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.