Titanomachina: Pacifism Incarnate

Rapacious Clymene vs Sagacious Eurybia, secondary configuration vs quinary configuration, purple vs orange (or in this case blue vs yellow). I had been wanted to run Clymene's secondary configuration for a while after making changes swapping out the Extra Armour 4 for a second sponson and upgrading the Plasma Driver weapon system to have two cogs instead of just one. While Clymene may have dropped the ball here 17-20, this game has motivated me to make some changes to some of the expansion systems (currently explained in a set of notes left beside the Clymene/Eurybia figurines/dashboards/cards), particularly the wings and the harpoon gun. They're somewhat anemic, and maybe some special rules will help them fit into their spaces. Which isn't why I managed to lose this game, but it is worth considering why my opponent decided on a course of avoiding direct conflict when Eurybia's quinary configuration looks like it should jump in for close-range mangling. 

One good reason is that the wings and harpoon guns would have been costly in a brawl, particularly against Clymene's dual stabilizers (which can react to range 1 attacks with explosive venting, retroactively preventing the attack's activation unless the player plays an additional charge card). With three grapple attacks, and a coolant system this configuration of Eurybia is better suited to flailing around at nearby buildings; lots of light, rapid attacks despite what should also be considerable board control power using grapple and drag to plow an opponent through buildings. Of course, Clymene's secondary configuration is likewise built to make things go pear-shaped during a close encounter, and at one point I thought that I had caught my esteemed opponent's cogs napping because I almost managed three attacks at 3, 2, 2 and shock for each until I realized the first shot would put the next two shots out of arc as the Plasma Driver's recoil spun Clymene around. I settled for melting Eurybia's frontal armour off in one shot, but I had really been hoping for the shock to ruin my opponent's card advantage (shock x3 would have meant three cards lost, possibly more to blocking). But instead I split Clymene's attention between Eurybia and the buildings. 

I also notably fell for the oldest trick in the book, which is "Hey, look over there," as Eurybia detected a three-habitat building over on tile 97. I was already behind on buildings as I think I had miscalculated my fire control, having chosen the gun munitions specialist system to enhance Clymene's Vulcan Gun and increase its anti-building firepower; I believe Clymene should have been facing due east instead of north-west, where the round track lies to the east of the battlefield. This would have opened up the yellow habitats in tiles 76 and 67, as well as the habitats in 43 and 63 to the Plasma Driver. 

As you can see I deployed first and my opponent's counter-deployment presented just the right amount of threat and lure: Threat to show that Eurybia could be jumping over those buildings separating the Titans at any moment, but lure to get me thinking of trying to winkle Eurybia out from behind them, or going in after to try for a ring-out. 

I waggle Clymene's Plasma Driver while my opponent uses Extra Armour to scan and seize the initiative, and since I was going to lose it at some point I'm okay with that: Eurybia has six systems that can scan and is sagacious: She simply has better battlefield awareness than Clymene in this configuration. I was still thinking of Eurybia as an aggressor, so having Her jump into Clymene's guns wasn't the problem it eventually turned out to be. 

I start with Clymene's Vulcan Gun early, clearing a couple of yellow habitats and four others: this probably isn't a great ratio of enemy habitats to neutral habitats for six cards. Facing south-west Clymene probably could have netted twice as many for this investment thanks to the concentration and exposure of yellow habitats in and around tile 63. Notably I am spending six cards to my opponent's three... My opponent is cheerfully working away on somewhat better ratios, elbowing a blue habitat in tile 36 to smithereens. 

As we can see here Clymene is going absolutely bonkers on pink and green, but less effectively against yellow and realizing this I turn Clymene right around to go after some yellow habitats in the south-east. I probably should have piloted Her south-west, but my vision was somewhat tunnel-visioned by the two-high habitat Eurybia had detected on tile 94 on the previous round and I wanted to equalize the building score as I was falling behind. Of course, while Clymene is doing this Eurybia is working Her was west, and then super-cooling the systems She used for that, yielding a hefty two-card card advantage, and I had used my Plasma Driver to destroy a building so it was no longer a deterrent. Not that it needed to be, but it didn't register with my cogs...

In what looks in retrospect like a fit of indecision, I turn Clymene around again and try to make like She can threaten Clymene directly before She completely clears out the blue presence on the north side of the battlefield. Eurybia makes like She is ready to jump if Clymene gets too close. I had the choice of using my initiate crew and rapacious personality to detect much-needed blue habitats, but put it off to the next round so I had more cards in hand and looks a tad less vulnerable. This was, of course, under the assumption that eventually Eurybia would attempt a direct attack at some point. 

Instead my opponent pre-empty my strategy of concentrating on buildings and uses Eurybia's main sensor to detect a three-habitat-tall yellow building in tile 79 while Clymene detects a two-habitat tall blue building in tile 19. Clymene hoves in closer on Her stabilizers, but Eurybia keeps moving south-west, keeping the low line of habitats between the two Titans as if they might block line of sight. In fact they do not.

As Eurybia kicks down the two-tall building in tile 41, Clymene carefully draws a bead on Her and with Her senior crew making sure the Plasma Driver's stream turbulence and magnetic re-cavitators are functioning properly, melts Eurybia's front armour clean off as She twists to prevent the same from happening to Her side armour and left leg. But Eurybia isn't staying still, and staggers south, reverses course north-east through the blue habitat left in tile 63 and heads south-east to stand between two buildings She could demolish with Her wings. 

Now I knew that, given the number of cards in my hand that I could get a final shot off with the senior crew and Clymene's Plasma Driver, and that if I did that correctly it could expose Eurybia to a ring-out from the Vulcan get if I played it aright. So I pushed Clymene up behind Eurybia to start a push for the edge of the board, and Eurybia draws south and then east again with a wing working to bait and exhaust Clymene and maintain card advantage.

Of course I don't take that bait, I take the one that was left for me earlier in the game, that takes Clymene away from threatening Eurybia to leaving Her to carry on with Her dastardly scheme uninterrupted. Heading east over the buildings Clymene lines up to reduce Eurybia's habitats by 4 and increase Her own by 4. I did that because without reducing Eurybia's building amount (or destroying more systems) a ring-out would still be scored in my opponent's favour. As snap judgements go it was probably not a great one because of how this played out next. 

Clymene's adherent crew blew away four yellow habitats with the Vulcan Gun again firing high explosive munitions, and the master crew detected a four-habitat-tall blue building in tile 96, but while Eurybia was unsupervised She crunched Her way through two more blue habitats in tiles 74 and 82, and detected a six-habitat-tall yellow building in tile 31. Clymene's Plasma Driver destroyed a building containing a yellow habitat in tile 76, but nowhere near enough. But Eurybia got that building up because She was on the board, still had a functional sensor on Her shoulders, and didn't have anything to worry about. 

So yes, it was clever of my opponent to forgo direct combat and to do a kind of pacifist run, insofar as 'pacifist' can be applied to smashing down buildings. Perhaps in the same way a 100m tall giant robot can attempt to sneak past another but for a row of 50m habitats between them. Needless to say this is working as designed: You should be able to win Titanomachina like this, and a skill in the game should be recognizing when is a good time to engage and when is a good time to simply enjoy a quiet rampage in the city. Minor errors in surveying aside, my opponent played an excellent game.

Glory to Eurybia and to my opponent! 

I should like to make this decision harder though, rather than a practical calculation that a direct encounter will not go to the robot with the pillow-fisted weapons and the expensive, impractical wings. My design philosophy for Titanomachina has always been to attack the players and to make their decisions agonizing, and it's always good to increase the allure of incentives to direct engagement.