Titanomachina: Be Cool Eurybia, Be Cool

As mentioned elsewhere, I've been thinking of changing the Super-cooling action of the Coolant system to allow players to take face-up cards back to their hands. So far it's working pretty well. Here gracious Styxx fought rapacious Eurybia to a 27-26 victory, eking it out due to what was probably the one time I remembered that I could bottle someone with Styxx's claw. 

If you're not aware, the Claw has the Grapple trait, meaning that when you attack someone with it, aiming at the outer-targets will drag the target Titan stack toward the attacker, and aiming at the middle will enable the Titan to forcibly move the target Titan into an adjacent square, usually in order to force a collision. I realized that (a) turning Eurybia's Laser Blade and Claw towards Styxx wasn't healthy for Styxx, and that (b) a yellow habitat existed within range of both the Claw and the target, enabling Styxx to not only destroy that habitat and lower Eurybia's habitat score by 1 point, but convert the Grapple temporarily into an Impact, turning Eurybia away. The upshot was not only doing damage to both Eurybia and Her habitats, but also mitigating Her position. Early in the game Eurybia advanced to Styxx rapidly because She was armed with a Vulcan Gun, Laser Blade, and Claw, weapons with ranges of 3, 2, and 1 respectively. Pulling Eurybia into position on all three was also a bad idea. So a spot of luck for Styxx then.  

An interesting comment was made about the Emergency Venting reaction in comparison with the Block reaction: "This one [Emergency Venting] will inconvenience someone, while this one [Block] will save your life." Which is interesting because my opponent cleverly used a Coolant system to get a leg cooled down and re-loaded into his hand, and then kicked off Styxx's damaged Gun Battery before the game ended on a time-out. That +2VP addition saw Eurybia's score almost close the gap before the game ended. I'm okay with Emergency Venting being a weaker option compared to Block, so long as the math works for Super-Cooling. 

I do need to order some new prints of Eurybia, not only the capture the configurations that I've devised with additional legs, but also to clarify what direction Eurybia is facing in, as the pose seen in these pictures is cool, but doesn't really have all three weapons pointing in a clear and unified direction. Likewise, I should order the latest version of the board so that I don't need to lay out these prototype tiles on top of one of the original prototype boarded, to make set-up faster and easier. But that's just stuff to make things easier to set up and prettier to photograph rather than to change game-play.

Something I do want to do to change game-play somewhat is to update how the Sensor systems Detect Titan, which is to say that one cog should let a Titan 'see' (or ignore line-of-sight interruption) through a single building. This would do two things, the first to make line-of-sight a bit more granular, with seeing through more buildings commensurate with the skill of the crew member operating the system system, and in doing so enable the second which is the introduction of systems that can reduce this line-of-sight bonus for some Titan cloaking and stealth. 

 

Titanomachina: Making Coolant Cooler via Test Match

As recent blog posts make suggest, I've been worried the Coolant system has been insufficiently cool. When adding to Titanomachina my instinct has been to introduce elements somewhat conservatively with the notion that it is better to make something better than to pare it back when it turns out to be over-powered. Needless to say that was not a problem with the Coolant system as the ability to deactivate systems had some weird knock-on effects in terms of card-play. Super-cooling a system to play it next turn screwed with tempo, essentially stealing a normally cooled system from its loading back to hand three rounds after it was played. It was a disappointing system for what I had imagined.

Instead, we tried playing Eurybia Quaternary vs Styxx Tertiary because both of them mount Coolant systems and Styxx mounted a Capacitor for comparative purposes. In this case we played it that Coolant systems just return a card to the players hand for every cog available when activated. This reflected the Capacitor system in that it returns cards to player's hands, except that Capacitors only returned cards that had been played face-down to activate other systems at a 2:1 ratio. This results in a savings in system charge, at the cost of time spent on the action. Coolant systems would return face-up at a 1:2 ratio, paying a steeper opportunity cost, but also a savings in system charge. What that means is that Eurybia with two Coolant systems was not giving up card advantage easily, keeping pace with Styxx and eventually grinding a win. 

Perhaps interestingly there was no particular point at which I thought to myself (well, that's a mistake I should learn from), and Styxx maintained the initiative throughout the fight, which was probably pretty good. I think I may have under-utilized the Rapacious personality given how I lost significantly on habitats, but I think I came pretty close to a knock-out of Eurybia at times. Eurybia definitely benefitted from the Pugnacious personality, using that to avoid a one-two punch from Styxx's weapons. 

From a design perspective, I think I might try it again against a Titan without coolant systems to see what advantage it confers, but for Styxx I just about shut down the Coolant system, Thrusters, and Deflectors to hound Eurybia around the board, and then use the Coolant system to keep the plasma shotgun in play in the late game. It's a handy trick rather than a work-horse system, it seems. 

Please note it seems I forgot to get a screen-shot of round 4, which unfortunately breaks the spiral into the middle of the board that seems to have resulted from game play. 

Round 4 is missing. Oops.

Titanomachina: Quaternary Quarrel

Some days a game turns on a tiny, insignificant mistake the consequences of which compound and spall through the sights of victory. In this case, I made a series of obvious and painful blunders that were immediately and mercilessly exploited by my opponent, who was running Rhea's gun show quaternary configuration to Eurybia's. Rhea clinched it in what appeared to be round 5 with 23 to 19 victory points.

The first mistake was that I had the option to reconfigure my shields and perhaps maximize their coverage of Eurybia's blue prow. I did not take that chance, and found Eurybia's shield coverage evaporating under Rhea's hail of gunfire. The second mistake I made was trying to use the coolant systems early in the game, rather than using them to power my active systems (particularly shields, to raise them back up after Rhea shredded them). The third mistake was not activating a junior crew-operated arm to get Eurybia's back off the ropes before a ring-out in round 5. Where it looks like we set up in the second round, the first round saw both players, sagacious Rhea and gracious Eurybia alike both play pass cards. So we started in round two with 13 cards each...

Eurybia made another mistake here used Her master crew and gun battery to open up some lines of fire, and to reduce the number of yellow habitats. The notion was to use the following coolant system to bring them back for another round of firing next turn, but what it did was give my opponent card advantage as Rhea calmly advanced and clipped Eurybia with macro gun fire. 

I tried to claw back the card advantage at the expense of Eurybia's shield coverage, by holding off on any action, and Rhea continued Her merciless advance maintaining fire and elbowing the odd blue habitat when the opportunity presented itself.  

I note that we didn't appear to be moving the round marker along the track properly, so this is more like round 5, and also shows how Eurybia pursued Rhea for an opportunity to use that hand to even the score by grappling Rhea into some buildings. In retrospect maybe using up my senior crew to prevent Rhea from retreating wasn't a great idea either. 

Finally, the hand comes into play, but since Rhea is also heavily armoured, all Eurybia could grab was a leg and like that Rhea levered Herself back into play (and Eurybia back under Her guns). 

Here is where my tactical and strategic nous deserted me, as I looked at the board, I looked at what Rhea was lining up, and I looked at the arm I had prepared to activate and somehow decided not to activate it. Donald Davidson might have forgiven me for having four cups of coffee that day, but Rhea did not. Having run me out of any remaining defensive cards Rhea used a crew-operated vulcan gun to blast Eurybia off the board through a pink and yellow building for a final score of 23 VP to Eurybia's 19 VP.  

Titanomachina: Coolant Systems (The Super-Cooling Action)

Something I have noticed is that the Coolant system's numbers are kind of funky, leading to it feeling wrong somehow. I've encountered this sort of thing before and it's why I consider development to be so important, because I think I got the Capacitor system's Full Power action right. 

Currently the Super-Cooling action enables a Titan to de-activate a system card for each cog it has available after crew is added and damage subtracted. This costs one other card to charge it to activation. This allows a Titan bring a card it activated back to its hand at the end of the round, available to play again next round. 

Now, a quirk of Titanomachina is that some systems have a direct effect on the score, such as weapons and limbs doing damage, or sensors detecting buildings. Other systems have an indirect effect, such as blocking an attack, moving the Titan, raising shields to absorb damage, and blocking to de-optimise attacks. These indirect systems need to be well above the curve in their effects to justify players activating them instead of using them to power weapons, limbs, and sensors. The capacitor system accomplishes this by reducing the cost of one system by one card. Crew accomplish this by increasing cogs or decreasing damage, with the master crew giving three cogs for two cards, above the curve. 

So what? Well, paying two cards, including the Coolant system itself, to deactivate one system is giving up two cards to give up another two cards. It's certainly not forcing your opponent to spend an extra charge card like the Emergency Venting does to Range 1 attacks, which works pretty nicely. There's really no motivation not to classify these as defensive systems like shields or armour, than support systems like crew or capacitors. Or at least in terms of giving players another live option in their hand. 

I need to either increase the cogs of the Coolant system, decrease its charge cost, or change the way the Super-Cooling action works from doubling a system's availability over two rounds for the cost of two other cards face-down to something else. Something, of course, compatible with the other support systems. Something that allows the card to cost one cog for two cards. 

What if the player just drew the card back to hand like the capacitor system does? I think that might justify the usurious cost. There's a marginal gain by which you can play the recovered card to block or simply leave in-active. It acts something like a swap then, putting the card back in hand as a preferred choice. 

That's compared with, say, making it a charge 0 system, increasing its cogs to 2, or both. I think immediately returning a card to hand rather than merely deactivating it jives with the established capacitor mechanic, and in a similar way because now the system can be used to charge other systems, as well as be activated (or simply played unactivated), for a tempo bonus.  

Titan Hanger Update: Efficiency Be Damn'd

 

I've added several figurines, three yellow, four green, three blue, and three pink to the Titan Hanger DLC for Tabletop Simulator (TTS). I haven't added their dashboards yet, but in some cases they are just like existing configurations of Titans with just a weapon swap, so I'm not panicking. It's playable, but obviously I need to put up their own dashboards and decks for players that just want to swap out easily. 

Some are not so easily playable. In the case of the configuration of Styxx that leaves off its turret-mounted weapon system and mounts two claws, I think that just swapping in a capacitor should make this configuration perhaps barely playable. I am uncertain quite how this would play out, and I think the best way would be to start in the middle, even in a three or four player game. This means the other players either need to set up in the middle as well, within range of the claws, or away in the danger zone in the outer three squares of the board. Sounds pretty good eh?

Well, there is a configuration of Rhea with two gun batteries and two hands, but also with big arms and digitigrade legs. Literally has more armour, more weapons, and only missing the jump from the thrusters. There is a configuration of Styxx with two turrets, two hands, coolant and capacitor systems, two thrusters, two legs, three extra armour, three sensors, four crew, and two deflectors. Maybe a pair of arms would off-set the higher rate of action.

There is also the two pink configurations, one with all lasers and one with all plasma. I'm actually pretty curious to see how those would fair against Rhea Quaternary with Her guns. I've tried with the all-plasma configuration, and while I lost in that particular encounter, I feel like a path to victory exists there. But lasers right? 

Would that even be fun? 

Give up shields to fire both laser batteries, and the capacitor to fire both macro lasers in conjunction with the fore and aft extra armour. That leaves arms, sponsons for powering digitigrade legs, sensors using junior crew, leaving leg armour to do the majority of defensive work blocking incoming fire. That leaves two senior crew, one junior crew, and the personality. That's for senior crew bonuses. First on the laser batteries, then on the macro lasers once shields are shredded.

Three cog 2 armour piercing shots and one cog 1 armour piercing shot is a knock-out on an unshielded Titan. That's ignoring any work the arms and legs can do. It's also going to need to coordinate those with the sensor for a very deliberate and expensive rounds (arm or sponson, sensor, senior crew, laser battery for 7 cards), probably alternating with a leg activation. 

Two Legs Good, Four Legs Better

Making Eurybia into a centaur. As with some extreme configurations you have to give something up. Two plantigrade legs at the cost of the rear armour (Extra Armour 4) and a coolant system. It also has a rear sponson mount, for a rear-facing weapon, because it is a centaur.

Weapons-wise I think two gun batteries and a laser blade in the rear mount. Or perhaps two claws and a laser battery. Either way, the plan is to deploy in the middle of the board and work the danger zone with legs and range 4 weapons. In terms of opponents this is figuring Rhea Quaternary's guns probably want to occupy the same space. 

Six cards for Limbs, four cards for crew, three cards for weapons, two for shields, one each for sponson, sensor, and coolant, four extra armour. Full crew and weapons requires 10 cards, leaving sponson, sensor, coolant, and three extra armour. One extra armour if the last two are activated. 

The coolant proposition is to replace two actions with a repeated action next round. It's not great until that repeated action is above the curve, 1 charge to three cogs like firing a macro gun, or operating with master crew. Because it levels out that 1:1 ratio of cards spent to cogs used. 

In which case a laser is the perfect weapon to shoot twice. The laser blade hits hard for that above-the-curve effect, while the laser battery might be more effective in volume where the first shot might soften shields and waste defensive action. A claw that can plow another Titan through a large building would also be on the menu. That or just keep the master crew running cool.

Titanomachina: Eos vs Eurybia

Last week I played a game of Titanomachina that convinced me that I needed to separate out the extra content from the Tabletop Simulator DLC. So I put the extra Titans, usually arranged in a corner, into their own DLC, and likewise removed the Formicide infantry expansion to its own DLC. At some point soonish I'll make them both public-ish. Why haven't I done so sooner? The hand of moldy old Babylonian Nergal.

All that aside, what happened? Well, I was crewing Eos Senary against Eurybia Primary and it seemed like I was winning, despite being behind on buildings, and prepared to do a ring-out/knock-out combo when the connection crapped out and could not be restored. Eos was gracious, and it turns out that the Senary Configuration is brutal with those dual capacitors behind it. Which is funny, in a sense because Eurybia Primary gives up the plasma shotgun for a vulcan gun, and my opponent noted that he should have used the coolant systems to maximize the crew operation so it should have been Eurybia bulling Eos around the board.

The fact that the habitats are 25mm cubes in their meat-space prototype should alert players to the fact that Titanomachina is a game of inches. I set up Eos in a dead-zone off Eurybia's starboard prow for an aggressive start, utilizing Eos' gracious personality against Eurybia's sagacious personality. I wouldn't have the initiative, but it made my opponent decide whether they were going to turn and fight, or attempt to lead me on a chase. But first, junior crew got into position...

A chase it was, but despite equivalent foot-speeds, Eos' jump jets gave Them a distinct advantage to close, and being in the reaction position let me push Eos in. It's worth noting that half the game here was not merely the promise of damage, but also the promise of card-advantage. Remember, I had a plasma shotgun, and even if it didn't do interesting damage, it was still going to shock Eurybia and force a discard. What I gave up could be equalized.

Then it starts, sponsons activate and it's go-time, I swing Eos around the corner of a row of buildings and as my opponent hammers some blue habitats into mulch I get a flight of rockets into Eurybia, destroying Her back armour and shields as She ducks. While it doesn't compare to the habitats Eos has lost, it cracks open Eurybia's defenses in a satisfying way. The rocket pod is, after all, the least of Eos' weapons.

Now because Eurybia is retreating along the edge of the board, I'm able to step backwards and re-address, and slightly against my better judgment (and making sure I have an avenue of retreat in case I need to fire Eos' jump jets) try for taking the initiative so my opponent can't dodge. Since that takes Eos through a yellow habitat all the better. That doesn't really work, but the intent is also to try and get my opponent spending precious power on an initiative Eurybia may not need either. Then a friendly blast of plasma to help equalize that card advantage.

Now it's Eurybia's turn to strike back, reversing course and rampaging back down that winding avenue and Eos fires those jets to make sure Eurybia's laser blade isn't buried in Their back. They brake on a yellow habitat, and a capacitor fires to keep them in the fight as Eurybia vents coolant to signal She's not slowing down.

Eos now takes something of a breath as junior crew scramble to stations inside Them, and swings back around to stalk after Eurybia. Eurybia hasn't stopped moving and presses the lead on surviving habitats detected on the board. It's a strong defensive move because if Eurybia is knocked out, my opponent may still win from an insurmountable lead; the damage to Eos' population may be too much. The upshot is that Eos has to be very careful to avoid triggering a knock-out before the damage done to Eurybia outweighs the damage to Eos' habitats. So a careful application of rockets should offset Eurybia's attempt to recover shields over Her remaining armour.

Eos has a good firing firing solution, blasting away with the plasma shotgun, looking to spread the damage and clear Eurybia's shields before executing the knock-out with enough damage to offset Eurybia's 5 VP lead. Her systems are locked and loaded, and even junior crew can make a laser blade really hurt. Yet Eurybia is building up to something, something that might see Her scrap enough shields and armour off of Eos to stay in the game, but She's backed into a corner. However, the game ends on a time-out, as something about the DLC (possibly all the stuff that makes loading it kind of slow) times out the connection. The decision of the Hecatoncheires orbital installations cannot be questioned...

Could I have won? I think so. Would I have won? In the past week I've been pretty confident that I could have forced a knock-out/ring-out with the cards I had in hand and the cards I recall from rounds 4 and 5. Keeping track of games by taking screenshots at each round really helps, since it acts like something of a study aid. 

There is also, to a degree, an opponent style, plus the commitment to a direction. Eurybia lacks jump jets for speed and using a coolant system to super-cool a limb gives you a walk for the same cost, with some trickier timing. 

Timing is everything. The game is set up so that your ability to react to your opponent offsets their ability to react to you. Generally speaking it is perhaps an open question as to whether having the initiative is always good. I think I was doing very well despite being behind in the habitats. After all, a knock-out/ring-out. My opponent pointed out the only system I could score with the laser blade would be the arm mounting the vulcan gun, which is a fair point, with other systems triggering a knock-out loss for me. If my opponent did nothing else to Eos in the meantime, despite the master operating initiate crew, it would be a tie then. 

Yes, my hope is pinned on the Eos Senary Configuration's smooth capacitor action to just hammer Eurybia. I don't think I played a deflector system in the entire game. I think I recall having card advantage at that point, 

Which leads me to a second point as Nergal's hand lifts from my chest, that now I'm torn between taking Eos in my next game or taking Eurybia's Tertiary Configuration, with a gun battery, laser battery, and hand. Which is funny because the first and third choice would be Eos Primary and Eos Tertiary.