Titanomachina: Capacitors vs Coolant

After a period off, Rapacious Eurybia challenges Pugnacious Eos to battle, both in their 3rd configuration. Now this was an interesting battle as it also served as something of a test-match between a Titan with two coolant systems and a Titan with two capacitors. As avid Titanomachina fans may recall, Eos has a powerful late-game with the two capacitors because They can push a card advantage despite even thirsty systems like Eos' third configuration (plasma shotgun, rocket pod, laser blade). Eurybia, by contrast, has a powerful early game as systems are brought back into use long before their usual cool-down cycle through the deck would usually allow. In addition, I had decided to use this to my advantage for some psychological pressure to wear down my opponent because using Eurybia's somewhat weak third configuration (gun battery, laser battery, hand) armament in a concentrated salvo, saving it for deployment on round 4. My opponent was also slightly out of practice, in that a mid-game reminder about firing high explosive weapons at full spread (spreading the extra cogs from crew operation to secondary targets) nearly turned the tide. As it was the game ended in a 17VP to 16VP time-out as my opponent staged a heroic come-back that didn't quite make it. Nonetheless, it ameliorated some of my early game worries about the coolant system being too powerful as Eos hit back very effectively. Whether players merely need to be warned about how these systems perform, or these systems need further tweaking, remains an open question. Sometimes in these games it's fairly easy to see where the game turned, but I think in this game it was the gradual attrition of a series of decisions that saw me squeak out a win for Eurybia.  

Eurybia deploys in the middle of the board on tile 55 facing south, and invites Eos to come get some. Eos indulges Eurybia and deploys on tile 25 also facing south, deployed to shoot Eurybia in Her back.

Eurybia has a plan though, or at least Her master crew does and he operates an arm to swing Eurybia around drive an elbow into Eos after They casually announce their presence with a sweep of Their own arm, crushing a pink habitat. Eos blocks this elbow with Their plasma shotgun, and staggers, but holds position. Before They can fire Their jump-jets, Eurybia launches a side-kick to Eos' rocket pod, forcing Eos to face launching Themselves into a block of buildings. Eos de-activates the jump jets, and  hooking a foot into a nearby pink habitat reverses the momentum to square up with Eurybia. 

Eurybia is no fool, and doesn't want to give the game away, because She knows Eos is going to run and hope Eurybia wastes Her energy chasing. So when Eos jumps and backhands a pink habitat upon landing Eurybia makes a big display of Her available systems, but only activates a leg to kick Herself back to facing south.

Cooly and deliberately Eurybia activates an initiate crew to operate Her left arm and smash down a yellow and blue building as Eos tries to bait Her into pursuit. As Eurybia uses Her other initiate crew to super-cool that arm and crew though, Eos kicks a green and pink building down...

Now Eurybia's weapons array comes online, and Her rapacious personality comes to the fore as She blitzes blue buildings with Her right-armed gun battery and detects a pink habitat in tile 36 and Her adherent crew uses another coolant system to super-cool the guns and Her fury, and Her crew again to operate Her primary sensor and detect a pink building in tile 67. Eos is not idle though, jumping further south, coming about west, and detecting a blue building in tile 91. 

Things slow down as both Titans take a moment to consider their positions. Eurybia spots a second story to the pink building on tile 63, and Eos slides north to re-engage...

The dance begins as Eurybia works to draw a bead on Euryba and They dance around, delivering a sharp, shocking blast of plasma from Eos' plasma shotgun! Eurybia loses Her card advantage...

Eurybia lashes out, knocking Eos into a building in 76, crushing the yellow habitat topping it, but Eos is still up, and dances back around north behind Eurybia!

Another full spread of rockets into Eurybia's back right, bursting shields over shield generators, and blasting Eurybia's back and right extra armour systems into scrap! Eurybia's return fire with Her gun battery shatters Eos' frontal armour, and lightly damaging Their rocket pod, but the damage is mounting more radidly now.

Finally it's a last minute scramble to try and squeeze some points out of a considerably flatter battlefield, with Eos punching the pink habitat in 47 to flinders, and then using Their laser blade to destroy the pink building on tile 67 while Eurybia smashes blue habitats in 67 and 74. A tight finish, and nine rounds can cool and load a lot of counter-factuals...

I think my strategy of playing Eurybia as if I was playing for an early ring-out worked pretty well, but maybe not as well as if I had started working on the buildings early and let my opponent engage at will. That said, Eos' third configuration is a bastard and if my opponent had recalled the full spread rule sooner, perhaps the game would have gone very differently.

I'm still concerned somewhat about the balance between coolant and capacitor systems. As noted coolant benefits a Titan's early game, and capacitors allow it to resort to bullying in the late game. The difference in feelings using such systems, and the discrete advantage coolant systems lend to low-power system, makes me think I need to check hiw they currently work. I'd be happy not to tweak the coolant system again though, and I may be running out of levers to adjust the system.

Titanomachina: Clymene

I have the Titan Clymene mostly sorted out. I haven't come up with a colour scheme I like better than the colours of the Bisexual Flag, but I think my first crack at it should be based on kahki and teal. Rules-wise

Clymene sits at four crew, two plantigrade legs, two arms, two sponson systems, two deflector systens, one sensor system. one specialized system, four extra armour systems, a laser blade, a rocket pod, a vulcan gun, and a hand. Each specialized system enhances one of the weapon systems. Her defense isn't as weak as Eos or Styxx, but not as good as Tethys, placing Her squarely in the bottom 50%. Rhea and Eurybia tie for the most. Which is okay, Clymene is more about a balanced offense. 

As well as being spurred on to create Clymene, I've had the hankering to build some new weapons, emboldened by recent practice with the Space Squid and the Titan Eurybia. I have wanted to make something like this for a while. While the notion for Clymene is to have Her first four configurations merely swaps in specialized systems, of course I wanted to accessorize Her with what I made. In this case it's the missile pod and sensor 1 system. 

The missile pod can detect Titans, in addition to the same capabilities as a rocket pod. The Sensor system can detect Titans and buildings, as well as scan. It's probably loading a Rocket Pod Payload system, which will work with both types of pods. Let's call it the Meat-Tenderizer Configuration to poke fun at certain resemblances of maternity. 

Edit: Here's Cylemene with the plasma thruster (right arm) and pincer (left arm).

Escape From Gaia: More Development Needed

Escape From Gaia is my take on Snakes and Ladders, set in the Titanomachina universe, wherein some of the sordid history of the Titans becomes the basis of a game. See, the Titans were chased off of Gaia before when their extra-curricular activities became too much for the Myrmidon Mega-Ants to bear. But it wasn't just Gaia, but all the planets of the Hyperion system, and so the Titans left for deep space. In this 15-20 minute game players attempt to manoeuvre their Titans out of Gaian orbit and slingshot past the three other planets in the system to get into deep space first. In order to do that they have to dodge anti-shipping weapons making orbital slingshots impossible, gravitic anomalies, and good old-fashioned sabotage. 

The board is composed of four rings of 5, 7, 9, and 11 segments and a central 'sun' segment. Each ring contains a planet in one segment or square and may contain a gravitic anomaly in another. There is a deck of 24 cards, of which each player from 2-4 draws 6 cards. These cards have a rule and a number. The number is 1-24 and represents initiative, with numbers governing the order of play. The rules include cards that enable ships to move an extra square, enable players to drop a ship down an orbit, enable players to rotate an orbit clockwise or anti-clockwise on the board relative to the others, enable players to place or move a gravitic anomaly on the board, or prevent ships from entering squares containing planets. 

Ships move one square or segment at a time unless they move down an orbit, or into the orbit of a planet (or the sun), or the player has the Steady Burn card (move an extra square). Ships can only move up into a higher orbit via planets. Ships can't move into squares containing gravitic anomalies. 

The game ends when a player makes it off the board via the outermost planet, and the player that does that wins the game. 

Now, the important thing is that while this works, it stops somewhat randomly, and is finely tuned enough that winning it doesn't feel like a strategic act, when it can be won at all. It needs a separate end-game condition from the winning conditions so that it ends in the 15-20 minutes intended, and 

It also needs more defined starting conditions than placing the planets on non-contiguous squares. One suggestion I received was drawing cards to dial in the relative positions of the planets in the orbits. 

There's some work required decorating the proto-type board so that the layout is more obviously designed, with the line through the orbits defining how they are turned decorated to line up in case it falls out of true. Some of the squares, perhaps those decorated with planets, could have directions indicated on the board so that they function as valves or indicate bonuses for entering the square from a particularly direction. 

Planetary defenses are rough, functioning to prevent players from winning and ending the game, and while that was the intention, they are surprisingly effective at doing so, and in some case function to prevent a player from winning because it's the last card they have in hand. Some way of avoiding the planetary defenses seems apt, but also counter to the design. 

Speaking of hands, players could probably do better with hands of four cards each, rather than six, to make analysis quicker and easier, and to avoid that situation where players only have one card left, or at least to minimize it. This may minimize the number of planetary defense cards players may have in hand at crucial moments,  and give players more agency. 

It's possible the shape of the board is causing problems, given it's a series of increasing odd numbers, rather than, say, something like 4, 8, 16, and 32 or something like that. 

Given that the game is Snakes & Ladders, it might be something to re-jig the gravitic anomalies into something more like the planets, making them the snakes to the planets' ladders. There's an effect enabling players to knock each other down an orbit, but what if that was combined with the gravitic anomalies after a fashion? As in, moving into a gravitic anomaly square forced one down an orbit? There's also the option of gravitic anomalies acting as a kind of teleport to move ships from one to another. I think then replacing the sabotage cards with more cards enabling players to rotate the orbits of the board might be better in terms of game play. 

In order of priority:

1. Redecorate the board.

2. Change cards to 4 per hand, players draw cards to replace cards in hand, shuffle discards when they run out.

3. Change Gravitic Anomaly rules to either (a) push down like Sabotage, or (b) teleport to other anomalies

4. Remove Sabotage cards, add more orbital cards.  

Titanomachina: Expanding Systems

Collecting my current crop of plans for expanding Titanomachina here, above and beyond additional Titans and the Myrmidons (conventional forces): 

Weapons

• Plasma Driver (Charge 2, Attack x3, Block, Cogs 3, Recoil, Shock)
• Pincer (Charge 2, Attack, Block, Cogs 1, Range 1, Grapple, Armour Piercing, Shield Breaker 1)
• Missile Pod (Charge 1, Attack, Detect, Block, Cogs 1, Range 6, High Explosive 2)
• Harpoon Gun (Charge 2, Attack, Block, Cogs 1, Range 3, Drag, Shock)

Systems

• Cloak (disrupts line of sight by 1 per cog)
• Dimensional Stabilizer (move to randomized board tile)
• Wings (combination jump jet and limb, x+1 Charge for x Cogs)

Ideas for More Specialized Systems 

• Retro-rockets (subsequent jump moves Titan backwards rather than forwards)
• Stabilizers (extra armour cards used to block are recovered to hand immediately)
• Shield Tensioner (shield tokens absorb 2 pts of damage)
• Multi-detection matrix (detect multiple buildings or Titans with sensors)

Capacitor & Coolant Specialized Systems Brainstorming

• Flip over face-down card, flip over face-up card 
• Gain a bonus for number of cards drawn back to player's hand
• Something to maintain an activated system's bonus after it's returned to a player's hand

Notions

• Configuration Cog - literally a system that lets you swap between configurations of a Titan, provided both have a configuration cog available. 
• Something that lets players move habitats and maybe even buildings
• Rules for Shield Generators, Power Stations, and Sensor Bases. Maybe that stuff is for Myrmidons. 

Titanomachina: Sheer Hubris

Last week my regular opponent made an error stepping into the danger zone, and paid for it with a round 2 ring-out. This week, it was my turn to seize defeat from the jaws of victory. This week was a full 9-round game, ending on a time-out, and finishing with a 14-13 in favour of Pugnacious Styxx (quaternary configuration) over Sagacious Rhea (primary configuration). Aside from a brief stab in the leg with a macro laser, and an incredible barrage of rockets on round 5, Styxx exercised a careful restraint on direct confrontation that lead to an eventual win on round 9. Perhaps it is worth noting that my opponent likes to conduct a tactical and strategic dialog (monolog?) on the voice chat, and I have confirmed that (a) my opponent likes to tell lies about strategy, and (b) is pretty good at mind games. Because of that chat I dropped the game when a crushing and impressive victory was in Rhea's grasp, thinking that I had sufficient reason not to pull it off, and plan B suffered from a laser to the knee. Afterwards my opponent graciously pointed out my error and perhaps a bit of vengeance was vowed. 

I had the initiative, being sagacious, and since Rhea can take a hit I decided that deploying in tile 55, the center of the board, facing east was the easiest. Strategically-speaking I had front-loaded all of Rhea's weapons and crew with the notion of having all my weapons and crew in hand to threaten my opponent. Likewise I juiced up the shields over my legs because I wanted it clear where any incoming fire was going to be absorbed. 

Of course I shouldn't have given Styxx room to breathe, but given that I had the initiative (and no ability to move or turn) it seemed like a good idea to see if Styxx was going to do anything. Styxx was, but Styxx was going to charge up a bit first.

Round 2 things start to get hot, as I walk Rhea southeast to kick a green habitat at tile 76 while Styxx activates Her turret. Rhea turns to get Styxx in line of sight and arc to Her macro gun, but Styxx isn't having it fire a rocket pod, missing Rhea and destroyed habitats in tiles 67 and 76 with high explosive rockets. Styxx isn't getting away so easily though, and Rhea clips Her with a macro gun before She can jump to cover in road tile 71. 

Still comfortably ahead on buildings, and with the initiative, Rhea turns west, takes a few strides, and then double-jumps over the buildings of road tile 63 to land in front of Styxx. Styxx is prepared and has an initiate crew member shoot Rhea in the leg. Thanks to the crew's operation, the laser penetrates Rhea's armour and slices into Her leg, causing light damage. Now Rhea's master crew steps up to operate a system, but Styxx fires Her own thrusters and jumps over Rhea, landing north of Her, on Her rite side where the macro gun is still re-loading. Styxx needs some space before firing Her capacitor, but it looks like there isn't time!

Rhea, emboldened by Her master crew on deck starts things off with a reverse elbow to crunch in Styxx's back-right, bursting a shield and turning Her around. Styxx has activated Her own master crew, to operate a leg to back Styxx away from Rhea at high speed. As Styxx retreats Rhea activates Her adherent crew and detects a tall yellow building in between two other buildings capped with yellow habitats, and Styxx fires Her capacitor to make sure this escape doesn't leave Her a sitting duck, 

Sure enough, Rhea walks around the block of buildings at 63, macro gun reloaded and looking to shoot someone. As Styxx prepares to fire Her rocket pod, activating a turret and adherent crew, Rhea wings Her, and She blocks the shot on Her left leg armour, preventing the explosion from catching Her rocket pod. Slewed around the tall yellow building is right in Styxx's sights and it comes crashing down as the tops of the two buildings beside it are also blown up! Styxx isn't done yet though, and activates Her coolant system, hot-loading the rocket pod again to blow up even more yellow habitats in tile 47. Rhea is shocked out of reverie as Her seven point lead evaporates in a storm of high explosive rockets!

Rhea piles in now, as Styxx scans with Her frontal armour and takes the initiative, meeting Styxx as She heads to the middle of the board, a kick, a bottling, and a body-slam later Styxx jumps over Rhea again (narrowly avoiding a ring-out) and lands in the middle of the battlefield, tile 55. 

Rhea hauls around and moves to chase Styxx as She runs north and then doubles back southwest to place a row of buildings between them, kicking a yellow habitat to smithereens on the way. Annoyed that Styxx is getting away, and clearly not needing it to defend Herself, Rhea runs a scan with Her leg armour and seizes the initiative back from Styxx!

Rhea isn't really chasing Styxx though, She is chasing Styxx's score and jumps forward in a blaze of gunfire and lasers to flatten the block of buildings in tile 43 and trim the green habitats off of tile 63. Meanwhile Styxx backs up to stay in cover, and gets Her adherent crew on deck for something next round...

Armed with the initiative, all the cards anyone could want or need on round 9, Styxx is still in a tricky position. But I see that Rhea could get a ring-out by lining up for a body-slam, operating the thrusters with my master crew to push Styxx through the green buildings that She detected on tile 14, and then a quick punch to send Her off the board for a +9VP swing to me. However, my resolve falters on the progression of the cards played, and it looks like Styxx can still block an attach from Rhea. So I take Rhea off to mash some green habitats in tile 47, but not realizing Rhea's bum knee stops Her from taking out the last green habitat on tile 37. Styxx manages to spray the buildings I put up in tile 61 at the start of the round to push the score ahead one, and I walk Rhea back to tile 44 to end the game. And then my opponent asked why I didn't just jump Rhea into the buildings behind Styxx (tile 14). And I wonder why I didn't just jump Rhea into those green buildings and handily win the game.

I think, after that round 5 'macross missile madness' I perhaps got a little tilted, perhaps a little tunnel-vision, and maybe should have been thinking about all the things I could do rather than fixating on that one really cool thing where I try to kick the football and my opponent yanks that football away by blocking the attack. It might have worked though. It might have worked... Fortunately there is always another game, so glory to Styxx and glory to my opponent!  

Titanomachina: Specialized Systems Part 2

 Okay, updated specialized systems. Still not 100% on how to lock Extra Bracing to systems with Range 1, but maybe the target reticle symbol I have wandering around, and the Range 1 (grey square with sharp corners containing the numeral 1). The others have been renamed slightly, like the Gun Munitions and the Laser Collimator to make it clearer what systems they affect (guns and lasers, respectively), like how the Rocket Pod Payloads is about Rocket Pods. Play a Rocket Pod Payload and later that round a Rocket Pod, and fire impact rockets or shield-breaker rockets. Likewise gun munitions enable guns to fire high explosive rounds or armour piercing rounds. Laser collimators enable the range of laser weapons to be extended by +1 per cog or cause shock. The extra bracing enables Titans to add impact or grapple to attacks from systems with a range of 1, so grapple with limbs, punch things with buzz saws, and use hands and claws to make impact attacks without having a habitat to hand to bottle something. A nice 2VPs per system

Titanomachina: Specialized Systems

Okay, so in addition to new weapons, and a series of stealth systems, I thought it would be cool to have some systems that enhance other systems, like what the crew do with operate to increase total cogs. The first couple of iterations did not work, and my attempts using the card language failed for odd reasons. So I need to do two things, which are to re-jig the systems, and then design the cards expressing those systems.

The Refractive Collimater is a system with two options, the first to add a tile of range, and the second to add shock to any attacks. It's zero charge and one cog. It is locked to laser weapons (macro laser, laser battery, laser blade).

The Extra Bracing is a system with two options as well. The first adds high explosive to any range 1 attack, while the second action adds grapple. Again zero charge and one cog. It is locked to cards with range of 1. So high explosive kicks are in.

The Auto Loader is a system with two options for guns. The first is adding high explosive, and the second is adding armour piercing. 

The Rocket Pod Payloads does the two options for rocket pods. The first is shield breaker, the second is impact. 

So the cards need work and I'm not sure what to use for images. But I think these being the difference between the first four configurations of the new Titan might be fun if I can settle on an all-rounder set of weapons.

Titanomachina: New Titan

 

I'm working on a new Titan, tentatively named 

Clymene, to go with the other, squarer Titans now that Eurybia is bolstering the ranks of the rounder Titans.

So far all the Titans have a kind of signature, with Rhea being heavily armoured but agile, Tethys being an all-rounder, Eos being fast and agile, and Styxx being ponderous but well equipped with sensors. Eurybia takes Rhea's heavy armour and adds coolant for a kind of power that is perhaps still under analysis. What should Clymene do?

Certainly I'll probably do some more work greebling and perhaps beveling some of the flat plating edges. I do like the notion of having the regent-type configurations having all different weapons rather than the matching weapons on the others (Rhea, Tethys, Eos). 

I'm somewhat inclined to have Clymene have something besides a 5th extra armour system, but I'm not sure I want the Titan to have something like a capacitor or coolant system that affects card economy. It might be an opportunity to have one of the systems that affects how a weapon works (adding attacks, shield breaker to ranged weapons, additional range for laser weapons, things for guns, etc).

Titanomachina: Danger Prone

Gracious Eurybia crushes Sagacious Rhea in a round 2 ring-out, 22-20VP. Notably Eurybia seizes the initiative, and moves west to engage Rhea as She retreats south behind buildings in tile 63 and clears a couple of habitats with Her vulcan gun. Eurybia uses initiate crew to operate Her gun battery to clear a couple of yellow habitats (21 & 31). Then Eurybia uses adherent crew to operate a coolant system, restoring the gun battery, initiate crew, and an arm to my hand. Without the yellow top of the building blocking line of sight, Eurybia and Rhea exchange fire, Rhea using a master-operated plasma howitzer, and Eurybia again firing the initiate-operated gun battery. I block the plasma shot to the gun battery that would have taken it off, destroying the extra armour I used to block it, removing a shield and doing heavy damage to the extra armour beneath it. Rhea is defenseless now though, and two shots to the front pushes Her off the battlefield.

Eurybia is down 7 habitats and caused a ring-out for +5VP. That's 22VPs. Rhea is down 5 habitats and destroyed an extra armour system for +1VP. That's 20VPs. Victory to Eurybia!

My worry is that something is too powerful, either the extra armour, or the coolant system. However, my opponent made a number of critical mistakes. One of those mistakes, I think, was using the vulcan gun to clear habitats. Yes, it put my opponent in the lead, but it meant that my opponent had zero cards in hand to respond to me doubling down on the gun battery. Furthermore my opponent did so in the danger-zone of the board, the outer ring of three tiles, that put them at risk of being pushed off the board. 

To pull off this trick I needed six cards, the initiate crew and gun battery, the adherent crew and a charge card, and the coolant system to do what two gun batteries, two initiate crew, and a sponson would have also done. Had I used Tethys' tertiary configuration to pull this off it would have been five cards as well, as the digitigrade leg could have also turned the Titan to face Rhea. There's some argument that the plasma howitzer would have disabled the initiate crew operating one of the guns, but it could have easily been the one who had operated the gun that freed up the line of sight.

In a way I was also lucky that my opponent retreated into a quadrant of the board rich in yellow habitats all ready to be targets of opportunity for Eurybia's gun battery and buzz saw, because without those three habitats that Eurybia destroyed, the score would have been 19-20VP favouring Rhea even with the ring-out, so the game would have gone on with Rhea having Her edge in the initiative cemented by Eurybia's loss of frontal armour, albeit with Eurybia enjoying a 2-card advantage.

Now, just because my opponent could have rationed Rhea's strength more wisely does not mean there is not a problem. At the last Halcon, for example, a player managed to play two games without having ring-outs explained to them, and so when I went for a quick ring-out they were taken aback, and probably didn't have a great experience. While that was possibly a problem with one of the demonstrators not following the demo script, it shows that this lethality can feel bad for players. 

Of the player types, the competitors, the explorers, achievers, and socializers, I am an explorer. I think all designers and developers are, even if we are exploring how the game might work for other types. I feel like my opponent is probably a competitor in the main, given their record against me and general strategic nous. As an intuitive player, I think they may have been taken by surprise by the combo. 

But since I could have pulled off the move without the coolant system, and the double-layered extra armour systems would have yielded similar results to damaged crew, weapon, or sensor systems, I feel like this is an example of something similar to the Fool's Mate in Chess. I would propose calling it something like 'Danger Prone,' which is to say hanging around in the danger zone without any defenses loaded in your hand and getting shot off the board for your trouble. Certainly of late our games have involved a kind of relaxed and bluff attitude to ring-outs, and perhaps that is all.

Titanomachina: Prometheus and Epimethius

Alas, I am not introducing the famous and famously pro-human Titans to the game but instead trying to explain how it was that I was soundly defeated as rapacious Styxx (secondary config.) by sagacious Tethys (secondary config) despite what looked like a decent 7-rounds of play in a 9-round game. The answer is found in retrospect, the domain of Epimethius, but could have likewise be attributed to perhaps thinking ahead, the domain of Promethius. You see, I have given thought to how Styxx fits into the game and whether it's a weak build or hopefully requiring a different style of play, so I should have had a better plan. The problem, of course, is that I didn't really have a plan besides bullying my opponent and detecting short, two-habitat buildings. I think my deployment of Styxx reflects this, and my opponent capitalized on this by staging an ambush on Styxx's less defensive side. By starting the fight off early, my opponent was able to develop and maintain a card advantage by threatening Styxx with an early game injury. Additionally, my opponent casually threatened Styxx with a plasma shotgun, holding it in reserve, deploying it unactivated and then drawing it back to hand for potential use/threat next round. 

What could I have done about that? After all, Styxx benefits from having some time to build up some power. Well, given that I had the initiative, I would have gotten the first shot, and with 8 cards in the first draw, and I think a salutory exchange of fire in round 1 would have been best. While Tethys is a hard nut to crack, there's very little in the game that won't suffer a macro laser. So that is option one, to deploy first with weapons, crew, and turret loading first so anyone attempting to ambush Styxx regrets it. I did not do this... Alternately, and in the opposite direction, I could have loaded Styxx's arms and legs first, so that I had the option of moving Her in any direction, or even twice that round, to give Styxx some agility in responding to the ambush. Which I did not do either, even sacrificing Styxx's thrusters for some dubious benefit when having them to jump behind cover would have been much better. 

So as you can see, using the Titanomachina coordinate system, Styxx is deployed 25S with Tethys deploying 23SW, shields concentrated over legs and front while Tethys opts for a more conventional and fuller coverage of all around and twice on arms. West of Styxx, Tethys is on Styxx's claw side, which could have gone badly for Tethys had I thought to load Styxx's claw and capacitor in the first round draw. Tethys is well-positioned to be bottled using the habitat at 37 6P. A hard smack across the prow would see Tethys' turned left, and would either have to work to come back around, or hope that the plasma shotgun would work to slow Styxx down.

So rather than moving to engage Tethys, I had Styxx back off south-west up the street, and start detecting habitats to make up the starting deficit (6-4 Habitats), while kicking habitats (33 6P). Pink doesn't follow, but jumps forward, shadowing Styxx's south-west travel. 

Now I panic ever so slightly, having been informed by my opponent of how they plan to threaten Styxx with the plasma shotgun (which is, one must admit, probably integral to threatening someone with a shotgun) and I hold Styxx still hoping to loading more systems and power. Now my opponent back-pedals slightly, and gets Tethys' master crew on deck as its own kind of threat, having waved that shotgun at me. 

Since Tethys is managing to hold to Styxx' flank, I decide that I need to get Styxx turned around and facing down Tethys with Styxx's gun battery and macro laser. I want to shoot back. One arm pulls Styxx forward while another one spins Styxx a full 180 and that is a mistake because without a target available my opponent has Tethys' master crew operate Her lone sensor system to detect a 4-habitat tall pink building south at tile 94 (6-10-14-20P). Taking the bait I activate Styxx's turret, use Her thrusters to power Styxx's own master crew, and then the gun battery to destroy the building. Had I not turned Styxx 180 and instead just 90 then I wouldn't have needed to use the turret, and even with the master crew spent 3 cards to cancel a 4 card action by my opponent. To add insult to injury, Tethys also uses Her unused armour coverage to scan and seize the initiative, rather than desperately spending it on defense. Backing Tethys off, my opponent is making it more costly for Styxx to attack when I probably over-spent on defense. 

So round 4 involves me adding two green habitats to the board and my opponent subtracting two green habitats with a deft rocket pod attack on a row of buildings in the south-east quarter of the board, 67 and 76. This turns out to be worse for me because my opponent removes buildings outside of Styxx's line of sight, and I place a building inside of Tethys' line of sight. While the score doesn't shift, the advantage does, and given that I used Styxx's rapacious personality, and Styxx's positioning, I probably should have placed them over to the west. My thought at the time was to bait a trap for Tethys so my opponent would be tempted to come at Styxx directly, but as it turns out I was just playing into my opponent's hands. 

Getting carried away, perhaps, with all the cards in my hand, I launch Styxx forward, detecting more buildings in my trap and getting Styxx between them and Tethys, facing south and hoping to do something to Tethys with Styxx's claw, and hoping my opponent is worried about that. My opponent is not tremendously worried at all, and match's Styxx's fancy footwork with some dance moves of Tethys' own, seeing things end with Tethys once again on Styxx's flank and working on dismembering Styxx. So my opponent noticed the claw and perhaps even noticed my fixation on it at the expense of perhaps the more efficient gun battery that wouldn't be back in hand until round 7. 

Once again bravado took the place of real action, mainly because I was running Styxx on fumes, and my opponent was working on making sure that Styxx was bled dry, and unable to mount a proper offense. Using the turret, for example, to threaten Tethys with the claw was not very effective when Tethys had the plasma shotgun and a better angle. Nonetheless, we matched on master crews being put on deck to operate systems.

Now this round I felt like I had a chance to win it, perhaps even by ring-out, but even punching Tethys back and body-slamming Her through a couple of buildings on 33 didn't equalize the advantage like I had hoped, as putting some space between Styxx and Her green habitats behind Her meant that Tethys was able to leap-frog over Styxx and do a massive amount of damage with the plasma shotgun and Tethys' laser blade. Now dangerously close to the edge, I decided I probably had a better bet getting Tethys in a ring-out, revealing the trap She had unwittingly wandered into. 

My opponent wasn't having it though, and while I managed to kick Tethys through a green building (small sacrifices, right) Tethys reversed out of the situation and into cover. 

Without really thinking too hard about how Tethys now had more green habitats as targets, and Styxx had considerably fewer, I ran out the last round of the game trying (and failing) to equalize on habitats because I had burned my two available sensor systems to power Styxx's physical assault on Tethys in the previous couple of rounds. My opponent had, of course, carefully husbanded Tethys' lone sensor system and used it to make sure my last flailing actions were futile. 

So, again in retrospect, I definitely failed to consider well the layout of the board, even when my opponent noted how difficult it was to pick out green habitats using the weapons mounted on Tethys' secondary configuration, either high explosive or armour piercing, and thus prone to causing collateral damage. Clumping up buildings like that was asking for failure and my opponent jumped on it. 

Which isn't to say that my opponent wasn't clever in picking a strategy and patient in carrying it forward. It was a good idea to engage Styxx immediately, and to keep a threat like the plasma shotgun loaded and evident, but unused: a great example of how this game is about choosing between the first shot and the best shot, my opponent used Tethys' weapons where they counted most. It was also a good idea to use Tethys' superior agility and armour to keep Styxx bottled up in the south-east corner of the board once I had committed there. But they also benefitted hugely from my mistakes, and I think being prepared to counter-attack an ambush, or to exit an ambush, would have been better than staggering away and then staggering back. Yes, "don't get ambushed," is legitimate strategic advice, especially now we have all seen the results of what happens if you do. 

Final score? 17-12 for pink. Glory to Tethys and to my opponent!

Titanomachina: Hyperspace

 

Space Squid or Intergalactic Dumbass Octopus

You would think space empty, on a scale that puts the ocean floor to shame, it is not. It is not enough to aim for the stars, but to beware the paths in the dark between the stars. Access to higher dimensions of hyperspace comes at a cost, and that is giving entities that move in higher dimensions a light to hone in against a background of stars. Sometimes, when a Titan walks the starpaths, they may be followed back, and be forced to defend themselves and their planet. Capable of hyperspatial movement even deep in a gravity well, the space squid poses a substantial threat to a Titan or Myrmidon Swarm. 

Consisting of a body, 8 arms, and 2 tentacles. The body has two eyes, two fins, one beak, four brains, three hearts. The arms can walk and attack, and block. The tentacles can jump, attack, and block. Fins enable jumps and twists. Beaks can attack. Eyes scan and detect. Brains operate. Notably no shields and no repair. Tentacles and arms have grapple. They move as independent models with three damage each, and 360o arcs. 

What I need to do with the squid in the picture and somehow twist the arms into spirals like a cirrate or dumbo octopus, and then disembodied arms and tentacles spiraling into 3 dimensions. In the mean-time I am amused by what I can and cannot yet do in Blender. 

 

Titanomachina: The Rate of Inflation

These three configurations of Styxx all exhibit different optimal behaviour because of the weapons with which they are armed. These weapons not only put out different amounts of damage in different ways, but they have differences in cost. 

In Styxx's senary configuration, on the left, the Titan has two weapon systems that cost one other system's power to activate, and one that costs two others. To fire at full effect, Styxx would need to put aside 7 cards, the weapons and the other systems intended to charge them. That's on top of powering all four limbs, moving each round, with each limb and one other system's power for 8. That leaves 7 for crew, sensors, the turret, thrusters, and shields. Maximizing crew is six cards, with the turret makes 7 cards. That leaves the personality or perhaps extra armour being used to block an attack. That's full-on face-to-face engagement though. It could do 23 points of damage. More like 6 though, at close range. Still, that is potentially a lot of damage. 

Styxx's primary configuration has two weapons requiring the charge of two more, and one requiring only one more. You're seeing 10 damage merely from weapons, not counting Shield Breaker, going up to 27 including limbs and crew to direct them to maximum effect. At point blank though it affords no defense at all. Inside of rounds you're going to find running a victim to ground much harder, making that 27 sound much higher than Styxx will be able to eke out. 

Styxx's secondary configuration is much more agile, primarily because of the gun battery. A worthless pop-gun on its own, it clears habitats, hits reasonably hard with crew operating it, and complements the claw for close-range bullying. Its weapons do 6 points of damage, blowing up to 23 points of damage again at the top-end. 

 

Titanomachina: Building Profiles

 

Lately it had occurred to me that giant robot games, particularly of the miniature kind, were based on numbers. Some people hate numbers. They don't want to count, order, or perform arithmetic operations. Many board games therefore hide numbers under the hood, so to speak, using components to represent quantities spacially and structurally. But a quadrant of the giant robot crowd wants numbers to contrast, compare, and evaluate. They don't want a game, but a universe they can comprehend and understand. It's where you get lines like 'Fifty diesel engines per muscle strand' in Pacific Rim. Utter nonsense, but important for signifying that something is big and powerful. Likewise BattleTech players and Warhammer players are constantly comparing numbers. It seems the players want to know what their robots do. 

The dashboard above details which systems that the Titan Rhea has on board, and where they are located. It also notes the cost of all these systems, in that Rhea can placed 21 habitat blocks on the board. The unstated assumption is that all Titans and their habitats add up to 65 Human Resource points. 

Altogether the systems add up to 23 charge, because they include the personality card. One could say that this is the power rating of a Titan like Rhea.

Speed-wise one would note that Rhea could move 6 tiles in four rounds using only Her limbs, and 10 tiles when Her thrusters are factored in. Adding in Her crew, Rhea has a top-speed of 17 tiles every four rounds. The fact that Her limbs only cost the four limb cards themselves speaks to an agility that is hard to explain if you haven't experienced them. But they can be expressed as the number 4, as in the amount of power (including the system being activated, so systems with charge 0) required to get those 6 tiles, and 8 for 10 tiles including the thrusters. 

Likewise the combination of damage from Rhea's weapons could be 8, including the armour piercing, high explosive, and shield breaker rules although it's only four cogs. Whether the hand technically counts as 'firepower' is also an open question. 

Type: Rhea

Length, beam, draft

Powerplant: 23

Cruising Speed: 6

Top Speed: 17 

Agility: 5

Shielding: 6

Armament: 3

Armour: 5

Crew: 4

Sensors: 1

Type: Tethys

Length, beam, draft

Powerplant: 23 (24)

Cruising Speed: 6

Top Speed: 19 

Agility: 5

Shielding: 6

Armament: 3

Armour: 4

Crew: 4

Sensors: 1

Type: Styxx

Length, beam, draft

Powerplant: 23 (24)

Cruising Speed: 10

Top Speed: 19 

Agility: 4

Shielding: 4

Armament: 3

Armour: 3

Crew: 4

Sensors: 3

Type: Eos

Length, beam, draft

Powerplant: 23 (25)

Cruising Speed: 6

Top Speed: 19 

Agility: 5

Shielding: 4

Armament: 3

Armour: 3

Crew: 4

Sensors: 1

Titanomachina: Wings!

 

I've managed to crudely sculpt some wings onto the four-armed version of Eos. I've been thinking about what these should do, keeping in mind they will replace a third weapon and some other system on Eos. Originally I had conceived of these as improved Jump Jets, systems that would have their own in-built ability to to move and re-orient the Titan. Essentially they would combine legs and jump jets, but without the ability to attack. Then I considered what the Titan might have to give up to field a pair of wings, and considered that maybe they should enable a Titan to twist and jump, thereby removing some of the abuse that they might incur enabling body slams.

There is also the cost of the wings. It occurred to me that compared to the Primary and Tertiary configurations of Eos, the Titan either loses one system to gain two, or loses four systems to gain two. What if, I thought, we go with the original dual jump jets and dual capacitors, but then trade in the jump jets for wings, and the third weapon for a coolant system? 

Wings: 

Charge 1 

Walk 

Jump

Cogs 2 

Titanomachina: Tethys

Once upon a time, like many a game adversary, Tethys was just Rhea but blue. She's an evolution of Rhea, and I like how the scales for Her extra armour parts both communicate Her pelagic origin, and gives Her a kind of prehistoric fishiness. Exactly how fishy depends on the paint scheme, but I made Her pink when Eos was planned for pink (Eos being the Titan of the Rosy Dawn) because my daughter wanted a pink one, and She became blue (and green) again when an artist I commissioned gave me a version of Her in that colour scheme. There's also how She turned out when I turned my paint brush on Her and reminded myself that I was not an enthusiastic painter. Which is somewhat odd because painting miniatures with a brush is wonderful if you can find the time to enjoy it. 

Tethys was named after the rival Queen of Heaven that Rhea and Her husband/brother overthrew, which is probably metaphorically significant in some fashion that isn't clear from the surviving fragments of literature. There seems to be some thematic overlaps, with the differences being that Rhea is the more bellicose of the two, and Tethys being the more nurturing. Of course, having purloined the names and identities I can do what I like with them, and in this case I think it's interesting to style Tethys as the Surging Tide. Which is to say that Tethys' more power-hungry configurations and systems (macro laser instead of a macro gun, claw instead of a hand, jump jets instead of thrusters) lend themselves to greater peaks and troughs in game-play, despite being perhaps more well-rounded than Rhea who maximizes the defensive systems and who can maintain a more constant rate of activity. Tethys is more dramatic. 

Notably Tethys' places an Initiate Crew up in Her vulnerable sensor tower, making Her more vulnerable to the front than one would expect for having the second most armour in the game. However, this serves as something of a lure, giving opponents a reason to engage Her from positions where She can most easily return fire. 

Tethys' primary configuration reflects Rhea's primary, carrying a laser, a gun, and a close combat weapon for grappling. However, instead of having a gun as Her main weapon, Tethys has the longer-ranged armour piercing macro laser. With more damage potential than the laser battery, and 3x the range of a laser blade, it firmly places this version of Tethys into the knock-out fighter category. Despite having a capacitor, this system mainly serves to keep Her moving and punching when She might otherwise run out of gas. It does not accelerate Her like the dual capacitors of Eos. Tethys' dual jump jets, however, form something of a secret weapon, enabling Her to not only move rapidly around the board, but to press for a double-jump should someone judge the claw to be more dangerous than the laser. 

Tethys' second configuration is perhaps more energy intensive, tracking the ranged sniper power of the macro laser for the high explosive shield and habitat clearing utility of a rocket pod. While it's not a great weapon, the rocket pod is relatively low powered and should work well with the plasma shotgun to make sure other Titans are exposed to the laser blade. 

Tethys' tertiary configuration gives up the jump jets for a second gun battery, a second sponson, and upgrades the plantigrade legs to digitigrade legs. This is something of a wash with energy trade offs, but the dual gun batteries, claw, and legs turns Tethys into something of a board control monster. 

Tethys' quaternary configuration doubles down on what makes Her secondary configuration nasty, making life oppressive to opponents at all ranges, and especially at short ranges. Tethys' answer to Rhea's quaternary configuration doesn't bother competing on board control, and instead focuses on doing damage in a way that makes Rhea's superior armour meaningless. 

Where Rhea's concerns are Her pre-eminence amongst the Titans, and inter-galactic trade, Tethys' concerns are more domestic. Her control of trans-oceanic shipping and trade with the Myrmidon Mega-Ants pale in comparison to Her need for violent and dramatic vengeance. 

Tethys plots to overthrow Rhea, suborn the Hecatoncheires battle stations, and to use the wealth of Gaia to return the Titans to galactic pre-eminence. Whether She can overcome Rhea, and the other Titans drawn to the jewel of Gaia by promises of wealth and entertainment, or whether Her own fury will be Her [further] downfall remains to be seen.