Aristocrat
Alert
Resource
Type
Power of Affluence
Receives Luxury Goods
Setup: You receive provisions first. Your provisions are “premium.” Abduct the necessary number of pods of your choosing from the forge, or as lucre. You may not abduct your own flare.
As a leader, after arrival, use this power to manifest a random flare and add it to your cache. Then, if you have two or more untethered flares in your cache, vaporize one of them.
Legacy: Every alien receives one free premium resupply, in addition to their normal free resupplies.
No matter where you travel in the Cosmos, wealth and nobility stand at the top. Looking down on those of less noble birth, the Aristocrats serve as a testament to the intangible power of high society. They have come to know that with enough grease, the sword bends to the silver spoon.
Leader: Arrival
Mandatory
Wild Flare
During any warpfall, you may discharge this flare to abduct a pod of your choice from the forge. Burnout.
Any: Warpfall
Super Flare
When using your power, you may discharge this flare to instead abduct a pod from any forge.
Leader: Arrival
Modifications
- Originally the power of privilege. Changed to affluence to give privilege to Oligarch.
- Original Aristocrat is optional. Changed to mandatory due to being pointlessly optional.
- Original Super Aristocrat has a burnout flare that can manifest three random flares and pick one, or manifest a flare of its choosing by searching through them.
- Aristocrat’s legacy gives every alien a free resupply, and that resupply is premium in addition. The legacy incentivizes aliens to pursue resupplies so they can min-max their cache with the best possible pods. The legacy can get very sticky with Benefactor, almost making the power first-come, first-serve. Aliens that can easily empty their cache like Porcupine or Fodder can take greater advantage of this power, as well as aliens that benefit from obtaining specific pods like Volt and Pacifist. Aliens that specialize in gaining pods like Healer and Remora can be punished by this legacy, since the pods they receive will likely not be as useful as gaining any specific eight pods of choice. Original Cosmic has no legacies.
Tips
- Aristocrat will want to draft a starting cache that is potent enough for an early start but not vulnerable to compensation. Aristocrat can even gamble on being hit with compensation by taking the 40 pod, a flare, and a bunch of junk. Alternatively, it can grab an Ionic Gas to keep its cache safe from compensation.
- Aristocrat can start with the flares of other aliens in its cache to prevent them from obtaining them. By discharging the flares during payoff, it can avoid its opponent obtaining its super flare.
- Aristocrat can always have a flare on-hand, and it has no risk to trying for a new one. If it prefers its current flare, it can vaporize the new one instead.
Development Notes
- Most aliens from the Dominion Galaxy are on-point in terms of both theme and mechanics, and Aristocrat is a good example of that trend. The power gives it the aura of one that receives special treatment, due to either wealth or status. Aristocrat feels like the alien that Butler was designed to serve, always getting what it wants since it can afford to pay for it. The vaporization of untethered flares after they are no longer needed is evocative of the wasteful wealth associated with the most extreme nobility.
- Aristocrat is naturally red alert due to requiring a decent understanding of the pods in the match. A newcomer to Cosmic Encounter would have no idea which pods to abduct during setup, dramatically reducing the utility of that aspect of the power. If Aristocrat only had the use clause as its power, I could see it only being yellow alert, like the similarly designed Host with its flare-based power.
- Aristocrat is the first alien to specialize in flares, a mechanic that has been around since the beginning. Chrysalis is the only other alien power that even mentions flares up until Dominion, and it is only my version of the power that does so. While there are several aliens that come later which deal with flares, Aristocrat is perhaps the simplest. It simply always has a flare on-hand. If it doesn’t like its current flare, it can “re-roll”. The specification of untethered flares allows it to make use of other alien flares without losing the one it gets from its power. It can even play goalie by using its setup clause to snatch up tethered flares and keep them away from other aliens for a good while.
- My biggest concern with Aristocrat’s design is the metagame that could form around the pods Aristocrat chooses from its provisions. Having that much freedom lends itself to the “best” starting hand being figured out and making the power boring. Originally I wasn’t planning to allow any amount of lucre to be chosen, until I decided that lucre should not be carried over during a resupply. If it could, Aristocrat could start with 10 lucre and immediately get a free resupply for a full cache plus 12 lucre. With the current setup, it would simply be a waste of the power, since getting 8-10 specific pods would be much more valuable than starting off with no encounter pods.