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http://fantasyflightgames.com/edge_news.asp?eidn=2967
Cyborg - Basically uses Chosen's Divine Intervention at start of game and keeps the 3 cards on his sheet, being able to us the non-encounters whenever and the encounter cards even for his side.
Outclasses Chosen in every conceivable way except that you can see which cards he can use, and also not much different from Chosen at all. I'm not impressed.
Pygmy - Basically a waste of time to attack this player, it's like a loss of a turn fighting Pygmy because the reward is borderline worthless and it is possible you'll have no allies since no one can fit on the planets. Great defensive power but not much else.
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Alex Pseudonym
United States
San Diego
California
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Re: Reserving this space for the next alien
I don't understand why you have to reserve a space. Can't the thread just be created when the alien is announced? 
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Matthew M Monin
United States
Branford
Connecticut
8/8 FREE, PROTECTED
513ers Assemble!
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Re: Reserving this space for the next alien
Moved to General
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Jack Reda
United States
Herndon
Virginia
Guess the games in my uberbadge!
My favorite game is Cosmic Encounter.
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Re: Reserving this space for the next alien
Twofer: http://fantasyflightgames.com/edge_news.asp?eidn=2967
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Jefferson Krogh
United States
San Leandro
California
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Re: Reserving this space for the next alien
Congrats on getting Pygmy in there, Jack! Another good reason for me to add another custom player color to my set! 
Both these aliens look like interesting additions to the game.
I note that reprints of CE, CI and CC are on the boat as of today as well. CA is still at the press, according to the Upcoming page.
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Shemp Fill-in: Chan?
United States
Fountain Valley
California
Which way did I go?
Pick a card.
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Re: Reserving this space for the next alien
Who can spot the apparent error in Cyborg's power write up?
Spoiler (mouseover to reveal): Using a non-encounter card on the sheet is not shown as a use of the power. So the Cyborg cannot be zapped when using those cards. That may be as intended, but it seems inconsistent, and weird.
Pygmy - the first illustration to show more than one of the alien.
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Just a Bill
United States
Norfolk
Virginia
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Re: Reserving this space for the next alien
Phil Fleischmann wrote: Pygmy - the first illustration to show more than one of the alien.
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Big Head Zach
United States
Atlanta
Georgia
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Re: Reserving this space for the next alien
My favorite part of Pygmy?
The pilot wearing aviator sunglasses. I'm calling him/her/it "Maverick".
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'The Completist'
United States
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Re: Reserving this space for the next alien
Nice artwork.
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Re: Reserving this space for the next alien
Phil Fleischmann wrote: Who can spot the apparent error in Cyborg's power write up? Spoiler (mouseover to reveal): Using a non-encounter card on the sheet is not shown as a use of the power. So the Cyborg cannot be zapped when using those cards. That may be as intended, but it seems inconsistent, and weird.
The more interesting hole in the power is the "Give this flare to the $alien" Wild Flares (and oddballs like Wild Changeling and Wild Reincarnator)- the Flare goes to the $alien, but since it wasn't discarded it returns to the sheet. So Cyborg gets infinite uses of cards that weren't balanced to be used many times.
(Also, no thematic name for Cyborg's extra cards?)
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Jefferson Krogh
United States
San Leandro
California
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Re: Reserving this space for the next alien
Giving the card away is as good as discarding, to me. I'll play it as if they were the same, for Cyborg's purposes.
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Just a Bill
United States
Norfolk
Virginia
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Re: Reserving this space for the next alien
GregF wrote: The more interesting hole in the power is the "Give this flare to the $alien" Wild Flares (and oddballs like Wild Changeling and Wild Reincarnator)- the Flare goes to the $alien, but since it wasn't discarded it returns to the sheet. So Cyborg gets infinite uses of cards that weren't balanced to be used many times.
Yikes, that's an unfortunate gap. One of the proposed aliens in the "fan-designed" expansion removes special encounter cards from the game after use, but I suppose that problem would only occur in multi-power games or with stuff like Precursor Seed.
Some random observations:
* I like Cyborg's gameplay. Not sure I get the theme, but it sounds fun to play. Nice tradeoff between the flexibility and the fact that everyone knows what your extra cards are.
* Cyborg's three special cards are immune to Sargasso Web.
* I worry a bit that wording may have the same fragility as The Claw. Sort of wish it said that you draw a replacement when one of your three cards is lost for any reason.
* It appears that your new Cyborg 2012 Standard Edition comes equipped with a bowling ball return. 
* Pygmy's artwork is cute; reminds me of some of those troll/gremlin dolls from when I was a kid.
* Technically, the rounding occurs on a per-planet basis, not in aggregate, so no matter how many Pygmy worlds your opponents occupy they all add up to zero total foreign colonies. Which is good, because otherwise at game start your opponents would all gain an immediate joint win, since technically every one of your planets gives every other player half a colony even if they have no ships on it! (Yes, yes, I know what they meant. I just wish they would write it.)
* Now here's one where I don't know what they meant. How does this "landing order" business work? When somebody else wants to land there and Pygmy (or anyone else) already has ships on the planet, do the incumbent ships get booted off? In other words, does the "landing order" provision apply to only the ships that are actually landing, or to all all ships that have a claim on the planet? If the latter, then most effects that produce colonies in unusual ways (Siren, Prophet, Filth, Coldsleep Ship, etc.) will be booting occupying ships off of Pygmy planets right and left.
* When not all ships fit, I assume the excess go to other colonies. But what about situations where you are choosing which colony to go to intially (like most of the freebie colony effects, or Filth's offensive allies) ... do they have to pick a planet where they "fit", or can they just fill it up as much as possible and then send the others home? It's a bit odd that the fate of the excess ships is undefined here.
* However, once I know how to run it, I think I will really like that gameplay! Been wanting a king-of-the-hill effect in Cosmic for a very long time, and this is a pretty cool one. Should make alliance decisions quite interesting.
* I wonder why they thought it needed that REQUIRES UNUSED PLAYER COLOR stamp. Symbiote didn't.
* These are the only two aliens since Gambler to use the elongated template. As with Gambler, it seems to be unnecessary here, but I can't be sure. Regardless, it's not exactly ubalanced artistically and I wish they had tried a little harder to use the good one.
* Unzappable powers never quite feel right. One more of these and we'll be able to play a whole game where the Cosmic Zaps are dead cards. But I do like Pygmy way better than Symbiote. It's very unique.
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Jack Reda
United States
Herndon
Virginia
Guess the games in my uberbadge!
My favorite game is Cosmic Encounter.
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Re: Reserving this space for the next alien
The way I've been playing Pygmy is that you fill a planet until there are 4 ships, and if you can't fit any more, the excess return to other colonies. If there are already 4 ships there, and none are going away, then no more ships land. Occupying ships don't get booted off (except through the normal process of losing an encounter as a main player).
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Alex Pseudonym
United States
San Diego
California
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Re: Reserving this space for the next alien
Pygmy reminds me of my take on a variant in the forums, although I'm sure Jack Reda's version existed long before I came up with that.
I kind of wish they'd run all the powers by some rules lawyers or even careful readers before going to final print though.
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Jefferson Krogh
United States
San Leandro
California
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Re: Reserving this space for the next alien
Axxle wrote: Pygmy reminds me of my take on a variant in the forums, although I'm sure Jack Reda's version existed long before I came up with that. I kind of wish they'd run all the powers by some rules lawyers or even careful readers before going to final print though.
I think we worry about that 1000% more than the 99.9% of Cosmic players who don't post on the Internet.
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David Dawson
United States
Champaign
Illinois
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Re: Reserving this space for the next alien
I was wondering if Cyborg was just going to be Fantasy Flight's version of Mesmer, but after rereading it's definitely different enough that it won't supersede Mesmer if they decide to put it in eventually. Great reveal!
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Re: Reserving this space for the next alien
For some reason I am thoroughly unimpressed with the Cosmic Alliance aliens.
Animal and General are basically "ally with me and you get a card" aliens (Yes I know Animal has a reverse Grudge mechanic and general card rake in cards with enough allies but it's still too similar), I had high hopes and expectations for Cyborg, I expected it to be some amazingly clever idea that would "obsolete" alien power (which means effecting alien powers) but all it turned out to be is a Chosen variant with a permanent and visible Divine Intervention.
Pygmy is alright but I remember Jack's original version being not only do colonies in Pygmyville count as half but Pygmy only loses half his ships at a time in any encounter. Don't know why that was taken out.
I really hope they didn't botch Schizoid up.
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Shemp Fill-in: Chan?
United States
Fountain Valley
California
Which way did I go?
Pick a card.
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And why did they have to say "(rounding down)" in the Pygmy's power? As if anyone smart enough to play CE doesn't understand what "half" means. As if anyone smart enough to play CE can't figure out that four-and-a-half is less than five.
Bill Martinson wrote: * I like Cyborg's gameplay. Not sure I get the theme, but it sounds fun to play. Nice tradeoff between the flexibility and the fact that everyone knows what your extra cards are.
The theme fits about as well as most of the other aliens. Cyborg has extra "parts" implanted.
Quote: * Cyborg's three special cards are immune to Sargasso Web.
What makes you think that? Do powers automatically override Hazards?
Quote: * I worry a bit that wording may have the same fragility as The Claw. Sort of wish it said that you draw a replacement when one of your three cards is lost for any reason.
Yep. That's a leak.
Quote: * Pygmy's artwork is cute; reminds me of some of those troll/gremlin dolls from when I was a kid.
And it's another one that looks silly without a background. They're stacked on top of each other, but the one on the bottom is "standing" in space.
Quote: * Technically, the rounding occurs on a per-planet basis, not in aggregate, so no matter how many Pygmy worlds your opponents occupy they all add up to zero total foreign colonies. Which is good, because otherwise at game start your opponents would all gain an immediate joint win, since technically every one of your planets gives every other player half a colony even if they have no ships on it! (Yes, yes, I know what they meant. I just wish they would write it.)
That's a rather silly interpretation. They should have dropped the "rounding down".
Quote: * I wonder why they thought it needed that REQUIRES UNUSED PLAYER COLOR stamp. Symbiote didn't.
I guess they think most CE players are playing in the wilderness, without access to paper and writing implements, or are unable to draw five circles on a piece of paper, even if they have such materials.
Quote: * Unzappable powers never quite feel right. One more of these and we'll be able to play a whole game where the Cosmic Zaps are dead cards.
Other than Pygmy and Symbiote, what other ones are there that can't be zapped, lost, or copied? Granted, you could throw in Plant or Changeling into such a game, and it would be useless.
But yeah, Pygmy didn't need to be unzappable/unlosable/uncopyable (just as Symbiote didn't). They could have said:
"Whenever one or more ships are going to land on one of your planets, use this power to limit the total number of ships on that planet to four."
That part of the power can then be both zappable and copyable. And you could add:
"If this power is lost or stolen, merge your planets together in pairs to form five 'normal' planets, placing all the ships on each pair of Pygmy planets onto one of the new regular planets. If you acquire this power during the game, split each of your planets into two, dividing the ships on them between the two Pygmy planets as you wish."
Sure, it's a little extra work, but it's doable.
Also, I find it interesting that they used a real word for a real ethnic group for the name of a power. They probably should have called the power "Dwarf" or something like that. I'm sure they'd never consider calling a power "Japanese" or "Mexican" or "German".
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Jack Reda
United States
Herndon
Virginia
Guess the games in my uberbadge!
My favorite game is Cosmic Encounter.
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The word "pygmy" dates back to the Iliad (and thereabouts). A mythical race of dwarves. They could have called it "Dwarf", and then I'm sure someone would have complained that it demeans little people, like Warwick Davis.
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Just a Bill
United States
Norfolk
Virginia
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Messianic wrote: For some reason I am thoroughly unimpressed with the Cosmic Alliance aliens.
I agree that the first two are kinda boring, but I like these latter two. Wording issues aside, I actually look forward to playing them.
I look at it like this: Usually more content is developed for an expansion set than can fit, and one of the last tasks is deciding what to include and what to save for later. If (hypothetically) FFG were to post a news item today saying that they had made a mistake and the first two previews were actually in the "save for later" pile, I wouldn't mourn the loss at all. But if they made the same announcement for Cyborg or Pygmy, I would be disappointed. They have interesting mechanics, and both will affect the way my opponents and I think about the game.
Messianic wrote: I really hope they didn't botch Schizoid up.
Amen to that. It's very hard to imagine they can possibly "stick this landing", considering the complexity of the alien and FFG's track record on even simple stuff like Macron.
Phil Fleischmann wrote: Quote: * Cyborg's three special cards are immune to Sargasso Web. What makes you think that? Do powers automatically override Hazards?
Not in general, but Cyborg goes to extra trouble to have the cards' disposition determined by how they should "normally" be handled, rather than how they should currently be handled.
Phil Fleischmann wrote: I guess they think most CE players are playing in the wilderness, without access to paper and writing implements, or are unable to draw five circles on a piece of paper, even if they have such materials.
Sorry, I wasn't referring to players' ability to figure it out; I was referring to the inconsistency and sheer wastefulness of space on the card to invent a completely new (and ugly) way of doing what Symbiote has already done:
Had they not wasted that space on this completely unnecessary restriction line, they would not have even needed the goofy Gambler template. Written consistently with the Symbiote precedent, this effect fits just fine on the normal template within FFG's own font parameters.
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Adam McLean
United States
Tucson
Arizona
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I also like the new aliens that were introduced, and like most, I also like them better than the previous 2 .... although those will be good for new players or larger games since they are straight forward and easy to use.
As for Cyborg, I might have prefered he get to choose what those 3 cards would be (maybe that's his super flare), but having them faceup is interesting because, depending on what they are, could influence how others play the game, what cards they choose against you, etc. I enjoy aliens like that.
Pygmy could obviously lengthen the game, maybe not by much, because it may force a player, or players, to get a 6th colony. I actually really like the max ships idea for the planets, I would rather they have not used the Gambler template either and instead explained how to do that better, they could have cut down on their extensive history as well. It would be tough to have allies, unless everyone on your side is willing to send a total of 4 or less ships. They could have allowed for the Offense's side to agree how they would land ships, but I think using timing rules is a good idea ... fits the theme and plays like a background defensive power of the Pygmy.
Would a player with 5 foreign colonies who went for a joint win with a player who ended up with 5.5 foreign colonies still be a joint win ... or would that extra 1/2 colony make it a solo win? I assume it wouldn't matter but thought I'd throw that out there.
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Just a Bill
United States
Norfolk
Virginia
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oatesatm wrote: It would be tough [for Pygmy] to have allies, unless everyone on your side is willing to send a total of 4 or less ships.
I think in a lot of cases it won't be worth it for Pygmy to invite offensive allies. If you are able to bring 4 ships yourself, that's probably better than giving somebody else a chance at a foreign colony, unless of course their alien power helps you win, they have Reinforcements, etc.
It's interesting that the first two preview aliens encourage alliances, while the second two tend to discourage them. I think there will be stretches of time where Cyborg can't get an invitation from anybody because they fear the attack 06 on his alien sheet. He will ultimately have to ditch it himself on his own losing encounter and hope to not draw another low one. I can easily imagine entire games where Cyborg never gets an invite.
oatesatm wrote: Would a player with 5 foreign colonies who went for a joint win with a player who ended up with 5.5 foreign colonies still be a joint win
I say yes. If multiple players meet a victory condition — any victory condition — at the same time, they all win.
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Just a Bill
United States
Norfolk
Virginia
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oatesatm wrote: I would rather they have not used the Gambler template either
Turns out it was unnecessary in both cases. I've just verified that both aliens can be described on the standard templates within the established font limitations, using a tiny amount of appropriate editing*. I guess whoever is doing the layouts now doesn't know the rules, or didn't want to invest the effort to improve the text.
* I'll never understand why FFG so often seems to prefer the wasteful — and potentially leaky — approach of fully writing out both sides of what they assume to be a binary decision point, when the word otherwise is custom-made for this task, combining brevity, readability, and leak protection in one simple word.
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Messianic wrote: Outclasses Chosen in every conceivable way except that you can see which cards he can use, and also not much different from Chosen at all. I'm not impressed.
You're forgetting that Chosen can add a drawn Attack card to its original one, whereas Cyborg can only replace its encounter card. The difference between having only one Attack card being added to your total and having two is very much non-trivial; that's the whole premise of the Deuce power.
Messianic wrote: I really hope they didn't botch Schizoid up.
They've said that in addition to their Schizoid, which seems to use an extra deck of cards, there will also be a Classic Schizoid that functions like the original.
Phil Fleischmann wrote: And why did they have to say "(rounding down)" in the Pygmy's power? As if anyone smart enough to play CE doesn't understand what "half" means. As if anyone smart enough to play CE can't figure out that four-and-a-half is less than five.
In most cases, it is a stupid and unnecessary clause, but there are a few aliens that would care about it:
- When deciding whether the Sniveler is able to whine about colonies, the fact that any spare half-colonies don't count toward the total is highly relevant. Without the "(rounding down)" clause, a Sniveler with no foreign colonies could whine when someone else had only half a foreign colony, since the Sniveler would be behind as 0 < 0.5; with it, the Sniveler is tied for last at zero and therefore can't whine.
- The Pentaform needs to know whether a half-colony makes it evolve. If I'm the Mite when I have two foreign colonies and the Leviathan when I have three foreign colonies, then what am I when I have two and a half foreign colonies? The Mite, because I have fewer than three, or the Leviathan, because I have more than two?
- It also could be relevant for Schizoid victory conditions - if the Schizoid among other things requires a player to have exactly three foreign colonies to win, then the "(rounding down)" clause means that three and a half foreign colonies will suffice.
oatesatm wrote: Would a player with 5 foreign colonies who went for a joint win with a player who ended up with 5.5 foreign colonies still be a joint win ... or would that extra 1/2 colony make it a solo win? I assume it wouldn't matter but thought I'd throw that out there.
It would still be a joint win. It's already possible in Cosmic Encounter for players to win with different numbers of foreign colonies (The Claw losing and later regaining its power is the simplest and most straightforward way for this to happen, but there are also weird other ways of this occurring), and if this were not the case we would end up with weird math regarding the Tick-Tock ruling (if a Tick-Tock win equals a six-colony win and a Tick-Tock win equals a five-colony win but a six-colony win is greater than a five-colony win then we no longer have transitivity).
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Shemp Fill-in: Chan?
United States
Fountain Valley
California
Which way did I go?
Pick a card.
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Bill Martinson wrote: Phil Fleischmann wrote: Quote: * Cyborg's three special cards are immune to Sargasso Web. What makes you think that? Do powers automatically override Hazards? Not in general, but Cyborg goes to extra trouble to have the cards' disposition determined by how they should "normally" be handled, rather than how they should currently be handled.
Yes, but the Sargasso Web doesn't care about how they are "normally" handled - the cards are to be removed from the game as soon as they have their effect. Neither references the other. "Discarded" is not the same as "Removed from the game".
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Posted Sat Jan 7, 2012 2:32 am
