Artist
Alert
Resource
Destroy
Type
Power to Paint
Earns Lucre Through Color
As a leader, after launch, use this power to gain one lucre for each of your planets with a unique color combination of two or more bases.
At the start of your orientation, use this power to transfer any bases in your system (home or foreign) to any planets in your system. Persistent.
Special Offer: Transfer 1 base (home or foreign) in your system to another planet in your system for 3 influence.
Legacy: At the start of each orientation, aliens may draft one pod for each Artist base in their system. If Artist has no foreign bases, place one in each system.
Since they first left their monochrome husk of a home planet, the Artists sought to give the empty void of space a splash of color. After seeing their great works go unappreciated for eons, they now seek to make the entire Cosmos their canvas.
Leader: Launch
Invader: Orientation
Mandatory
Wild Flare
At the start of your orientation, you may discharge this flare to draft one pod for each planet in any system that contains a foreign colony.
Leader: Contact
Super Flare
When using your power to gain lucre, you may discharge this flare to gain one lucre for each of your planets with either one or zero bases on it.
Leader: Launch
Modifications
- Artist is my own original alien and does not exist in the base game.
- My original design gave Artist boons for its paintings and let Artist earn an additional one for having a combination with 4 or more unique colors. I determined that this was too much gain, so I reduced the amount and made it lucre instead of boons.
- My original Artist did not have the special offer.
- Artist’s legacy gives an advantage to a player that was most invaded by Artist. If Artist invaded no one, it gives every alien +1 draft per campaign instead. Original Cosmic has no legacies.
Tips
- Artist starts out poor and unknown, since none of its planets originally have more than one color on it originally. If it can paint well, it can gain up to 5 boons each time it acts as a leader.
- Similar to Fan, Artist wants many different aliens invading them at a time, so it can get a bunch of different colors to paint with. Even if they all dogpile onto one planet, Artist can paint them onto different planets later, to get those unique color combinations and mine lucre.
- Artist’s power to rearrange bases has two functions. One is to maximize resource gain by having unique color combinations on every planet. The other is to combine all of one color onto one planet, to reduce the number of foreign bases another alien has. Artist will have to decide which use is more valuable given the situation, as they are usually mutually exclusive.
- Artist transfers bases, not individual ships. Once Artist combines two bases into one, it can’t separate them. Pay attention to this factor if you’re looking to maximize gain.
- Negotiating with Artist can give you the chance to merge two bases in your system into one, useful if another alien has invaded you multiple times.
Development Notes
- Artist’s design was meant to take advantage of the fact that ships use color to note distinction between them. This means that it is a factor that applies both in-universe and out-of-universe.
- Artist’s super flare is meant to represent an Artist becoming super popular and famous, to the point where their name alone can sell minimalist “modern” artwork.
- In order to get enough color combinations to max out its lucre gain, Artist needs at least 4 different colors, including its own. With three colors, Artist only gets 3 unique color combinations. With 4, Artist gets more than enough.
- As a lucre-based power, I knew Artist needed a special offer. The ability to commission the Artist to paint something works nicely, and the higher influence cost should prevent it from being spammed.
- Artist’s power naturally counters Disease, though Disease’s power is capable of acting with much more frequency. The idea that art cures disease is pretentious enough for me to get on board.
- Artist’s ability to destroy foreign bases makes me wary that it should be green alert. Unlike most base destroyers, Artist can only destroy bases in its own system, and it can destroy all but one of them at the start of its own campaign. However, the power is fairly uncomplicated otherwise and doesn’t require any deep understanding of the game to maximize lucre gain. It acts as a beginner-friendly alien to the concept of lucre, similar to Miser.
- Artist is perhaps more capable of gaining lucre than any other alien. It is limited by its ability to “cash-out” only one per invasion, but it can still use the lucre for bribes much better than most aliens can.