Barbarian

Alert

Resource

Destroy

Type

Power to Pillage

Destroys Enemy Caches

As a leader, after payoff following you winning in combat, use this power to abduct the opponent’s cache and all lucre. You may claim one pod from that cache and scrap all unclaimed pods. Your opponent may then draft 8 pods as “relief aid”.

Legacy: When a leader loses combat, they must scrap their cache. Then they receive relief aid.

After repelling an alien invasion and appropriating their space technology, the Barbarians launched a campaign to bring back “traditional” invasions like the good old terrestrial days. Some may call their methods wasteful, but proof of victory only requires one trophy.

Invader: Payoff

Mandatory

Wild Flare

As a leader, after payoff following you winning in combat, you may discharge this flare to make your opponent give you their cache, one pod at a time. Claim or scrap each pod given. After claiming a pod, your opponent keeps the remainder of their cache.

Leader: Payoff

Super Flare

As a sponsor, after payoff following your leader winning in combat, you may discharge this flare to use your power.

Sponsor: Payoff

Modifications

Original power is the power to “loot and pillage.” Shortened to pillage to follow my rule that power names are not longer than two words.
Original power is invader-only. Made leader-only to increase its notability.
Gave original Vulture’s wild flare to Barbarian. Original Barbarian’s wild flare lets you discard unwanted compensation or bounties.
Similarly, the original super flare is foreward only. Updated to sponsor-only.
Added the clause that lets Barbarian loot all lucre, increasing the functionality of the power. Original Cosmic has no lucre.
Barbarian’s legacy causes anyone who loses to scrap their cache, putting everyone in the “berserker rage” mode at all times. Everyone is incentivized to use everything in their power at all times, especially with a strong cache, and compensation becomes meaningless, except for weakening the enemy cache in a hopeless situation. Original Cosmic has no legacies.

Tips

Losing to Barbarian can be both a blessing and a curse. If you have a bad cache, it can be beneficial to throw a match against them for a resupply.
Compensation procs after Barbarian’s power, making them resistant to compensation tactics. Any compensation gained will be scrapped, though Barbarian’s hand can be reduced if opposed by more than one engaged ship.
Since losing to Barbarian means losing your cache, holding back can be a major gamble. Barbarian can take advantage of this to tempt their opponents into blowing their best pods early, particularly when Barbarian is the defender.
Barbarian is not required to take a pod if the opponent’s cache is garbage. They can burn it all down if desired.
Since Barbarian takes the pod after abducting the cache, its opponent won’t know which pod Barbarian takes. However, they can easily figure it out if they look at the pods that were scrapped and remember which one isn’t there. This can make it more advantageous for Barbarian to take large caches, making it more difficult to deduce.

Development Notes

Barbarian is a tricky power to balance in terms of fun factor, as it’s double situational despite being mandatory. Not only is it invader-only, but it’s win-based, greatly limiting how much use it will see in a game, especially in a larger match. Thematically, I like the idea that Barbarian is invader-only, as barbarians are known for invading. However, logistically, there’s no reason that the Barbarian wouldn’t pillage their enemies when on the defensive, as otherwise it would imply that the enemy’s physical cache is only present when acting as a defender. That makes me question aliens like Tide who can wash away a cache as either invader or defender.
This power’s interaction with compensation makes a huge difference in its design, and it’s another factor that makes Barbarian’s original design underwhelming. If it procs before compensation is paid, aliens can reduce the destruction by negotiating. If it procs after, Barbarian will still wipe out the enemy hand. It will lose pods, but it can keep its favorite at the cost of not getting any from the opponent. Thematically, I determined it makes the most sense for it to proc after compensation, effectively nullifying the benefit opponents would gain from it, aside from harming Barbarian’s cache. My only concern was whether this makes Barbarian too potent in tandem with increasing how often it can use its power.
As a green alert alien, Barbarian should be less dangerous than Void if it used its power just as often. It should be on the same level as Cudgel instead. Since bases are more difficult to earn back in my Cosmic, I think this could be true. Void vaporizes all enemy ships, targeting more than just the opponent, while Barbarian and Cudgel only hit the opponent.
One of my ideas for making a Barbarian variant is to force it to discard its own cache when it loses, allowing it to get a new one. Since it only happens on loss, this helps it to get a resupply when it can’t win, and it also puts it into “berserker mode” like its opponent.
Barbarian is an excellent example of an alien whose concept can cause balance issues with later ideas down the line. Particularly, Barbarian’s interaction with Benefactor. In a Barbarian-Benefactor matchup, every time Barbarian wins as an invader, Benefactor usually also gets a free base. It doesn’t happen immediately, but it means Barbarian’s strength is simply fuel for Benefactor. It’s somewhat fitting that Barbarian creates ruins which fuel Benefactor’s power, but it’s an anti-synergy that needs to be addressed. The solution I came up with was to allow the opponent to draft 8 new pods without requesting a resupply. This change makes it so that Barbarian doesn’t consume enemy resupplies with its power and the Barbarian-Benefactor matchup doesn’t unfairly benefit Benefactor. The opponent may refuse this “charity” from the Federation in favor of a resupply if they wish, since the eight pods they draft do not grant them any lucre. It helps Barbarian safely remain in the green-alert territory, since the potency is meant to come from wrecking the cache and gaining a pod, rather than burning through resupplies.
Due to Heart’s power also being capable of bleeding enemy caches dry, I think Barbarian would be fine if its power stole resupplies. However, since Barbarian’s power is mandatory and win-based, I want to keep the relief aid mechanic as a countermeasure to Benefactor.
I like the aspect of this power that Barbarian destroys all but one pod from its pillaging. It’s fittingly wasteful and indicative of their primitive means of cache seizing. I could base it off engaged ship count, but then defensive Barbarian gains no pods if being attacked on an empty planet. They just destroy the enemy’s cache.
Wild Barbarian would be subject to abuse if it could be used too often since it could force aliens to run out of free resupplies. However, since it is limited to winning as a leader, I think it is balanced. It becomes much more difficult to target aliens specifically and would require aliens to potentially scrap good pods to pull it off. I also set the effect to activate after payoff as a safety valve so that compensation can potentially steal the flare.
The addition of the lucre clause somewhat gets in the way of the Barbarian’s “trophy” aesthetic, but I still think it makes more sense for them to take all the “loot” and then a trophy as a separate matter. If the opponent has no lucre, it still works normally, so Barbarian’s presence inspires everyone to spend their lucre as quickly as possible, making saving for vouchers riskier.