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.