Extortionist
Alert
Resource
Destroy
Type
Power to Extort
Extorts Pods from Other Aliens
Whenever another alien claims pods, you may use this power to snatch half of those pods (rounded down) before the opponent adds them to their cache. That alien may allow you to snipe one of their ships to prevent you from snatching the pods.
Legacy: When an alien drafts pods or receive compensation, they receive half as much (rounded up).
By puppeting a series of powerful macrocorps, the Extortionists managed to dominate their homeworld from the shadows until bleeding it dry. Now their racket stretches across a few rundown galaxies, but they’re looking to expand.
Any: Any
Optional
Wild Flare
As a leader, at the start of negotiation, you may discharge this flare. If the opponent quashes the deal, they suffer double casualties.
Leader: Negotiation
Super Flare
When using your power, you may discharge this flare to prevent your opponent from letting you snipe a ship to avoid extortion.
Any: Any
Modifications
- Extortionist’s legacy reduces the total number of pods and compensation that can be drafted, generally capping out the number at 2. This effect punishes aliens like Hacker and Ethic who take advantage of compensation while being less punishing toward aliens like Remora who receive many small bursts of pod gain. Original Cosmic has no legacies.
Tips
- Extortionist can be a powerful base destroyer in the same vein as Assassin, but it can only destroy a base if an alien lets it do so. If the alien avoids having any one-ship bases, they can generally restrict Extortionist to just destroying ships and weakening bases.
- Due to the timing of Extortionist’s power, the alien receiving pods doesn’t get to see what they would get before Extortionist snatches them, meaning they won’t gain information about Extortionist’s cache. This also means they won’t know if it is a good or bad idea to give Extortionist half their pods, since they won’t know how powerful they are.
- Extortionist can even extort compensation that it would pay out, cutting its own losses by half. Though the opponent can prevent this by sacrificing a ship, it makes Extortionist a harsher target for compensation.
- The Wild Extortionist flare can be difficult to use since it requires a negotiation. Once other aliens know you have it, they will be unlikely to negotiate with you. However, that can be effective in its own right to dissuade compensation.
- Super Extortionist can guarantee pods over ships, meaning all pod drafting or compensation gain is a plus for Extortionist (at least once per invasion).
Development Notes
- I considered changing the name of Extortionist’s power to something like the power of “Coercion” or the power to “Gouge”, to avoid the redundancy, but I think Extort is specific enough to the theme that this can be an exception like Healer.
- I mostly kept Extortionist’s power as it is, as I find the overall design mostly solid. The only thing I changed was the addition of the legacy, since all my aliens have one.
- In terms of similarities, Extortionist is most comparable to my Lawyer. Both take advantage of other aliens gaining compensation. It would be interesting to see a game featuring both Extortionist and Lawyer. The way I figured out the timing, Lawyer’s power activates first, doubling the compensation and snatching as many pods as its power allows (generally 1-4 pods). Then Extortionist takes half of the remaining, meaning Lawyer can give Extortionist an additional pod if it takes 2 or less after doubling the number to 8 pods. Of course, the opponent can stop Extortionist from taking pods outright, but the additional threat from Lawyer incentivizes it. Lawyer may also stop Extortionist from taking pods from its own cache by objecting. Extortionist can still obtain half of the pods from the forge, but it cannot touch Lawyer’s cache without the opponent paying in Lucre.