Miser

Alert

Resource

Type

Power to Hoard

Secures Pods in Hoard

Setup: When receiving provisions, receive an additional resupply and shroud it in a secure “hoard.” Shroud your hoard in your nexus.

Whenever an aspect targets your cache, use this power to add all of your pods from your cache to your hoard. After the aspect resolves, add any number of pods from your hoard to your cache, until you have up to 8 pods in your cache.

Whenever you discharge a pod, use this power to add a pod from your hoard to your cache.

At any time, if your hoard has no encounter pods, you may request a free resupply of your hoard.

Legacy: When receiving a resupply, aliens receive 2 additional pods and 1 additional lucre.

Though oft criticized as stingy, the Misers care to think of themselves as forward-thinking. They never know what tomorrow will hold, so they like to have a nice stockpile of possessions just in case. Never mind that their rainy day fund could buy them a few well-sized planetoids if the need arose.

Any: Any

Mandatory

Wild Flare

When receiving a resupply or paying compensation, you may discharge this flare to create a secret “mini-hoard” of this flare and 2 pods in your cache and place those cards in your nexus. During bookkeeping, add those pods to your cache.

Any: Any

Super Flare

During any orientation, you may discharge this flare to draft one pod and add it to your hoard.

Any: Orientation

Modifications

Miser received a complete overhaul in comparison to its original iteration. The original power from the base game simply receives a second cache that no one else can mess with. The ‘use’ clause activates when Miser uses a pod from its hoard instead of its hand. I find this to clash with the theme because the power is being used to pull pods from the hoard rather than the power itself hoarding. My version has as much of a focus on protecting and hoarding pods as getting the second cache. The only “use” clause refers to the hoarding part.
I added the ability for Miser to protect its pods when its hand is targeted, as well as the passive effect that adds pods from the hoard back to the hand. The former gives Miser protection, while the latter prevents another alien from targeting Miser’s cache during their turn as invader and forcing them to fight with no pods.
Changed the power from optional to mandatory, since Miser’s greediness is not an option.
My version of Miser cannot use pods directly from its hoard, similar to Cryo. However, it can add them to its hand more easily, giving it limited use of all sixteen pods as opposed to the unlimited use the base power has.
Miser’s legacy makes resupplies more potent, increasing the drafted pod count from 8 to 10 and lucre count from 2 to 3. This also makes it take longer to deplete a cache, which is more valuable for aliens that can run through pods quickly like Merchant, Invader, and Porcupine. Original Cosmic has no legacies.

Tips

Miser is effectively immune to compensation. When attempting to get Miser to pay out, it will clean out its cache and hoard it all, preventing the payee from receiving anything. Then during the end of the encounter, Miser will add back the pods it wants from hoard to cache. Miser is unique in that it is capable of gaining a large number of pods without becoming a compensation magnet.
If Miser’s cache is never targeted, the primary use of its power will be slowly fillings its cache with pods from its hoard for later use. Miser is free to ignore its cache if its wants.
Miser starts off with twice as many pods as the average alien, but it is almost impossible for it to get rid of them without discharging them. A Miser with a bad cache will want to keep pods in its hoard so it can get a resupply as fast as possible. Since deals do not target, it is possible for Miser to give away pods from its cache as part of a deal. However, it cannot make a deal using pods from its hoard, and it can be difficult for Miser to negotiate due to its immunity to compensation.
When resupplying the hoard, Miser does not protect any of the pods currently in the hoard. Consider transferring any desired pods to the cache before requesting the resupply, as those pods can be always transferred back to the hoard from the cache if targeted.

Development Notes

Miser has been one of the most difficult aliens to restructure in the Prime Galaxy due to the balance needed to be maintained between gameplay and theme. Aside from the theme of hoarding being off, the big mechanical issue with Miser is its dependence on its draws. A Miser that draws sixteen lackluster pods effectively has no power. My first attempt was to let Miser swap its cache with its hoard, to allow it more flexibility as to what it gives away. This didn’t quite gel with the theme, since it made Miser’s allegiance to its hoard more flippant.
My second idea was to have Miser add pods from cache to hoard (until the hoard has 8 pods) at the start of each destiny phase as a leader and add pods from hoard to cache (until the cache has 8 pods) during each upkeep phase as a leader (before compensation). This created a balancing act between hoard and cache that the user would need to keep in mind, and it kept the mechanic of Miser effectively being able to use all sixteen pods from the start, but it still didn’t quite match the theme. I wanted the power itself to put more weight on pods going from cache to hoard than vice versa. Having it be so balanced is what was throwing me off.
Eventually I arrived at my current iteration, which has built-in pod protection and optional hoard-to-cache filling at the end. Miser drip-feeds pods from its hoard to its cache as a means of “reverse-hoarding”, since it likes both to be as full as possible. My hope is that this will allow Miser to empty its hand or hoard faster, as it can isolate one of them to only have support pods. Resupply counts as an effect that targets the cache, so if the hand gets filled up, Miser can store any of those support pods for later.
Made Miser’s power add all pods from cache to hoard when targeted to avoid overlap with Hacker. Enemies get no pods from Miser instead of specific ones Miser leaves.
The main alien to compare with Miser is Cryo, the other key alien that gets a “second cache.” Cryo’s gimmick is to slowly create a second cache over time, gaining the ability to resupply itself with its own second cache after it gets large enough to count as a resupply (8 pods). Miser starts out with the second cache and wears it down over time. This is true for both my version and the original. My version adds the additional pod protection that Cryo lacks, as Cryo needs to think ahead to protect its pods while Miser’s greed automatically reacts. As a tradeoff, Miser tries to protect everything, while Cryo has to choose to protect only what it wants to keep.
Considering if Miser should start with 8 extra pods or 8 extra lucre. It has me interested in making variants of my aliens, like sub-species that evolved differently. I could even palette swap the art and put them on a different tab. Just need to figure out how to implement that in the website. I do think 8 pods works better for the original, to give Miser more options at the start.
Since lucre no longer takes the form of pods, lucre is the only thing Miser can pay for compensation. It would be horrendously unfitting if Miser’s power forced it to pay what is essentially money, so my ruling is that Miser’s power “dodges the timing” of paying lucre. Its cache is targeted to snatch 1-4 pods, Miser uses its power to hide its pods in its cache, and then there are no pods to snatch. When paying compensation, the amount of lucre paid is decided before the pods are snatched to reduce the number. Once the number is confirmed, the timing of that aspect has already passed. The only way Miser would lose lucre is if it doesn’t have enough pods before using its power, which is unlikely due to how its power keeps its cache filled. Perhaps this mechanic is a little complex for a green alert power, but I think a new player should be able to use it without needing to fully understand it. If necessary, they can play a match in the Stingy Dimension to reduce confusion.