CE alien survey #15: AMOEBA

First appearance: Eon base set.

Plain-English power: Your ships move in and out of encounters (even above the limit of 4 or down to 0).

Loved by: Players who want to be flexible or escape from a no-win scenario.

Loathed by: Anyone without reinforcements.

Three ways to win as Amoeba:

1. Be cautious about oozing more ships in. When you have a great encounter card, or something else up your sleeve as a backup ... that's when it's safest to do it. Holding a Mobius Tubes is a great time to ooze all over the place.
2. Start by attacking with four ships. It helps you to get allies when you want them, and you can always ooze down to one or none if you aren't confident. Oozing out of a situation that doesn't look promising is half of your power.
3. Always keep track of how many ships you can afford to lose. If you go in too big and lose, you could lose your power altogether. You're your own reinforcements.

Three ways to win against Amoeba:

1. He's more likely to ooze in when he has a lot of allies, figuring the numbers are on his side. That's when you hit him with the 40. Even on defense, it would be worth it just to send so many of Amoeba's ships to the warp.
2. If you can afford to lose to Amoeba, it's sometimes better to just negotiate and get his cards. Why waste a potentially good card in an encounter when it could be too close?
3. Amoeba is weaker as the game goes on. He has ships on foreign colonies, and needs some at home to maintain his power. He won't be oozing very high, so do the math when selecting your encounter card.

At CE Online? No.

— Submitted by Jack Reda