Neighbor

Alert

NeighborBorderless-1

Combat

Type

Power of Community

Shares Power with Neighbors

As an actor, during combat, use this power to add 1 might to your fleet for each ship you and the aliens to your left and right have in the targeted system that are not committed to either fleet. Exclude ships belonging to enemies.

Legacy: Each alien has a private chat with to aliens to their left and right at any time.

Don’t be scared. Your friendly neighborhood Neighbors are here bearing gifts and well-wishes. It’s a nice neighborhood, isn’t it? What do you think about expanding it?

Actor: Combat

Mandatory

Wild Flare

As a backward, when gaining backer boons, you may discharge this flare to gain an additional boon for each ship the defender committed.

Backward: Payoff

Super Flare

When using your power, you may instead add 1 might to your fleet for each ship any alien has in the targeted system, unless they are your enemies.

Actor: Combat

Modifications

  • Original power only includes your own ships. Modified to increase the power’s potency and add more interesting considerations for other aliens. Also makes it more thematic to the name.
  • Neighbor’s legacy allows free discussion between “neighbors”. They are capable of communicating freely in a way that speaks to two people at once, while keeping everyone else in the dark. Even in a 4-alien match, each alien will be left out of one chat, allowing for secret collusion and backstabbing. Since you are communicating to two people at once, there can be mystery as to who betrays you if your secrets leak. Any alien can benefit from this legacy, though powers better capable of backstabbing like Vacuum or Calculator can better leverage it. Original Cosmic has no legacies.

Tips

  • Neighbor lives and dies by its neighbors. If it can get them on their side, they can slowly build up their power and dominate everyone else. If they side against Neighbor, they can render it virtually ineffective.
  • Since Neighbor cannot change its neighbors during the match, it is fairly predictable who it will want to sponsor and commission. Winning encounters with its neighbors will give it additional power against those enemies in the future.
  • Neighbor is naturally weak against destiny, which can turn neighbors against one another.
  • If you are not one of Neighbor’s neighbors, it can be worth convincing one or both neighbors to your side to avoid having them gang up on you.

Development Notes

  • Neighbor’s power is set up in such a way that the theme would also work with poison or disease. The more Neighbor wins in a system, the more power it gains against that alien in the future, like it’s weakening their immune system.
  • Mechanically, the original Neighbor is considered rather weak. Similar to Macron, it is very strong defensively at the beginning of the match, but it has no combat bonus at all offensively. The more it wins in a specific system, the easier it becomes to win in the future, at the cost of some defensive power. It can pass the Human test after one win with 4-ships, but only in that specific system. The more aliens are in the match, the harder it is for Neighbor to get a foothold, since it has to spread its ships thinner. With my version, Neighbor is more capable of getting that combat bonus, provided it can keep its neighbors on its side. I find it interesting that Neighbor effectively has its original power if its neighbors turn against it, which feels appropriate for the theme. I have some concern that Neighbor united with both its neighbors is too strong, but I think the dependency on a three-way alliance keeps it in check. Too many things can go wrong, especially during the endgame. 
  • Neighbor is capable of steamrolling its competition if forming an ironclad alliance with its two neighbors. However, destiny makes it slightly more complicated. They can make deals, but my Cosmic doesn’t allow “base for base” deals. It’s also worth noting that nothing stops three players from ganging up on one in a normal match, and Neighbor forming an alliance with both neighbors isn’t always the ideal option. If one of the neighbors is a strong combat power like Virus or Gamer, or a sneaky invasion power like Disease or Benefactor, it can be dangerous to give them a bunch of extra support. Also, if one of the neighbors ends up with more or less dominion than the other two, it becomes harder to keep the alliance sturdy.
  • Thematically, I found the original power theme too insular. The power of community feels like it should extend beyond its own ships, and no other alien in Cosmic makes use of the “adjacent alien” design space, aside from my own alien Gale and a few flares. It’s an interesting idea to have an alien that gets a combat bonus by allying with two specific aliens chosen at the beginning of the match, especially with 6+ aliens in the match. Having them literally be “neighbors” feels very fitting.
  • My version of Neighbor reminds me of Cult, another alien that specializes in uniting aliens together for long-term alliances. I find it interesting how the two powers differ. Neighbor has two pre-assigned aliens that it needs to befriend, and all three keep their original identities. Cult makes other aliens Cult and wins by having an alien that becomes Cult win. It also locks them into the Cult and forces them to pay a steep penalty to leave once they join. Neighbor has no such penalty and simply deprives both aliens mutually of the benefits.
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