Titanomachina: Multi-Titan Mayhem 2

 Digging into developing a multi-Titan game and I think I've managed to hit on a game mode that enables players to play Titanomachina with multiple Titans per side. 

Each player has two or more Titans where each Titan gets five cards from their Titan deck laid out on the table. Players take turns in initative order activating systems by rotating them 180 degrees (and flipping over any cards necessary to charge a system for activation). Players cannot activate a Titan again until all over Titans under their care control have activated a system (or can't activate a system). 

At the end of a round, when no more activations are possible, players can reset or replace the cards in their Titan's rows. 

Titans are reduced to single targets with a single stack of shield tokens. For every three points of damage they accumulate, the attacker can select a card from the targets row and claim it to score the system. 

Reactions are slightly changed. Reactions rotate a card like it was activated. Blocks turn Impact and Grapple effects into 45 degree turns, and offers that system up for destruction instead of the target.  Intercepts reduce the amount of incoming damage by 1 point. Emergency Power allows a player to play a reaction using a card that was rotated or flipped. Emergency Venting increases the cost of activating a system to attack within range 1. 

Armour Piercing enables the attacking Titan to claim two destroyed systems instead of 1. High Explosive adds damage to a system's cogs. Impact and Grapple always pushes (or pulls) a Titan, only doing one point of damage for collisions. Shock makes a player flip over one of their Titan's unactivated cards. 

Titanomachina: Coolant Systems (Part 2)

I'm introducing coolant systems to the game as a method of recovering cards that have been activated, something very much like the original concept of the capacitor, and now something like its mirror as the capacitor enables players to recover cards they've used to charge other systems, and this card speeds an activated system back into the players hand without spending time cooling down in the player's Titan deck (placing activated and charging cards at the bottom of the Titan deck at the end of the round is, after all, the cool down). 

However, it will initially be handled differently than I had originally stated on this blog, and may yet be slightly different once I update the rule book (and the tech manual and the reference cards, etc). 

The 'super-cooling' action will enable a player to de-activate that many cogs of activated systems, allowing those systems to be drawn back to the player's hand at the end of the round with the other un-activated systems. 

The 'explosive venting' reaction will enable a player whose Titan is being attacked at range 1 to increase the charge of the attacking system by 1 card, forcing its de-activation if the attacking player cannot (or won't) pay the additional charge cost of the system. If the system is deactivated then the attacking player can recover the charge cost of the system to their hand, and the system at the end of the round.  

 

Titanomachina: Reconfiguring Styxx

I've decided to revisit Styxx's configurations and systems because Styxx's tertiary and quaternary configurations under-perform in a way that leaves them feeling less mobile and agile than a Titan with three weapons, four limbs, and two jump jets.  In part it's because the number of Walk actions defines agility despite equivalent speed. Once per round is often ideal, rather than once every two, with multiple walks in a single round being a strategic choice left up to the player's estimation. 

Perhaps amusingly, what the tertiary and quaternary configurations give up for a third weapon is not additional speed and agility. 

The coolant system would enable the Titan to draw an activated system immediately back to their hand rather than waiting for it to cycle through the Titan deck. This can give it the Titan a third limb or weapon activation as the timing allows. It also gives it another defensive option, to make up for all the block reactions it would lose with the third weapon and two arms. 

This does require ripping out one of the capacitors, but where their optimal use requires the Titan to be using two-charge systems. That's only really the weapon systems, in the tertiary configuration, and the macro laser in the quaternary. 

This isn't the whole solution though, as it occurred to me that the turret is one of the reasons the primary and secondary configurations are so effective. Being able to jump sideways seems like an equalizer, especially where weapons also get 270 degrees of fire.