caused, but the target is pushed around rather than into a building or three. This puts a cost on the opponent to do something about being out of position. Likewise, so does the shock trait, requiring the target's player to discard a card out of hand. It may be a useless card, but it can't contribute to an additional action. Of course, losing a card is losing a card, while sometimes an opponent may inadvertently give you a free turn. The thing is that sure 1:1 cost/damage is greater than the plasma shotgun's 3:2 The plasma shotgun is below the curve, so to speak. Perhaps amusingly reducing the plasma shotgun's charge to 1 means it would have that 1:1 ratio of cost/damage plus the additional impact of the shock trait, which is only good if you have the cards to exploit an opponent who may suddenly be unable to react appropriately with a block by extra armour, or who is now losing that extra armour and another card, which throws off the ratio at which that opponent is earning damage by spending charge. 

Likewise the other impactful weapons have a cost of usually 2:3 for the macro gun, the rocket pod, the , the buzz saw, the claw, and the mega gun. These can go as high as 2:4. They're all Effect 2. The laser blade and macro laser are 3:3 thanks to the armour piercing added to Effect 2. The laser battery is likewise underwhelming, particularly against shields, because it maintains a 2:2 except in the case of shields. The upshot of an operated armour piercing attack into an unshielded target is pretty high though. Having it be underwhelming gives it a wider swing when it overwhelms. This makes up for lasers costing more charge. 

I'm tempted to address the plasma shotgun's issue by giving it the high explosive trait, mechanically levering it up to 3 damage any time and place, but flattening it. It also distinguishes it somewhat from the plasma howitzer. However, reducing the charge to 1 means that players would get to do more, which isn't always a bad thing, especially where they need the extra charge to capitalise on any tempo advantage that shock may confer as a result of the attack. Both are preferable to making the plasma shotgun Effect 3, rendering the plasma howitzer a problem to be solved. In fact, the plasma howitzer is something of a problem, but the combination of shock and hitting that damage 3 threshold in an unoperated attack on a single target can be pretty impactful. Not actually being efficient offsets its efficacy quite well. Flavour-wise the high explosive suits the name of 'shotgun' as spreading plasma like shot from a shotgun. Without that impact the shock isn't great. Maybe even high explosive (2) like a rocket pod? Because that tips it at 3:4, leaving the plasma howitzer at 4:3. 

It also gives the game another high explosive weapon to add to the rocket pod, the macro gun, and the buzz saw. It'll help whoever takes it clear buildings more quickly, as they don't tend to be piled in convenient single-owner buildings... Certainly I need to do some math.

Titanomachina on Tabletop Simulator: Refitting Styxx config. 4

This configuration of Styxx, configuration 5, isn't user-friendly and therefore not beginner-friendly. That's a problem where I host Titanomachina on Steam, as it's a problematic platform. The last thing I want is someone to hold their nose and go to the effort of giving it a try and having a bad experience because they're learning the game. 

Part of the problem may be that it has too many Charge 2 systems. This contributes to a problem with agility, making it easy to catch out of cover and with shields down. Once back-footed, this configuration is slow to recover despite the deflectors being Charge 0/1, because it needs the power for offense. 

There are a selection of solutions: (1) reduce all senior crew to Initiates, (2) swap out the capacitors for thrusters or a sponson or both, (3) swap out rear sensors for additional extra armour on the flanks. Maybe some combination. 

Initially I'm going with #2 because doing so meant not creating any new cards (Extra Armour 4 & 5), and adding mobility and agility (Jump & Twist action, and the combination, means more interesting things for learners to explore. 

Of course Styxx already has that unique Turret system for 360 fire, but it's one system that needs to go off with at least two other actions (operate or attack, maybe full power) requiring between 3 and 6 cards. Adding a sponson means that Styxx can twist twice in a cycle of the Titan deck through four rounds. Throw in Thrusters and there's not just the opportunity to thrash around and break buildings as you re-position, but to jump sideways or even backwards. With Adherent Crew operating Thrusters you could jump 4 squares/tiles backwards, or anywhere really. Start in the middle of the board and reposition if you win the initiative draw. You know the first thing a learner is going to do is jump behind their enemy, right? Or at least give them the opportunity to do so. I mean, I have favourites in the Styxx configurations, namely #2 and #5. Why not emphasize the mobility rather than the surge that full power gives?

Titanomachina Development: How to lose the Deadline Marker

Quite early on in the development of Titanomachina I realized that the game needs to have an end-point, something to give players both a sense of urgency, and to keep the game closer to an hour to play rather than some greater amount of time. So, cribbing from Blood Bowl, I implemented an arbitrary time limit based on the dimensions of the game (18 rounds), implemented a game track to record-keeping purposes and a deadline marker to move along it and it's worked out ever since. However, there was the issue of then needing to include a deadline marker, and putting the track on the board (preventing the board from being expanded with additional Titanomachina sets). The board art required the track, which was a hassle, and the punchboard needed the deadline marker art, and so on. Additionally, as I proceeded with the development of Titanomachina I found trimming parts was my best way forward rather than adding stuff. 

Lately I've been exploring ways to lose the board, and that was not hamstrung by my need to figure out how to implement the game track and initiative track without a board, because I had already experimented with boards not featuring explicit game and initiative tracks. Initiative was determined by stacking some spare building blocks, with the order going from top to bottom. The deadline marker moved around the edge of the board, with the board itself conveniently (and not coincidentally) being 9x9 squares so that a game was complete once the deadline marker had moved along two sides of the board. Combining the two so that the initiative stack (that third dimension is great, by the way) also tracks as the deadline marker is logical, in that it uses existing game elements to express the same logic of priority and time. Altering the rules to cope with the change from a board with defined tracks to a more abstract, structural representation would require new diagrams and nomenclature rather than any structural change, which is good. 

Practically-speaking, this enables me to fit Titanomachina into a smaller, more space-efficient box. If I include 100 building blocks in the box, then each player has 24 to play on the board, plus 1 more for tracking initiative and the deadline. I would need to double the number of tiles though, as I would need 48 Road/Roundabout tiles, 16 T-junction/L-bend tiles, and 32 Foundation tiles, or tiles that would replace the board in the empty squares where roads cannot be placed. 

Below is something of a mock-up using an old biscuit tin, an earlier prototype of the building blocks (wooden cubes with stickers in the appropriate colours, which is good enough for me, but not colour-blind people), all the cards (including 16 Dashboard cards), 48 Road/Roundabout tiles, a deadline marker/cube (for 101 blocks), a baggy of colour-coded shield tokens (translucent plastic bingo chips), a single dry-erase marker, and four 3D printed Titans with twelve weapons on not-strictly-necessary hexagonal bases. The deadline marker would be another component lost to free up space for more tiles, and maybe stuff like the utility buildings or whatnot. As you can see, 8"x8"x3" can fit quite a lot. 

Titanomachina Development: How to Lose the Board

Of the many, many things in this project that have vexed me, the boards perhaps have vexed me the most. It's difficult to get things projected at the right sizing for the intended printing, although I think what vexes me the most about it is that I have had successes, followed by what I might call 'failures.' 

The first board I ordered worked perfectly, possibly because I hadn't attempted to mangle the artwork and the artist I had commissioned had quite proficiently made it usable 'as is.' The second, 6x6 board, worked out fine but it was just a cropping of the original art. A further printing where I had attempted to alter the artwork proved un-usable as I hadn't sized the art properly and so the printers faithfully printed it to the altered size. So in order to pursue this option I need to either hire a graphic designer, which isn't in the budget, or learn to prepare images properly myself, which still has a cost to me in personal time. How much, I couldn't tell you, and that's a concern at the outset.

Trying a different tack, I commissioned some new art, and eventually had it produced. The problem, such as it was, was that the manufacturer had actually gone up and above the requirements, making me some PVC matt boards that could be combined to make a bigger board. That the squares were slightly larger to the grid extended out to the edge of 18" was not a problem. It was actually a mild benefit given that the cards were 50mm, and the extra fraction of 1m looked alright. The second set I ordered, hoping they would turn out the same without describing the additional requirement, were not made to tesselate. They were, however, perfectly on spec, which is both again on me and another cost in both time and money to fix.  

However, I have had some lucky with the road tiles that I originally commissioned. These printed out nicely, and being double-sided a Roundabout and a Road gave players access to all the road tiles they would need for all but the bleakest boards in a set of 48. Some issues with the graphic design I had commissioned meant that I learned to make sufficient artwork for my purposes, adding two new road tile sides, for T-junction and L-bend. Now, limiting the relative quantities of these tiles would affect the game out of the board, but I'm reasonably confident that players don't need more than 48 road tiles in the basic game. 

Of course, this line of thought brought me to wonder why not to include more than the 48 sweet spot for manufacturing an optimal number of tiles. What if, for example, players wanted to cover the board in roads? They would need 81 for that, since the board is a 9x9 grid, a 1-18 track, and if I could make the artwork play nicely, a 1-6 track. But playing on the PVC matt boards made me improvise ways of tracking the game rounds and initiative, which don't strictly need tracks. The game rounds, for instance, can be tracked around two edges of the board, in a hilariously Monopoly-style journey. The initiative tokens can be set up in a row with player assent as to its clarity. It has me thinking about ways to combine the initiative and the game arounds, and getting rid of the deadline marker would be one less un-necessary component. 

But being able to cover the board means covering the board, and if you've covered the board, then in a vague sense you don't really need the board, just the cover. I've also been somewhat inspired by both Carcassonne and Keys to the Castle. So where would those other, at minimum 33, tiles come from? Why not tiles for placing buildings on top of them? Roads can't have buildings, and that means buildings are kind of sunk into the board relative to the Titans standing on roads. Plus, and this is something I rather want to emphasize, this makes craters out of the negative space where a tile is not placed (or is removed). 

It's not like making a board out of tiles is a particularly new idea, but it is a good idea if you can take the tiles to behave, which means they need to tesselate. Plus there's the requirement that the roads themselves need to connect properly, with other roads or the edge, and that's easily enough extended to cover these 'foundation' tiles. 

It also enables implementation of an idea that I had previously abandoned because things needed to be fast and simple for a mass audience, rather than intuitive and interesting for the mass audience, wherein players could start anywhere on an empty board, but discovered buildings and roads as they walked over and around them (and used their sensors, with the building number being a cap on building scoring). 

So what I'm going to do is order some more tiles, adjust the mix to be 48 Road/Roudabout tiles, 16 T-junction/L-bend tiles, and 32 building tiles. 

In the meantime I think I want to consider how to drop the deadline marker...

Titanomachina on Tabletop Simulator: Wave 5

Titanomachina is still on Tabletop Simulator (TTS). Certainly I don't like how they've handled the recent controversy, although I do approve of them flushing the global chat and donating $10k to a LGBT+ charity, but they're far ahead of competitors when it comes to accessibility usability. I don't know if I can be fussy about my choice of platform; I certainly haven't received any feedback about it. In terms of available platforms, I only have one machine that can handle Tabletop Playground, and I have yet to work up the energy (and budget) to add Titanomachina to Tabletopia. I'm going to proceed with adding waves of Titans (figurines, dashboard cards, Titan decks) to the existing set and updating the rule book on TTS when I get up the gumption to update the diagrams and finesse the rules. Perhaps my next step should be getting back to my Patreon account and using it to pay for this expensive hobby... 

Nonetheless, I am adding a 5th wave of Titan configurations to the sixteen existing Titan configurations already up on Tabletop Simulator. I keep adding these waves because, while the game is designed around players swapping out physical parts of their Titans (arms, legs, weapons, torsos, turrets, etc) as well as cards and dashboards, I lack the wherewithal to implement that in TTS. So instead I've been uploading what I think are interesting configurations that players can try. This wave could be considered the demolition wave, designed to inflict maximum long-ranged damage on both enemy Titans and their buildings, but mainly on their buildings. 

Styxx is the first configuration of the 5th wave, and includes two jump jets (Plasma Jets & Thrusters), and two capacitors (Plasma Capacitor, Plasma Cell). The combination Rocket Pod and Macro Laser gives Styxx the tools to hammer buildngs and Titans, especially if an opponent can be caught trying to take a breather. Aside from having maximum-ranged weapons, this configuration of Styxx should still be able to bounce around the board like a spastic bullfrog.  

Eos is similarly armed, but goes in a different direction, trading in the jump jets for Arms, and trading in a sponson for an additional Rocket Pod. With four lower powered limbs Eos should have more defensive options than Styxx while leaning much more heavily towards anti-building firepower. The Laser Battery is more of a weapon of opportunity than the Macro Laser, but it can still be used to drill out an enemy arm, leg, or sensor with sufficient softening up via Rocket Pods and capacitors, or operated by sufficiently senior crew. 

Tethys gives up the notion of efficiently destroying buildings altogether, although with two arms and two sponsons this configuration of Tethys is either going to need to charge up an alpha strike to get through opponent shields, or grind away cover with the Laser Batteries so enemies can't hide from the Macro Lasers. 

Where Tethys invests heavily into lasers, Eos into Rocket Pods, Styxx into a synergistic mix, Rhea has guns. Lots of guns. Armed with two Mega Guns and two Macro Guns, this configuration of Rhea is going to make a horrific mess of anyone and anything on the receiving end, capable of pushing an opponent six squares across the board, potentially through buildings even when they're not the primary target. Directed against buildings, the Mega Guns will allow Rhea to maximize the indiscriminate effect of the Macro Guns, clearing paths of movement and fire through intervening buildings. Like all of Rhea's configurations, this one is a bully.