They have a pretty unique playstyle that come with a host of challenges for the player to work though, and when you’re up against them, you need to watch them very carefully as I think they’re probably one of the most dangerous foes you could meet in the cold depths of space, owing to their aggression, incredible Manufacturing output and proclivity to spreading where others initially cannot.
The Cosmic Contaminant (or CC for short) are race of strange, rapidly mutating creatures with an unusual growth cycle that thrive in radioactive sludge and other heavily polluted environments. Their Civilization Trait Radiated allows them to immediately colonize Radioactive worlds and suffer no penalties on heavy Polluted worlds.
In fact, their Species Phenotype is Radiotrophic, granting an Approval bonus on Core Worlds with high Pollution levels. Note that the Species Traits show below, with their negative statistic modifiers, look quite weak. However, this only shows the Irradiated Amoeba stage of their life-cycle and we’ll cover the rest shortly.
It is this affinity for Pollution that gives the Irradiated their powerful Manufacturing potential, as they ignore the usual Approval penalties that accrue on heavily industrialized Core Worlds and can jam in many Industrial Districts and Improvements. Furthermore, their rapid Growth means you can quickly pack a lot of Citizens onto each world, further boosting your Manufacturing (and other Planetary Output values) to levels most other Civilizations can only dream of achieving.
That said, Irradiated Citizens aren’t particularly useful in their Amoeba stage, with low overall statistics until they evolve to the Larva and Nymph stages. This means it can take the Cosmic Contaminant a little time to get their economy going, and newly colonized worlds can be vulnerable to invasion as the Amoeba’s low Resolve contributes little to defensive efforts.
Your homeworld of Yuggoth’na is pretty well defended though, as the Radiated Planet Class Effect gives a large bonus to Planetary Defense.
With the Adaptable Civilization Ability the CC can quickly colonize worlds otherwise uninhabitable to other civilizations and this gives them more early game expansion options. Facing off against them on smaller maps can be difficult as they’ll only be competing with other Adaptable Civilizations for the more exotic Planet Classes, and although their initial industrial expansion can be a little underwhelming, their Militant (+2) Civilization Trait paired with Fast (+2) means that they can rapidly utilize their specialized Executive Orders to rapidly grow Population (Mitosis), improve fertility of a colony (Fertilize Planet) or increase Pollution levels to improve habitability for your Citizens and reduce it for your rivals (Abhorent Infection).
The Cosmic Contaminant’s ability to conquer a large amount of territory quite quickly and then rapidly develop its industry to genuinely terrifying levels is tempered partly by the initially weak statistics of the Amoeba, and the abysmal -3 Diplomacy penalty from the Unlikeable (-2) trait.
Yes, they’re one of the strongest civilizations in the game when going it alone, but they’re unlikely to have many friends in the game, and they’ll be relying on all their cunning and industrial might to fend off threats left, right and center.
A Cosmic Contaminant player with many neighbors will have to focus on trade and diplomacy technologies to have a hope of keeping the wolves from the door, unless they can grow strong enough to take everybody on at once. Depending on the difficulty level, growing too large too quickly can also cause your concerned neighbors to consider you a threat worthy of a war or two.
This too provides a natural counter for their unnatural industrial growth potential, as they’re often forced into focusing on Diplomacy boosting Techs if they want to avoid early wars, limiting the opportunity to take the industrial and military Techs they really want to be grabbing early.
But it can be fun to just accept everybody is going to hate you and lean hard into the bad-guy role, picking the weakest neighbors and conquering them and their worlds before the others have time to react.
Trade Routes and their positive effect on diplomacy can keep a few choice rivals from declaring war too soon, and boost your own coffers for your own military expansion efforts for those unfortunate Civilizations you have chosen to take on directly.
Their affinity for the Nihilism Ideology opens up their options in a big way: Realism boosts their Trade Route income, while Flexibility ensures they get more out of the Bazaar, which can compensate somewhat for their reduced ability to acquire resources through Diplomatic Trade. Moral Relativism increases access to other Ideological Traits, and is never a bad choice in longer games. Finally, the Nihilism tree greatly enhances their military options later into a campaign, with access to Terror Stars letting them end the game with a bang.
When playing against the Cosmic Contaminant, you’ll usually want them out of the game as fast as possible. The worlds they settle (or conquer) will be so full of Pollution that they can be pretty uninhabitable for most Citizens until some of the later Pollution reducing Techs come into play, and this, paired with their formidable fleet production potential, make them an unattractive target for invasion. Fighting them head on is a dreadful experience unless you have a much bigger and more technologically advanced military, and the rewards for doing so are dubious at best.
It is perhaps their love for the sludge that keeps the disgusting Cosmic Contaminant alive most of all: nobody really wants to contest their enormous military for worlds they cannot use. Conversely, defending yourself against the Cosmic Contaminant and the threat they pose to your own people is of paramount importance and when strongly placed in a game, they can become an existential threat to pretty much everybody else in the galaxy and coalitions may form to face that threat early on.
The Cosmic Contaminant might not be cuddly or fun to be around, but they more than make up for this with their ability to rapidly overwhelm and consume their neighbors with startling efficiency. They’ll need it, because they’ll rarely have many friends, but if you can keep your wits about you and fully utilize all their horrible tools correctly, the world will be swimming in mutagenic slime in no time!
Enjoy!
