Titanomachina: Going Hunting

  

In the quest for balance, so players can feel like there isn't only one way to play Titanomachina, there is a gold standard for power and that is Rhea's quaternary configuration. That's the one with two macro guns and two vulcan guns, and has five extra armour systems and a sensor system to maintain a favourable initiative. The best defence in the game along with an array of charge-efficient systems, makes this Titan a brutal opponent, particularly when piloted by my favourite opponent. 

I'm trying to figure out a material response to this monster, mainly so I don't have to rejig the game to balance it out, but I'm currently thinking about Eos and Styxx. Eos has a pair of capacitors in primary and secondary configurations. Styxx has three sensors as well as a capacitor, taking only a single thruster instead of Eos' dual jump jets, and mounts stronge but charge-thirsty limbs. I want to take Styxx's primary weapon configuration (plasma shotgun, rocket pod, laser blade) and stick it on Eos' primary chassis.

1. Sponson 1, Jump Jets 1, Capacitor 1, Plasma Shotgun 2, Deflectors 1, Initiate Crew 3, Deflectors 2, Extra Armour 1 (5 actions, 5 damage, shock)
2. Jump Jets 2, Capacitor 2, Laser Blade 1, Initiate Crew 4, Extra Armour 2 (3 actions, 4 damage)
3. Master Crew 1, Rocket Pod 2, Arm 1, Leg 1, Extra Armour 3 (3 actions, 6 damage)
4. Adherent Crew 2, Arm 2, Leg 2, Sensor 3, Personality (4 actions)

The strategy isn't just using high explosive and shield breaker to clear Rhea's shields, shock to interfere with tempo, and armour piercing to pick off valuable systems. This could be done, perhaps even more effectively, by Styxx's primary configuration. 

1. Sensor 3, Master Crew 2, Rocket Pod 2, Deflectors 1, Initiate Crew 2, Deflectors 2, Extra Armour 1, Arm 2 (4 actions, 6 damage)
2. Turret, Capacitor 1, Plasma Shotgun 2, Sensor 2, Leg 1 (4 actions, 3 damage, shock)
3. Adherent Crew 1, Arm 1, Sensor 1, Extra Armour 3, Laser Blade 1 (2 actions, 5 damage)
4. Initiate Crew 1, Leg 2, Extra Armour 2, Thrusters 1, Personality (3 actions)

Rhea Configuration 4, for comparative purposes:

1. Sponson 1, Macro Gun 1, Extra Armour 1, Vulcan Gun 1, Leg 1, Master Crew 1, Shields 1, Adherent Crew 2 (4 actions, remainder 1, 8 damage)
2. Sponson 2, Macro Gun 2, Extra Armour 2, Vulcan Gun 2, Leg 2, (3-4 actions, 7 damage)
3. Shields 2, Initiate Crew 3, Initiate Crew 4, Extra Armour 3, Arm 1 (2-3 actions)
4. Extra Armour 4, Extra Armour 5, Arm 2, Sensor 3, Personality (3 actions)

The question, I suppose, is how will this mix with the personalities? And maintaining an advantageous position in the initiative order, as well as low-angles to Rhea (and not letting Her slip behind me this time!). 

Titanomachina: Escape From Gaia ready for Play-testing

I saw this mechanic in a wonderful game about modern art ("Art Society"):

Initiative goes to the player that plays the highest card, with ties going to the previous card value, and any further tie going to the ship with the most fuel. 

Ships are dice, used to track fuel.

Players move their ships in initiative order.

• Up an orbit costs 2 fuel
• Moving along the same orbit costs 1
• Moving down an orbit earns 2
• Moving into space with a planet earns 1
• Moving into a space occupied by another player costs 1.

There's all sorts of other bells and whistles I could put in there, like giving cards special rules or whatnot, but right now seven poker cards (1-6 and a joker) should do it.

Players win by moving up, out of the solar system. Players can't have less than 0 fuel, and start with 4 points of fuel. Planets are spaced out so that players can't immediately bootstrap themselves out of the solar system.

Titanomachina: Multi-Titan Riot Play-Test #4 Analysis

 

Still working on a multi-Titan game-mode for Titanomachina, and so far it's working fairly well, but I think some more changes need to be made. Currently players have two or more Titans that act as single targets with a single stack of shield tokens,  a draw-deck of 9 cards for each Titan including their Titan's personality card (as well as Arm, Leg, Jump Jets, Shields, Weapons x3, Sensor) for actions, a support-deck of the rest of the systems, drawing one for scoring each time a Titan suffers 3 points of damage. Players draw directly from the draw-deck as play, either to charge other cards or to activate them (or to block attacks). 

Previously I had figured High Explosive wouldn't do extra damage, but Shock is really cruel in this version, and allowing High Explosive weapons to do damage seems to work pretty well in balancing out the otherwise under-performing HE weaponry.

The Gracious Personality is a bit troublesome because there is no other opportunity for repair, and the point of repairing is to mainly get a damage system working so you can use it. Fixing one point of damage is not great. 

Automatically assigning the #1 of any set of systems to the draw-deck means Titans are all south-paws. I'm pretty open to allowing players to assign any 8 non-duplicated cards to their draw deck, although there's a bunch of complications there if it's more flexible that switching up the Arm 1 for the Arm 2 and so on. It's also worth considering what happens what one of the regent-configuration Titans would have in their draw-deck, or one of the raptor-configuration; I'm thinking Eos tertiary and quaternary configurations, with four arms as well as four weapons. 

Speaking of systems, a constantly-activated sponson/turret system is ridiculously effective at time, especially the turret or two-sponsons combo. I think it may need to be something invoked like the capacitor. Something to track invocations of the capacitor and any other invokable systems might be a good idea as well. 

Likewise the Vivacious Personality allowing twist actions is tricky given that the twist action from sponsons and turrets might be invoked or permanent. 

Damage mark-up, I've found, is an interesting matter. One way is to simply pick a column on the Titan's damage diagram and use that. Another way is to mark up 1 & 2 points of damage in an empty slot, and when taking 3 points of damage to draw a card and put a line through the slot corresponding to that card on the damage diagram. If you take 3 points of cumulative damage erase the 1 or 2 existing points and re-apply to where the card(s) was lost. Either way seems to work. 

Drawing random cards from the support-deck seems like it could be problematic in terms of scoring, particularly when losing expensive stuff like crew or capacitors, but then there's also drawing extra armour pieces without using an armour piercing weapon to perhaps draw something else. It might be an idea to figure out some procedure players can follow to equitably distribute support-deck decks rather than randomizing them by shuffling. Putting things in the order suggested on their dashboard cards is one idea, but might be a problem depending on the draw-deck players choose. 

Something that is obviously a problem is collisions, as they double the damage inflicted, allowing weapons (and limbs) that impact or grapple a Titan into some buildings to vastly increase the damage done via the magic of multiplication. I think it might be something to minimize collisions, so a 3-damage Macro Gun doesn't do a further 3 points of damage in a game where 3 or 4 shield tokens is normal. I think reducing it to single, extra points of damage might be something, so that Titans can still cut-across small buildings and trample them when pushed back.

Finally, I think I need to return to the issue of when exactly the game ends and why. I don't think the regular game's ring-out/knock-out/time-out really works for multiple Titans. One idea, since I have a certain axe to grind, is that each player should stick a pass card in their Titan's support deck, either randomly or injected after a certain number of cards, and have the game end when all Titans have lost their pass card. I should probably spend an entire post brain-storming some solutions to this issue. Currently I have a vague idea about there being a race to one condition, keeping a time-out condition, and then perhaps objectives or something. 

I should also note that so far I've been play-testing with two Titans per player, each Titan of a different colour. One intention is that players be able to use 2+ Titans for each colour as well. It's something I'll have to think about regarding running two at one with the same initiative.  

Titanomachina: Myrmidon Mega-Ants Part 3

Like Aristotle before you, many of you may be wondering what the telos, or purpose this all serves. After all, the Myrmidon Mega-Ants are playing a different game than the Titans. Or rather, they are playing the same game of coordinating parts to achieve victory. Which makes one wonder, does it not, what exactly victory looks like? Titans have time-outs, ring-outs, and knock-outs, one for each of the victories of time, space, and material. Obviously the Myrmidons should have the time-out, as fighting an enemy to a standstill, while scoring a strategic advantage in material is suitably heroic. Also, no changes need to be made to the rules for timing out. You play 9 or 18 rounds and then score habitats and destroyed systems. A knock-out will depend on the human resources needed to include each card and matching squad in a swarm of Myrmidon. I think 1 for Tactical ants, 2 for Assault and Support ants, and 3 for Heavy ants. Ring out is obviously impossible in the sense of pushing an enemy Titan off the board, but where Myrmidons have the following actions, perhaps there's some way of there being a risk of shocking a swarm of Myrmidons off the board.

Reinforcement Action

The player rolls xD6 for each action rolling x cogs. If they can roll above the number of reinforcement actions being called, the player can place that many Myrmidon squads on tiles around the edge of the board. 

Retreat (Reaction)

The Myrmidon squad may move one tile when attacked, before contact is resolved. 

In terms of a knock-out then I think I want a set ratio or fraction indicating that Myrmidon players ending a round with that few units on the board is knocked out. I think knocking them all off the board would be a knock-out condition, because otherwise a play may use a Command and then a Reinforcements action, using 4D6 to get 3x 4+ dice results. That could be 18 units of ants, potentially. On its own Reinforcements would be 2D6 to 2x 3+ dice results. 

How would the ants knock-out a Titan? They're going to hit Titans hard, doing between 2 and 6 points per attack. With 16 units of ants, all of them activating in four rounds, that would be 23 actions. That's nearly six actions a turn. Which is a good number because players are going to be throwing a lot of dice. Dice to move, dice to attack, dice to spot, dice to reinforce; the tension for the Myrmidon player should come from this stochastic machine. Because shots may do devastating damage, but the real play of Titanomachina is developing that damage past armour and shields, with ants not only surviving to do damage, but being at the right place and time to do that damage. 

Speaking of, when a Myrmidon force has the initiative and surrounds a Titan right off the bat, then it was probably a good idea for the Titan to set up in a corner of the board to avoid attack from every direction. Once again Rhea Quaternary would be the gold standard for massacre.  

Titanomachina: Multi-Titan Mayhem

I've been wracking my brain, trying to figure out how players could play multiple Titans at once without it becoming unplayable, and here's a first draft of what I've come up with so far: 

Players draw a card from each of their Titans' decks each turn. In initiative order players choose to: 

• play a card face-up, activate it, and resolve the subsequent actions,  
• play a card face-up to be activated later. 
• play a card face-down to charge another card from that Titan, either for immediate activation of a face-up card, or for later.  

Cards can only be activated if the player has built up sufficient charge (face-down cards), either because they have enough cards already face-down in play, or because they just played a card face-down. 

After a card is activated and its action(s) resolved, place the card on top of any cards needed to charge it on top of a discard pile. Once a player can no longer draw cards, this discard pile is flipped over. 

• Capacitors act as charge cards when they're activated. 
• Emergency Power lets you recover a card with block or intercept from the top of the discard pile and play it in reaction to an attack.
• Shock has players add the next card at the top of their deck to the discard pile.

Rounds end after five cards have been drawn, whether they're activated, left un-activated, or used to charge activated systems. Charge cards and un-activated systems (as well as activated crew) persist past the end of the round, although twist actions, detect Titan actions, and body slams do not. 

Edit: Players get three unactivated systems out on the table to begin the game. I also need to figure out how to count those rounds better...

Further edit: Someone on Bluesky made a very good suggestion for players to put a pass card five cards deep in their decks at the beginning of the game and every new round.