Pacifist
Alert
Diplomacy
Type
Power of Peace
Wins with Negotiate Pods
As a leader, during a massacre, if you deploy an envoy, use this power to win the encounter peacefully.
As a leader, during combat, subtract 5 might from your fleet.
Legacy: If an envoy opposes a brigade, the envoy wins the encounter peacefully.
No one suspected the sanctimonious Pacifists would harbor any sort of desire of Cosmic domination. But then, no one suspected how far they would go to stop violence once and for all.
Leader: Massacre
Mandatory
Wild Flare
As a leader, during a massacre, if your fleet is an envoy, you may discharge this flare to morph your pod to a 15 attack pod.
Leader: Contact
Super Flare
When you are the leader during a negotiation, you may discharge this flare to make your ships impervious.
Leader: Negotiation
Modifications
- I modified Pacifist’s base power to make Pacifist’s special auto-win mechanic peaceful to invoke more of the theme. It makes more sense to me that Pacifist can negotiate their way through a fleet of warships with their power, as opposed to destroying their enemies with it. The original power simply wins combat with negotiates.
- Pacifist’s original super flare works with the base game’s negotiation system, which doesn’t have leverage. The original effect makes the opponent lose more ships and Pacifist lose fewer, giving Pacifist “leverage” in encounters. My version gives Pacifist double authority, allowing it to gain leverage easier and gain more from leverage.
- Pacifist’s legacy allows everyone to win peacefully via negotiating, dramatically increasing the power of negotiate pods and making negotiation much more likely. Morph pods and therapy pods also gain more value as a means of hedging your bets against an opponent’s potential envoy. Original Cosmic has no legacies.
Tips
- Due to Pacifist’s mandatory effect, it is naturally unable to gain compensation unless zapped. This can make it more difficult for Pacifist to restock its pool of negotiates once it uses them all. A Pacifist with no negotiates has no power and cannot negotiate, so using them wisely is important for Pacifist to succeed.
- Winning combat normally is effectively impossible if Pacifist sends an envoy. However, Pacifist won’t be destroying any ships either due to its peaceful victories. Opposing Pacifist with negotiates has a higher chance of getting a negotiation than average aliens, but Pacifist can take advantage of this to trick someone into playing negotiations. This can be very effective if Pacifist wishes to dump their cache.
- Pacifist can use its power on defense to preserve its home bases, making future negotiation more accommodating. Its power can also backfire if overused, as peaceful victories preserve the opponent’s authority as well.
- Thanks to Pacifist’s ability, it is easier for Pacifist to naturally force a negotiation, since the opponent can essentially be forced to either send an envoy or lose. The super flare lets Pacifist get leverage easier, as well as get more out of leverage if a negotiation falls through.
Development Notes
- This power is one that allowed me to identify the importance of distinguishing between pod types and fleet types. Powers like Heart and Empath transform the fleet instead of morphing the pod. While Empath is actually a counter to Pacifist, Heart allows Pacifist to win much easier with its power, since it transforms the fleet into an envoy. Of course, morphing the pod will also transform the fleet, so the fleet transformation is more all-encompassing. Since Heart’s power is optional, the real threat comes from Heart’s legacy, which allows Pacifist to win with any pod 06 or less, in addition to Ns. Opponents still have the option of playing their own Ns against it, which are much easier to come by, but it definitely makes Pacifist scarier.
- The wild flare gives me the idea that, similar to Clone’s power, the flare could actually change the inherent value of the affected pod, but this might be too deleterious to Pacifist since it removes Ns from the pool.