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.  

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.

Eurybia Updates

I figured out how to repeat the magic that made the first two configurations of Eurybia online in Tabletop Simulator, and improve on it up to the standard of the original 4 Titans. Or at least the recipe. I'm still working on a way to make texture files.

Whether these configurations are any good remains to be seen. There's some half-baked theory behind them, driven mainly by the requirement to be different from the four existing Titan primary configurations. 

Eurybia is different from other Titans, going deep on extra armour and coolant, rather than Rhea's extra armour and thrusters, Tethys armour, jump jets, and capacitor, Styxx's sensors and limbs, and Eos' jump jets and capacitor.

What this seems to mean is that Eurybia can convert two junior crew into a third senior crew. There is the potential for duplicating another system, but that is going to cut into the number of useful actions it could otherwise be making. Plus a coolant system is a handy close-in defensive option. 

Is this sufficient to offset the loss of jumping? Early game Eurybia can give up shields to active both legs twice for an advantage in agility and speed. Or an extra vulcan gun or rocket pod attack. A second laser blade would require 8 cards rather than 6 cards. Eurybia would need card advantage to really exploit this or be left stranded and out of gas before an opponent has stopped shooting. Using both shields and coolant systems and sacrificing junior crew cards you could play senior crew twice. That could be +2, +3 rather than +1, +1 to thrusters. 

Consistent senior crew operated weapons and a limb makes for a hard four rounds for an opponent. Difficult if you close, thanks to the coolant systems. Plant Eurybia in the middle of the board for a ring out.

The tertiary configuration tries to take advantage of the coolant system by eschewing power hungry systems like laser blades and claws for a gun battery, a hand, and a laser battery. With senior crew behind them they can be good enough while managing power and loading better. 

The Quaternary configuration is also based on a gun battery but with a plasma howitzer for range and a buzz saw for close-in dismemberment. A bit of a twist on Eos primary like the tertiary is on Rhea primary. In each case the gun is weakened at its minimum to secure a higher, more efficient operated value. A gun battery operated by a master can be fired four times in four rounds using eight cards. 

In terms of flexibility though, super-cooling senior crew seems to be the way to go. 

Titanomachina: Escape From Gaia ready for Play-testing

I saw this mechanic in a wonderful game about modern art ("Art Society"):

Initiative goes to the player that plays the highest card, with ties going to the previous card value, and any further tie going to the ship with the most fuel. 

Ships are dice, used to track fuel.

Players move their ships in initiative order.

• Up an orbit costs 2 fuel
• Moving along the same orbit costs 1
• Moving down an orbit earns 2
• Moving into space with a planet earns 1
• Moving into a space occupied by another player costs 1.

There's all sorts of other bells and whistles I could put in there, like giving cards special rules or whatnot, but right now seven poker cards (1-6 and a joker) should do it.

Players win by moving up, out of the solar system. Players can't have less than 0 fuel, and start with 4 points of fuel. Planets are spaced out so that players can't immediately bootstrap themselves out of the solar system.