Groovy!  You've expertly tracked me down once again. 

Nice try with the Antimatter, but Industrialist can subtract his stack.  I'd group him in the 'big boys' club with Warrior, Warpish, Leviathan and Virus (sorry Macrons need not apply), which puts him in good company...but unlike the rest of this group, Industrialist laughs at Loser and AM.

As far as the reprint on the base game, someone mentioned they thought it was due this spring somewhere in another thread.  You could keep your eye on ebay for one if you don't mind paying premium$ or maybe get lucky.   Either way, grab the first expansion before you have the same problem!

Prepare yourself for our Cosmic clash this summer!

One thing I see a few people saying is that the power only works after they lose a couple encounters.  This isn't true.  The intimidation factor makes sure they will usually win playing strong attack cards more often than other players too.  In one of our games, the first encounter with industrialist had him losing after playing with a 21.  There were like five allies against him.  He ended up taking a colony anyway, just because most players didn't want him to have that card in his stack.  Typically, everyone gets a starting hand with a couple winner cards and a bunch of losers.  You need to lose a few encounters, its just part of the game.  The trick is to take something valuable from your opponents even when you lose.  I don't see how losing just three encounters is such a big deal unless you are the first to do it.  Since their strength usually  increases so quickly, it seems very difficult to rally against them to take the power away.  If anyone has been successful trying this, let me know.

I mean, the fact that it eclipses other official powers is a red flag by itself in my opinion.

Usually, if you lose three encounters, you're not going to win the game.

I've seen Industrialist three times so far in games.  Twice, it wasn't even a factor.  Just a terrible power that never got off the ground.  The third game, it won, but only because its destiny was drawn for the first two encounters of the game.  It tanked each encounter with an 08 and an 04 not individually big enough to warrant his opponent giving him a win on defense.  The +12 from that point helped Industrialist charge ahead, but he was always in danger of losing that third home colony.  And he still needed a Force Field to get the win on his last encounter.

Prophet and Xenophile have far more effect on games.  I've seen Xenophile pick up a +12 on a single defensive encounter, AND gain compensation.  Try doing that with Industrialist.  You can't.

Kobold Curry Chef said:

Yikes, more than 12+?!  There are certain things you just don't do when encountering certain aliens like driving a hard bargain when negotiating with the Zombie.  Gathering four allies together to encounter the Xenophile is one of these, and one easily avoided toounless some weird flare comes up, which I can't rule out.  I don't think this is a fair comparison with having to let Industrialist win encounters to avoid even greater and more intractable future gains.

I do recognize that there are game scenereos, especially in larger games, where Industrialist is likely to lose but I could say the same thing for an alien whose power was to automatically win every encounter as long as they play an attack card.  This just can't be used as the sole criteria for determining whether a power is solid and not broken.

I played a game with all aliens allowed the other day and Industrialist came up. The Player that got it ended up hating it and decided not to play it again. Once all the other players heard its power they all decided to gang up on it out of fear. Everyone reserved cosmic zaps to make sure they could beat it (which worked a treat as the Vulch was in the game and he kept zapping the industrialist) and then everytime the industrialist came up everyone would stand against it. Wasnt long before he lost his power due to too few home planets. Even the plant, which consistently grafted the industrialists power , didnt win. As it stands the Vulch won in the end. I don't think the industrialist is broken, I think it requires a bit more strategy to beat on the part of the other players. As I said the player that got it decided not to pick it again as she didn't like being ganged up on, and she ended up coming last in the game.

Hugesinker said:

Cosmic Encounter is a social game.  This is key.  In this case, I just appealed to people's greed.   I was the defense.  The offense asked for allies first, and asked everyone.  I didn't want any allies, and made it clear I planned to lose. The first guy chipped on on offense, then the second.  Then the rest figured they didn't want fall behind by passing up a free colony.  Next thing you know, three of the six non-main players were allied on offense.  Fully half of the group were able to resist the lure, but the rest did not.

Gicih's example is another perfect example of how aliens should be viewed through a social lens as well as a pure mathematical one. If a power looks like a powerhouse, it often ends up weaker in the game than others simply because it becomes a target for Zaps. In that game, Vulch was the powerhouse, because he exploited the fear of Industrialist.