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: Super Titan Sisters

It should not be a secret that one of my favourite Godzilla movies is Godzilla vs Megaguirus, a movie I first watched in poorly-dubbed German. The concept is that Japan has come up with the notion of shooting Godzilla with a black hole gun, whose test-firing unleashes the Kaiju Megaguirus, the queen of a swarm of ancient dragon-flies that somehow enters the modern world due to the test-firing of the black hole gun. Did I mention a black hole gun? It fired black holes that fail to annihilate the Earth and the surrounding Solar system, and will presumably dispose of Godzilla if they can figure out how to aim it.

However, aiming is complicated by Godzilla fighting first the swarm of meganeura, and then Megaguirus proper, and finally a weird software glitch that sees the satellite armed with the black hole gun (aka "Dimension Tide") fall out of orbit. In the meantime Godzilla executes a fantastic body-slam on Megaguirus. 

Seriously, it's a great couple of shots. The first is Megaguirus, having been smashed into a building by Godzilla, clearly emoting a kind of dazed "what-the-f***" then Godzilla roaring and doing a kind of lay-up for a jump. Cut to Megaguirus again clearly emoting "Oh shi...," following by the most amazing shots of Godzilla falling from the sky, and then seen from behind crushing Megaguirus underneath her and the building underneath them both. There's a kind of physicality to it that I am in awe of, and naturally I had to build that in to Titanomachina.

Certainly collisions exist in Titanomachina, but body slams like this needed development. For one thing they needed the Impact trait, and an outcome where the defender wasn't smashed backwards. In their current form they are an attack, that can be reacted to, and that does not damage the attacker. 

Recently my regular opponent has adopted a kind of double-jump after using a Titan's sponson or turret to alter the direction of the jump. Indeed, last night I allowed my opponent to drive up his card advantage (having more cards in hand to play is a significant advantage) and then jump (into a two-habitat building of mine), spin and kick my Titan to the edge of the board, and then follow up with a second jump to execute a body slams through a non-aligned building. 

I could have used an arm to move out of the way, all I needed was to jink left or right and that second jump would not have pushed my Titan back. I could have played more cautiously. So, following the design of the game, I am somewhat complicit in my loss (I was ahead on buildings, I had used a coolant system to recover my master crew, vulcan gun, and a leg). Which is to say I didn't really see it coming as I was concentrating on carrying off a strategy that would have seen me use my master crew three times in four rounds. 

That is also why I don't have any picture to present of this three round game, because I wanted to really focus on the game.

Is the outcome ideal? As a player, no, although mainly because all I had to do was activate that arm. That my opponent won, instinctively it seems, is a good thing. Rather, it was that I made a tactical error with the arm and arguably a strategic error with the card advantage. As a designer, the game is working as intended and I was pleased that one player was able to punisher another player for complacency, inattentiveness, and perhaps over-confidence. A third player mentioned recently about how outcomes changed "with even an ounce of strategy" and after some thought I think I know what that ounce of strategy might have been.

Tethys is equipped with two jump jets and a capacitor, and with sufficient power accrued in Her player's hand can cross the board and outflank any other Titan in a single round. Furthermore, activating a jump jet and then a limb and then a jump jet again means Tethys jumping around the board like Mario. Which is to say, giving Her player the card advantage is blood in the water for a sea-monster.

The ounce of strategy is this: don't let your opponent get ahead of you in the number of cards they have in hand!