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variants - ent

From: "HKU student" <h00xxxxx@hkusua.hku.hk>
Subject: Variant on Titan(AH)

This variant on the classic AH boardgame of Titan aims at three things: 1)Speed up the game 2)Retain the joy of mustering through the lines 3)Encourage aggressiveness and more actions


Rules change:
1)Every player start with a SINGLE legion of a titan, gargoyle, centaur and ogre. No split is allowed in the 1st turn and the 1st angel has to be earned.


2)If a titan SLAYS a creature, the player earns doubled points of that slain creature.
Example: During the strike phase, a ranger scores 2 hits on an enemy centaur first, then the titan finishes the centaur with 2 hits. After the combat, the centaur is tallied 24 pts instead of 12 pts. Note that if the titan scores 2 hits first, and the ranger scores another 2 hits to finish the centaur, the player can earn 12 pts only.


OPTIONAL
3)The angel is upgraded for every 300 pts earned.
Thus a player who has 600 pts has 8*-4 angels.


Designer's notes and commentary:
These sets of rules were originally developed by a group of dedicated titan fanatics at the university of Hong Kong. Subsequent playtesting showed that the rules retain most of the flavours of the original game without the turturous long play often associated with the game.


The REMOVAL of the initial ANGEL LEGION has the suprising effects of speeding up the game. In the original game, the presence of the angel legion is a deterrent for early split-up. Many players are unwilling to split their legions early on for fear of the angel legion. Coupled with limited room for manouevring, the game boggles down to enfeebled actions of dancing around the starting tower. 2 or 3 hours may pass without major battles or mustering of any truly powerful creatures. With rule 1, players are found to split often and early to proliferate across the gameboard. The game rarely lasts for more than 2 hours and hydras, serpents and colossi often roaming across the board within that time period-a scene seldom if ever witnessed in the original game.


The second effects of rule 1 are the levelling out the 'lucky' element in the strategic game level. Because everyone starts with only one of each basic tower creatures, he is unlikely to muster equally fast in all 3 lines. For example, a player may be really fast in arriving serpent, but that also implies he gets few musterings on the hydra and colossus lines of creatures, so other players can still put a fight by concentrating on the remaining 2 lines of mustering. This is in stark contrast with the original game where the lucky player often have a powerful line plus another line that is only mildly behind other players.


The preservation of existing pedigree of mustering is the most beautiful aspect of the game as far as our group is concerned. Any change would either make the mustering line too long, too short or deprive it of the subtlety of cross-breeding of hydra/colossus line.


Rules 2 and 3 are made to encourage aggressiveness. We believe that bravery should be justly rewarded. Titan, arguably the most powerful unit provided, should be more often deployed in battles. Together with rule 3 we provide an alternative strategy other than mustering the most powerful creatures. Now, a really bloodily powerful titan could stand up to a horde of colossi or serpents, provided that the titan is powerful enough.


So far more than 500 games have been played according to these new rules and we found that they worked better than the original game. The fervour has solidified and expanded and we felt confidently to be called titanatics.