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.