Titanomachina: Efficiency is Oppression

Once again the Titans walk the surface of Gaia, and once again they clash anew! This time rapacious Styxx pushes to see just how far efficiency will get Her, and gracious Rhea is there to return fire... This was something of a test match, seeing how Styxx performs under what is arguably a much more efficient load-out than Her usual primary or secondary configurations. Despite the lack of existing cover in the current default set-up on Tabletop Simulator, the general conclusion was that this configuration of Styxx was 'oppressive' to play. Which is one way to say that where-ever Rhea could go and whatever She could do, She was going to get out-manoeuvred by Styxx, and shot/kicked/punched for Her trouble. Without charge-hungry systems to slow Her down, Styxx could keep up a similar rate of activity as Rhea and generally faster, harder-hitting, and more punishing. 

And yet, when the ceasefire came down at the end of round 9, Styxx was down on both habitats and destroyed systems, missing extra armour and a gun battery while Rhea was only missing a couple of extra armour systems. The final score was 24-21, a solid victory to Rhea, and perhaps a good example using Rhea's endurance to take a beating and turn the tide. Which isn't to say that this experiment with Styxx's load-out failed. Indeed, it succeeded to such a degree that like Icarus, I got carried away and make a couple of mistakes that snatched victory from the jaws of Styxx. 

Styxx storms onto the field of battle, an appropriate arena in which the Titans can clash, while Rhea approaches at a low angle, content to keep things at a distance to begin with.

Styxx doesn't want to give Rhea anything to react to, a way to get behind Her right away, but Rhea has other ideas and opens fire with a master-operated macro gun, blasting off Styxx's left leg armour despite an effort to intercept the shot with additional shields. But it's early, and Styxx has always benefited from patience. 

Now Styxx pulls around and returns fire, bursting Rhea's rear shields as She ducks and takes the spread of rockets to Her rear armour. It's no recompense for Styxx's leg armour, but this is just the beginning and Styxx blows Her capacitor to keep ichorplasma pumping through Her titanic frame.  

Now Rhea is on the move as Styxx's master crew moves to operate something, possibly one of Styxx's gun batteries, and demolishes a green habitat with a kind of skipping kick as Her thrusters ignite and hurl Her forward and onto the edge of the board. Styxx detects a tall green building and having detected it, walks around the middle of the board to see if She can't catch Rhea with some gunfire from the waiting batteries. But Rhea has scanned the battlefield, and has seized the initiative...

Now Styxx moves in as Rhea slaps a green habitat to flinders with Her hand, spraying Rhea with heavy-weight anti-titan bullets from Her gun battery and then leaning into a kick to Rhea's hip to smash Her bodily into a tall building topped by a green habitat(!). Rhea kicks back up, but Styxx swings back with punch that Rhea takes to Her prow that sees Her slewed around. 

With Her shields down to 30% and armour falling off in chunks the size of pavers, Rhea takes another bludgeoning blow from Styxx and hits the tall green building that Styxx had detected with macro gun burst operated by Her master crew, collapsing the vast tower, and then reversing in behind Styxx as Her adherent crew scrambles to a new post.  

Rather than swing around and chase Rhea, Styxx backs up and detects a green habitat block preventing Rhea from putting lasers into Styxx's exposed front. Styxx's master crew rushes into position as Rhea's shields generators build up cracking energy barriers over the Her left side. 

Now Styxx springs Her trap, spraying measured gunfire and high-energy EM beams out onto the battlefield, destroying Rhea's habitats, detecting Her own, and dusting Rhea with bullets as She bounces off Styxx and closes with a knot of green habitats close to the opposite edge of the battlefield. 

Styxx seizes the initiative and gives chase, hoping to knock Rhea through some buildings and perhaps even off the battlefield. Rhea starts to work over the green habitats, crushing them with sweeps of Her arms and blasts from Her macro gun. As Styxx closes with Rhea, and starts to batter Her, Rhea's master takes control of Her hand, reaches out, and rips off Styxx's right-hand gun battery! Rhea is now ahead on both habitats and destroyed systems...

As the deadline for the cease fire comes down, Styxx desperately casts about for a green building, and finds one, but it's not enough as Rhea has had the same though and after a quick defensive step beind Styxx detects a yellow building. The ceasefire hits and the battle is over, with Rhea leading 3 Victory Points to 2 in destroyed systems, and 21-19 in habitats!

So that was going well until it wasn't and while it seems like things started to fall apart for Styxx around round 7, it happened earlier on round 2 when Styxx's master crew operated a sensor system instead of being able to blast Rhea with a gun battery, or simply stay on deck as Styxx exercises patience to get Rhea in Her crosshairs. This created a four-habitat tall building that acted as fire-magnet, drawing fire away from Styxx, but also because it was a high-value target when Rhea couldn't lay Her macro gun on Styxx. Had Styxx just put down down habitats, Rhea would not have been able to destroy the whole thing on a whim, and given Styxx two more habitats at the end of the game. 

Likewise Styxx kicking Rhea into a building containing a green habitat that then got destroyed wasn't a great idea and had Styxx still had the master crew on deck for the kick (or a punch) then the lure of doubling the damage by mashing Rhea into a building might not have been so strong. I mean, technically speaking that is my fault for wasting a green habitat when Styxx starts behind on habitats, but again that could have been a green habitat for Styxx at the end of the game that, combined with the two above, would have made for a tie. 

Moreover the cards and effort that went into detecting these habitats may have been better utilised elsewhere in the game, with the master crew operating the sensor could have operated an arm or a leg to batter Rhea. I had been trying to keep a reasonable distance because at a range of 4 tiles or greater Styxx was out-gunning Rhea and out-running Her as well. The reason why things seem to go pear-shaped in round 7 was because Styxx was running out of gas, so Rhea was able to carry off a number of actions virtually unopposed. In that my opponent definitely displayed more patience than I did, and while this configuration of Styxx is very efficient, that still doesn't stop Styxx from suffering if She is pushed too far, too fast. 

Still, glory to my opponent for outlasting me, and for ruthlessly exploiting the unforced errors that I put out there. And glory to Rhea for Her grace and Her thick armour! 

Titanomachina: Hypothetical Systems Part 2

I mocked up some cards for the hypothetical systems I mentioned in an earlier post, and in doing so also did some thinking. Mainly the thinking was "Would that make sense?" and "Why would anyone want to do that?" These aren't final because they're mock-ups, but I find looking at the cards makes it easier to see how they fit into the game than the raw numbers. I settled on two per system, but three of the systems are specific to a single named system (Rocket Pods) or type of system (Guns and Lasers). For the purpose of these systems I think it's important that they affect a particular system rather than being broad or flexible bonuses like sponsons/turrets and crew. 

Extra Bracing adds an attack or a twist per cog to the next card activated with a range of one. 

A Refractive Collimater adds one tile of range or one shock per cog to systems with the armour piercing trait (lasers).

Rocket Pod Payloads add either an attack or the shield breaker trait per cog to Rocket Pods. Two cogs-worth of Shield Breaker would make it Shield Breaker (2). 

A Gun-Loader adds High Explosive (1) or Armour Piercing to Gun systems. If a gun already has High Explosive (1) then it is upgraded to High Explosive (2). 

Titanomachina: Stealth and Cloaking

 

The recent day of Bisexual Visibility got me thinking about ways to implement stealth and cloaking in Titanomachina. The joke was that line-of-sight is mutual, but putting it in those terms reminded me that there is space in the game's design for removing line-of-sight when it is available, as well as adding it when it isn't (the 'Detect' actions). 

Already in Titanomachina we have tall buildings, hundreds of meters in height and a fifty meters wide, being detected mid-battle only by Titans that are within 1km and engaged in high-powered sensor activity. I like to imagine that is because the Titans are drawn to battle by a recent disaster, the appearance of some sort of attack that encourages the already bellicose Titans to kick off and fight. As anyone who has seen large buildings collapse can attest, there is a tremendous amount of particulate in the local atmosphere, not unlike that of volcanic activity. It makes ranges short and detection a matter of deliberate action rather than a passive thing depending on pre-existing surveys and automatic scans. 

So a system that makes a 100m tall Titan disappear from the targeting systems of another Titan seems pretty reasonable, and falls neatly within the realm of the kind of 'Star Trek/Pacific Rim' combat that I want for Titanomachina. It seems like a system that manipulates line-of-sight in the other direction, that of reducing it, would be logical and something that fits into the Titanomachina ethos of expensive, pro-active defense. 

As is my instinct to over-complicate things, I would ideally want to have this cloaking system be able to cloak the Titan in levels or stages. So the initial stage, at the cost of one other system, would be something that needs a detect action on behalf of an attacking Titan to qualify as a target. Basically the equal of hiding behind a building, which is to say that the attacker knows you're there but cannot draw a lock. Then there would be extra cogs-worth of cloaking, corresponding to the amount of cogs a detection action would need to thereafter target the Titan. 

To restate it a bit, you activate this sort of Cloaking system and your Titan cannot be targeted unless it is detected by at least one cog. Activate this system with extra cogs due to crew, and your opponent will need to match it with Detect cogs. Maybe outgoing attacks reduce this value, as one of the tropes about being cloaked is shooting/punching people gives away your position. 

That is not the only space available for Titan stealth though. In a previous post I posited a hypothetical system that could extend the range of laser weapons by one tile. Likewise one might be able to reduce the range of incoming weapons, or perhaps increase the range between Titans. Quite what you might imagine that to be, or even call it I don't yet know. Given that the Titans employ a gratuitous amount of anti-gravity technology to begin with, there might be something to work with there for 'ludo-narrative consonance,' or perhaps something like the holo-field technology of Warhammer 40,000's alien Aeldari, a kind of distracting projection rather than invisibility. 

There is also the notion of something that might prevent crew from lending their Operate bonus to attacks, since the bonus from crew operating weapons (and other systems) represents the crew getting the most out of the weapon by aiming at vulnerable points, timing the firing just right, and generally making sure the attack is doing the most damage. This sort of thing seems harder to justify, but in a sense is the sort of thing that counter-measures such as flares, smoke dispensers, and whatnot exist to do. As a crewman you're trying to aim your gun at the target, but you can only really fire into the general area because you can't actually see what you're looking at. Probably not very intuitive though, and given how Titans are already wading through a soup of smoke, ash, etc, probably even counter-intuitive. 

Titanomachina: Dal Games Expo

I had the privilege of running demonstration games at the Dal Games Expo held at the Dalhousie University Student Union Building this past weekend and it was a great time! It was great meeting people and playing Titanomachina with them, and learning how to use a bingo marker! To explain that last comment, the organizers had the fantastic idea of giving participants a bingo sheet and a stamp passport style of thing that really drove engagement. I really can't say enough good things about the organizers, as they put the Titanomachina table front and center as people walked in, with a handy QR code for the Tabletop Simulator version, and later provided a larger table when I requested it. But what really warmed my cogs was seeing people get locked in as they engaged with Titanomachina. 

I should also take a moment to applaud the incredible patience of the workers at the local Staples at Bayer's Lake, as I wandered in there on Thursday evening when they were busy closing and asked them to print up the copies of the rule book at I would need for this past weekend, and I was able to pick up copies of the rule book on Friday. Having wrestled with getting booklets printed, it was a relief to finally have some properly printed and available for people to peruse. 

There is, of course, also thanks to my demonstration ringer who has done a great job playing a Titan during demo games, and who has helped to develop the game over the years. 

A seven-hundred meter green tower appears out of the fog and tumult! 

Uh oh, Styxx is in a fix!

Styxx can be very distracting when protecting Her towers.

Titanomachina: The Revenge of Styxx

I finally got a chance to run Styxx's tertiary configuration, pugnacious here in a battle against Tethys' sagacious primary configuration, and the modifications to upgrade the sponsons to turrets and swapping the secondary capacitor for a primary coolant system worked out pretty well. Pretty well, in this case, means that I managed to fight my opponent to a tie after nine rounds. Going the full nine rounds in an open-arena like the current default set-up is pretty good considering this configuration of Styxx is supposed to be engaging at short ranges and bouncing around the board. I did want to see if I could abuse the coolant-capacitor-combo, and I was definitely able to take advantage of it, but not in any way that seemed overwhelming. Notably Styxx ended up with something like 5x the damage that Tethys took, but in an interesting turn of events this was because Styxx ended up chasing Tethys as She bounced around the board. Where Styxx started out 3 VPs down, this is a good ending, and I'm pretty happy with how it played out. I would have been happier to take more, larger chunks out of Tethys, but my opponent is wily and has the measure of Styxx (Her short, stubby measure) and fought to the last. 

Deployment started with Tethys wisely deploying cautiously as She entered the battlefield, and the broadcast intention of Styxx to start hot, by hosing Tethys down with super-heated plasma from Her plasma shotgun.

Tethys boosted forwards using Her jump jets, and as Styxx purses, detecting a building, Tethys swings back around to boot Styxx in the shotgun that She was trying to bring to bear, and Styxx takes it on the left leg, resulting in Styxx's shields down 20% and armour cracked. 

Now that Styxx is in claw-range, and under some light gunfire from Tethys She decides to take the initiative by scanning with Her primary sensor and boosts away on Her thrusters. 

Having gained some distance, and some equivalence in firepower, Styxx swings around to start stabbing and blasting. Tethys backs off though, just out of range of Styxx's laser blade, and knocks the top off of the green building that Styxx had detected. Styxx has tricks though. Styxx floods Her leg (and the inexperienced crew operating the coolant system) with coolant, deactivating it, and then activating Her capacitor to recover the power spent on leg and coolant! She's still moving. Tethys had not been standing idly by either and puts a macro laser beam into Styxx's face, searing through shields, armour, and Styxx's primary sensor pod! Nothing destroyed yet, but the damage is severe.  

Styxx's forward momentum isn't arrested as Her pugnacious personality pushes the buttons, and while Tethys falls back, Styxx ramps up the threat, first with Her master crew being readied, and then Her starboard turret activating. Tethys shakes Her claw at Styxx, but keeps backing up until Her jump jets are up against the edge of the battlefield. Fortunately someone on Styxx's crew has a clue, and Her adherent crew brings Her shields back up in preparation for the ensuing clash! 

There's less immediate ensuing clash than expected, but Tethys squares up and Styxx uses the lull as an opportunity to detect another green building (equalizing the score on habitats). The Titans are charging up their power...

Now the battle begins in earnest, as Styxx stomps forward to optimum range to apply a laser blade without receiving a claw in response, and cycling up Her other turret to make sure Tethys' fancy footwork won't save Her. Styxx's master crew readies the weapons, but Tethys blasts Styxx with Her gun battery, slewing Her right off target, and then jumping into Styxx's back-left quarter out of the arc of Her plasma shotgun even assisted by the turret system. Having anticipated this, Styxx lays Her laser blade on target, but Tethys jumps again! This time Styxx can still draw a bead on Tethys, but it's the containment limiting the laser blade's range (and giving it its infamous shield-breaking abilities) that Tethys exploits and She's out of range! Styxx gives chase again, figuring that the weapons are still hot and loaded, so maybe next round, but even as She seizes the initiative, Tethys seizes it back!

Styxx activates adherent crew to shank Tethys with Her laser blade, but Tethys has used the initiative to raise shields, concentrating them on Her front, and when Styxx stabs, all Tethys loses is 50% of Her shields. Now Tethys steps back and out of the arc of Styxx's follow-up plasma shotgun blast, and lines up Her own macro laser for an execution shot guided by Her own senior crew. 

In desperation Styxx blocks the shot to Her damaged face with Her plasma shotgun, bursting the shields protecting it, searing through the weapon itself, and destroying the sensor system nestled behind it. The ravening beam of photons drills into Styxx's body, badly hurting the master crew in the crew compartment as the console She's using erupts in a burst of ichorplasm and sparks! Styxx isn't out of the fight though, even if Her master crew should be, and steps behind Tethys. Tethys isn't done either and steps back and right to bring Her claw and gun battery to bear now. She attempts a kick, but Styxx takes on Her heavily shielded front, and activates some crew to return the favour. 

With Styxx's master crew out of action (or at least considerably less enthusiastic about moving around0 the remaining crew work together to kick Tethys, even as Tethys wrenches Styxx around with Her claw; despite the chaos, the crew lands a solid kick that destroys Tethys' gun battery (and heavily damages Her claw). Tethys gives Styxx a sharp elbow, further damaging Her plasma shotgun, but it's moreso insult to injury. With that, the cease-fire deadline arrives and the Titans stand down as the orbiting Hecatoncheires tell them to knock it off.

Now my opponent notes that he should have used that arm to destroy the lower half of that green building that survived the battle next to to the two Titans, and although the arm was out of arm, he could have moved Tethys through the building, losing a shield but taking no other damage. So maybe technically a tie rather than a 19-20 loss for Tethys, but still a pretty good showing. 

In terms of what I could do to improve my strategy here, I think, would be to make sure the weapons are paired with the capacitor, and the legs with the coolant system, although I've noticed coolant and crew go together well. Having those systems available in the third round, I think, threw my opponent for a "What are you doing?" look, but but I would have preferred to have been holding them in my hand rather than wondering how to hang in there while they loaded. 

Likewise I think with the lack of cover I should have used the sensor systems to seize and maintain the initiative even though a sagacious Tethys (four extra armours and a sensor for scanning) should have been able to prevent that at the cost of being able to tank the hits Styxx would be able to give. Certain the advantage of having more cards in hand than one's opponent was critical. Encouraging an opponent to waste power on inefficient moves and whatnot is a good strategy against a heavily armoured puncher like Tethys Primary. As it was I took damage on Styxx's armour and was therefore unable to seize the initiative at what might have been a critical moment. 

Otherwise, yeah, Styxx's quaternary configuration (macro laser,  rocket pod) wouldn't have been out-ranged by Tethys. 

On a slightly related note, we identified that while capacitors are handy and do indeed synergize well with coolant systems, the emergency power reaction was both somewhat uninteresting and complicated for new players. I think I've maybe used it once or twice, and less than I would have expected it to be used. The coolant system's emergency venting is, by comparison, more interesting and more in line with the system's primary action, that of de-activating systems. 

Originally the emergency power reaction was the result of less perceived game space available for a reaction that wasn't block (changing the target stack) or intercept (move shield tokens to target stack), both of which kind of jive with their relative actions (attack picks a target stack, raise shields moves shield tokens around). Allowing a player to pick a face-down card and play its block or intercept reaction isn't great for players either. I think it would be simpler, and perhaps more interesting, to just have emergency power allow a player to pull a face-down card back into their hand when they're attacked as part of their reactions to being attacked. So like a regular full power action, but half the effect (not considering damage).  

Titanomachina: Eurybia Walks!

 While I haven't been able to get Eurybia's model up on Tabletop Simulator, I do have a beautifully printed version that I was able to get onto the table last night for meat-space testing. I was reminded of the advantages of playing live, such as the opportunity to game out the set-up stage of the game, using every dastardly trick in the book to make sure my opponent couldn't sweep the board of my habitats and vice versa. 

My opponent piloted Eurybia Primary, in all Her unpainted grey glory, since he has a better win-record, and would probably suss out any overwhelming effects of Her dual coolant systems better than I could. I took Tethys Primary, as She is a fantastic all-rounder, and would be a good test for Eurybia. Speaking of, Eurybia got the Gracious personality, while Tethys got the Sagacious personality. 

This is how we set up the buildings, with the non-combatant blue and green habitats often capping or blocking off the yellow and pink habitats from easy targeting. Notable was the fact that most of the exposed yellow habitats were close to my opponent's side of the board. 

Deployment for me was a matter of preparing Tethys for an ambush while planning how I would move Tethys into the top-left quadrant of the board and pick off those yellow habitats without letting Eurybia get behind Her, or use Her coolant systems to bombard the heck out of Tethys without worrying about returning fire. Eurybia was set up conservatively, apparently leveraging that edge in sensors and ranged weapons that would see Her just out of the arc of Tethys' gun battery, and the opposite side of Tethys' body from Her macro laser. 

Thins started off relatively slowly, both Titans working to amass an extra card for the next round, while Tethys re-oriented towards Eurybia, and Eurybia starting pushing Her habitat advantage by smashing the first of Tethys' habitats, and using Her coolant systems to deactivate Her initiate crew for use next round. 

Both Titans comfortably flush with power and systems loaded, Eurybia advances to the centre of the board and Tethys advances to meet Her, tearing into Eurybia with Her claw and macro laser, which Eurybia is able to tank on Her shields and armour. Eurybia makes a threatening motion with Her laser blade in return, but having survived the initial clash with relatively minor damage, it's not fired yet, despite Eurybia's crew members lining up to use the power of friendship and teamwork to gut Tethys like a fish. 

Realising that standing in front of Eurybia is begging to be knocked out, Tethys steps back and away, preferring to risk vulcan gun fire rather than a close-range laser blade hit, and manages to block the incoming storm of fire (5 cogs for the first shot, 1 cog each for the following shots, lost because of the block of the first shot takes their designated targets out of contention after pushing Tethys 45 degrees counter-clockwise) on Her left leg, while using both shields systems to pull in shield tokens from Her flanks to prevent the loss of 1/4 of Her armour. Notably, dumping three cards in reaction to Eurybia's vulcan gun attack means Tethys also sacrifices Her cards-in-hand advantage, but doesn't lose the armour...

Here is where I make the decision to back Tethys off from direct confrontation and start working on those yellow habitats with Tethys' gun battery. Tethys keeps going left, working on getting away from the laser blade and rocket pod on Eurybia's own left side, and drawing a bead on those yellow habitats on the west side of the board (the left of the image above). In terms of buildings, the score has been equalised, having started off with Eurybia one habitat ahead. Eurybia gives chase...

I activate Tethys' adherent crew, and post off of a two-habitat yellow building to bring Tethys around to bear Her macro laser on Eurybia while Eurybia swings around to lead with Her left arm. I've moved into the lead, but there are still yellow habitats laying around and Tethys will be reloading Her gun battery soon-ish. Eurybia's scans give Her the initiative, to which I respond by taking it back, and my opponent activates Eurybia's sensor to take it again, now blowing the coolant system to make sure it'll be available next round. Eurybia now has the initiative, meaning She has the edge in the following confrontation. 

This edge means that Tethys eats a face-full of rockets from Eurybia's rocket pod, reducing Her shields to tatters (down to 40%), and leaving Tethys open to whatever Eurybia has to throw at Her. Except that Tethys cannot as Eurybia steps back into cover, leaving Tethys with only sub-optimal targets a macro laser. After some quick, Propeller-aided cognition, I realize this calls for the second oldest trick in the book. Tethys is, after all, ahead on buildings, and if I push that to 6 or more, then it doesn't matter if Eurybia follows up with a knock-out, as Tethys will still win. So Tethys' master crew grabs Her sensor and peers east (the right hand side of the board), and detects a tall pink building where initial scans had indicated a much shorter building. Eurybia cannot let this building stand, and comes about...

Eurybia's adherent crew takes control of Her vulcan gun and annihilates the tall pink building at the edge of vulcan gun range and Tethys comes about and steps forward to likewise pick off yellow habitats off the tops of buildings, exposing more to Her macro laser. But, for various reasons, I decide that Tethys should try to exploit that damaged frontal armour of Eurybia, because although it would be fewer points that the two yellow buildings that are beautifully lined up for a laser, attacking Eurybia should force my opponent to spend Her power on protecting Herself, and that should minimize the counter-attack. Which is does, to a degree, and Eurybia is able to absorb the snap-shot by blocking with Her right side and intercepting with a shields system. 

Eurybia is now ready to square up, and moves left, coming about to shank Tethys, taking the initiate back from Tethys' sagacity with a quick scan. Tethys banks off of a yellow habitat, destroying it, and closes to face Eurybia. Tethys' claw crunches into Eurybia's frontal armour and Tethys smashes Eurybia right into the building on Eurybia's left, demolishing it. Eurybia brandishes Her laser blade, but doesn't activate it until the next round. 

Now Eurybia attempts to stab Tethys in the initiate crew compartment, but Tethys ducks and instead takes the laser blade through the sponson. It's a slightly more acceptable loss, and as Eurybia side-steps, Tethys comes about with a punch to Eurybia's side. Eurybia vents a coolant system, and Tethys has to pour on the gas to smash Eurybia through a block of buildings. Eurybia's master crew operates Her sensor and detects a tall yellow building, but it's not enough, and Tethys spots a pink habitat crowning a blue building instead of executing a body slam to crush Eurybia through another block of buildings (having run out of power thanks to Eurybia performing an emergency coolant venting and nearly freezing Tethys' arm). 

It's a time-out, and the final score is 21-19, with 3 victory points of destroyed systems to Eurybia and 2 victory points of destroyed systems to Tethys, while the building score is Tethys with 19 habitats remaining on the battlefield and Eurybia with 16 habitats. It raises something of a question as to what, exactly, is a comfortable lead as it would not have taken much to push that to a tie, or even a victory for Eurybia. Unfortunately Eurybia wasn't able to indulge in such tricks as using an initiate crew to operate the coolant system and deactivate both a senior crew member and a weapon, but this was Her first time in action and there was some discussion of the economy of a coolant system. 

There's also the matter of set-up. As it currently stands in Tabletop Simulator there's a default set-up and players can add/subtract habitats as necessary for the Titan they're using, but it's a very generic set-up intended to be relatively neutral. In this game I was able to both set up Tethys' pink habitats in ways that were both relatively well protected, and able to keep Eurybia occupied in a section of the battlefield where Her habitats were most exposed. My opponent's early set-up also involved a lot of buildings composed of a yellow habitat capped with a blue habitat, which is good for neutralising those pinky one-cog gun battery shots, but less so for resisting a claw or a Titan pushed through a building with a claw. 

Given then that the battlefield favoured Tethys somewhat, I think it was a good first out for Eurybia, particularly when my opponent was able to use Her coolant system to deny me that last body-slam, which would have seen the score more heavily weighted in my favour. I think the next time I'm playing the game I'm going to be running one of the Styxx configurations with a capacitor and a coolant system, or perhaps take the helm of Eurybia Herself to see what sort of envelop I can push. 

It's also interesting to note what is going on when a player declines to activate a system. It's a bit like in those shows (super sentai, tonkatsu, etc) where fists/weapons/what-have-you are brandished so that they (a) do nothing, and (b) are shown to be available in the future. 

We discussed what would happen when a sponson is deactivated, and I think the best thing (for now) is that a deactivated sponson's arc bonus lasts until the end of the round, unless it's damaged, and deactivating it doesn't need to remove that bonus. 

Titanomachina Hypothetical Systems

As people that have been following this project and blog may know, I occasionally like to brainstorm new systems to cram into the game. These systems would be played prior to activating the weapon they're affecting. 

Ammunition Selector for Guns:

• Add High Explosive (+1)
• Add Armour Piercing 
• Add Shield Breaker

Refractive Collimator - Adds one tile of range to laser weapons 

Rocket Warheads

• Add Detect to Rocket Pod actions
• Add Attack to Rocket Pod actions 
• Add Twist to Rocket Pod actions

Additional Bracing - Add Attack to Hand, Claw, and Buzz Saw weapons

Titanomachina: Battle Begins Anew!

Some days you win, and some days you hear a record scratch and have to explain how you got into this position via a flashback. This recent game was one of those, where having gotten the Gracious personality (while my opponent drew the Pugnacious personality) and having first choice of Titan I decided to abandon my plan for taking a configuration of Styxx with a coolant system, and took Eos' tertiary configuration of a plasma shotgun, laser blade, and rocket pod instead. My opponent chose Rhea's tertiary configuration, which is a beast of a Titan, but also nearly the ideal target for Eos Tertiary's armament. 

The first problem, I think, was looking at the default order of Eos Tertiary's Titan Deck and going for a kind of round four frenzy, instead of daring Rhea to waste time and power trying to get that armament into position. As it was Rhea was set up with Her macro gun pointing directly at Eos, and in range of the laser batteries. Eos is a bit of a glass cannon, so I figured I'd do what I could to get Them dodging, ducking, weaving and dodging...

Needless to say it did not work, with the final score being a knock-out for 27-19 victory points on round 7! How did this happen?

The Titans are set up on the board, with Rhea reacting to Eos' conservative deployment by setting up outside of the arc of Eos' plasma shotgun, and with a clear line of sight for macro cannon shots. So help me I was spooked right then and there. Not in a panicky way, but in a "Well, I don't get arms and legs loaded until rounds 3 & 4, all I have are jump jets and a single sponson" kind of way. 

Here is where I got too clever for myself, using my sponson to threaten my opponent but then not following through on the implied threat in order to strengthen the shields protecting Eos' left leg, the leg I with which I was planning on blocking the upcoming macro gun shot. That puts me down three cards to my opponent's two, which isn't a great start where having more cards is a crucial advantage Eos should have. Especially since Eos still holds the initiative...

As I prepared Eos for a jump by activating an initiate crew to operate the jump jets, strictly forward now that the sponson's thrust vectoring is finished for the last round, Rhea storms forward, presumably to do something awful to Eos with masterfully-operated lasers. Eos makes the jump, and blows Their capacitors to recover the cost of charging those jump jets. Eos is outside of the arc of Rhea's lasers, and I feel like I accomplished something. However, Eos now has Their back turned on their opponent, and still no arms or legs until the next round.

Seeing Eos' ample high-energy systems, Rhea reverses course and stomps back after Eos, who slides back behind Rhea and then swings around for a friendly plasma shotgun blast to the rear before Rhea also ducks and swings behind Eos! Nothing to worry about, I think. Eos has another arm and leg coming right up. But Rhea scans the situation and seizes the initiative...

Now it's time to settle Rhea's and Eos' scan seizes the initiative, only to have Rhea seize it back! With no chance to claim the initiative, Eos attempts to settle Rhea's hash with a reverse kick into the buildings behind Her, but Rhea is able to take the kick on Her knee to little effect beyond heavy damage to Her armour and a slight clockwise slide. This slide segues into a leftward slide as sponson rotate right, and Rhea cuts loose with all Her guns! Despite Eos' best efforts Their rite side is savaged, plasma shotgun and armour lightly damage, jump jets and deflectors heavily damage, and shields burst! Nothing destroyed yet though, therefore so far so good, right? 

Reloading Eos' cooled sponson, They take a swipe at Rhea with the laser blade, looking to perhaps slow Rhea down, but Rhea can't be shaken off Eos' back quite so easily, and Eos' rite deflectors are destroyed as Rhea continues to boot Eos in the hip! Eos has crew on deck though, originally intended to operate the laser blade until Rhea dodged out of the way. So Eos' position hasn't improved, and perhaps is worse. Still, perfectly salvageable.

Thinking Eos' biggest problem is having Rhea on their six, Eos moves to get Rhea in front of them and Rhea keeps on trying to shatter Eos' kidney-area, destroying their jump jets and putting them on the precipice of a knock-out. Eos puts this behind them, and prepares to do some damage to Rhea in return. 

In a final and perhaps most ill-considered round, Eos desperately tries to tank Rhea's firepower on Their armour while manoeuvring for a solid kick to the right leg, but it's not enough. However, perhaps it is too much, as it exposes Eos' plasma shotgun to a close-range shot from Rhea's macro gun, and a knock-out shot. Having lost armour, deflectors, jump jets, and a plasma shotgun Eos cannot go on, and is indeed quite salvageable.   

So that was the game, a series of increasingly bad decisions that culminated in my opponent winning on both buildings and destroyed enemy systems, and ending the game on a knock-out. Typically things are slightly closer, and they certainly felt closer than the final score might have indicated, particularly since my initial strategy for my Titan deck was to hit hardest in the fourth and eighth rounds. 

Often in a game of Titanomachina, often a closer game, there is a single decision that stands out in retrospect as where everything went definitively wrong, but in this case it was the slow attrition of increasingly bad decisions, from not going for a head-on exchange of fire in the first round, to staying too close to Rhea where Her agility and armament wasn't going to be outweighed by Eos' capacitors and jump jets. The fact that Eos barely landed a hit on Rhea is at once extremely pleasing to me as a designer seeing a Titan's mobility and agility being its primary defensive measure, but also indicative of a bad decision being made to turn Eos' back on Rhea, which itself can be traced back to silly buggers with the order in which Eos would load systems instead of a solid, conservative spacing out of crew, limbs, and weapons for a solid, straight-forward fight. 

In retrospect my initial impulse to pile shield tokens on my front and legs, the stacks containing Eos' extra armour packages, was probably correct when facing a laser-boat like Rhea Tertiary. Any high explosive damage from the macro gun could essentially be cancelled by Eos' Gracious personality, a free point of damage repaired, and then the hits from the lasers and macro gun blocked by the armour. Conversely then the rocket pod might have been fired, the plasma shotgun would have shocked Rhea's own systems offline, and that laser blade might have done what it was supposed to do. 

In fact, this can all be traced back to what I think of as the army-building phase of the game, which is in between games when players get to think about what sort of material, tactics, and strategy they want to bring to their next games. I wanted to bring a Styxx configuration with the combination coolant and capacitor systems, but I didn't really have a good game plan in case my opponent decided on Eos or Rhea's Quaternary configuration. I was also planning re-actively, in the sense that I wasn't really thinking about what to do if I had the initiative rather than my opponent. With this gap in my planning, I lacked a proper plan to lean on once the game had started. Let that be a lesson. 

That said, it was a fantastic game despite the loss, as I was constantly on the cusp of taking control of the game and doing unto my opponent what they ended up doing to me first. In particular I had found that my decisions were being guided not just by who might get the first hit, or the best hit, but how any action might lead to a chain of hits, and hence events, that would somehow be worse than the present circumstances. Indeed, as round 4 shows, I had plenty to be worried about. And I enjoyed that because it felt like a cool gun-kata (referenceing 2002's Equilibrium) style of match where one wrong move is a knock-out!

Glory to Rhea and my opponent!