This game comes with a ton of various colored UFO ships, cardboard planets matching those colors, matching scorekeepers, huge alien race cards, decks of cards, a gateway cone, and a huge dimensional warp circle.
Players are dealt two cards from a "Flare" deck, which are powerful cards focusing on a race. The players get the matching alien race cards and pick one. All Flares dealt to the players are shuffled in the main deck and if there's less than ten Flares, that many additional are shuffled in.
The main deck is dealt to players, 8 cards, and players seed their five colored planets with four ships each.
The second deck, Destiny, is drawn from until a color matching a player is revealed abs that player goes first. The Destiny cards are shuffled again.
A third optional deck, Tech, has abilities players can research. They get two and pick one to start with.
Player 1 draws a Destiny card after retrieving one ship from Warp and placing it on a controlled colony. This should match a color in play. Some are Wild (attack any) and some are special (attack who has least ships, most colonized, etc). This player is offense. The target color or player is defense. If using Tech, one ship can land on the upside down card. Techs are activated after a number if ships land on them as the card power requires.
Offense points the Gateway triangle at a planet. The Gate is prepped with 1-4 UFO ships and offense asks players for help if wanted. Nobody answers yet, though.
Defense then asks for help as well. Again nobody admits.
Offensive help then places 1-4 ships on the gate, and then defense help follows.
Players then lay down a card privately. It is an Encounter card: Attack, Negotiate, or Morph (only one Morph is in the deck - it copies the opposing Attack or Negotiate.) and things happen.
Attack vs Attack: These have random numbers, 0-40. Add this to the total UFO pieces on your side. Players and Assistants may have extra cards (like Reinforcements, which alter totals on sides by a couple points) to influence things. If Offense wins, Defense hits the warp portal and offense and allies take the planet. If Defense wins, Offense hits the warp and the defense allies return home but get 1 ship from warp, or 1 card from the draw deck per ship they sent to reinforce.
Attack vs Negotiate: Negotiate loses, Attack wins. The offense colonizes if won, warps if lost. Defense stays if won, warps if lost. Negotiator gets to draw one card from the Attacker's hand as compensation.
Negotiate v Negotiate: Allies return ships to colonies. The offense and defense have one minute to make a mutual agreement: card swaps, ship colonization that's mutual, etc. If no deal happens, 3 ships per side must go to Warp.
Then players score. Do you have 1-5 colonies? That's 0, your starting point value. Do you have 1-2 colonies? Your race power is disabled until you get a third colony. Do you have over five? That's one to five (6-10) points. Five points wins. I wish the warp had scoring saying 1-5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 instead of 0-5, though.
Some alien powers and some cards only activate at certain phases in the game, but that's the premise.
I love that Cosmic Encounter doesn't really have down time between turns. Every player is almost always actively involved when not offending or defending.
There's a learning curve here and several expansions, but they aren't necessary aside from two have additional players. There's tons of races here and I think if Fantasy Flight went with cheap deck expansions and separate huge alien race cards with Flares, the price points on those would feel safer for buying. As is this game is awesome and other than the Warp score bit I mentioned, I wish the UFOs looked different for flavor between players, but that'd add to the cost.
This game is fantastic and I still recommend it to anyone!
Add a debit or credit card to save time when you check out
Convenient and secure with 2 clicks. Add your card
Frequently bought together
$55.99
Get it as soon as Sunday, May 19
In Stock
Total price:
To see our price, add these items to your cart.
Choose items to buy together.
Similar items that may ship from close to you
Page 1 of 1 Start overPage 1 of 1
From the brand
From the manufacturer
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cosmic Encounter (Base Game) | Cosmic Encounter: Cosmic Incursion Expansion | Cosmic Encounter: Cosmic Conflict Expansion | Cosmic Encounter: Cosmic Dominion Expansion | Cosmic Encounter: Cosmic Eons Expansion | Cosmic Encounter: Cosmic Odyssey | |
| Customer Reviews |
1,197
|
306
|
142
|
231
|
134
|
41
|
| Price | $54.89 | $21.99 | $21.99 | $25.27 | $25.94 | $42.38 |
| Type of Game | Board Game | Board Game | Board Game | Board Game | Board Game | Board Game |
| Number of Players | 3-5 Players | 3-6 Players | 3-6 Players | 3-6 Players | 3-6 Players | 3-8 Players |
| Average Playtime | 1-2 Hours | 1-2 Hours | 1-2 Hours | 1-2 Hours | 1-2 Hours | 2-3 Hours |
| Recommended Player Age | 14+ | 14+ | 14+ | 14+ | 14+ | 14+ |
| Number of Alien Races | 50 | 20 | 20 | 30 | 30 | 42 |
| Featured Aliens | Filches, Amoebas, Parasites and Kamikazes | Fungus, Magician and Locust | Empath, Lunatic and Claw | Joker, Yin-Yang, Tourists and Whirligig | Nightmare, The Cult, Bleeding Heart and Anarchist | Alternate Timeline Aliens |
| Variant | Cosmic Combos | The Reward Deck | The Hazard Deck | New Reward Deck with Intimidates, Variable Attacks and Retreats | Hidden Alliances | Brand New Campaign Mode |
| Sci-Fi Strategy Game | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Fan-Designed | ✓ | |||||
| Expansion Available | ✓ | is an expansion | is an expansion | is an expansion | is an expansion | is an expansion |
Reviews with images
42nd Anniversary Edition Review
Should you buy this if you already own the 2008 edition? The short answer is no. All you're getting here are translucent ships, alien combo cards, and an extra alien card. The rule book has some extremely bad typos which may confuse first time players. This is really a non-issue though since the 2008 rule book is available online as a PDF and does a much better job explaining the nuances of the game. I would also recommend any new player to consult with the Board Game Geek community forum for rules clarification and errata. One last criticism I have of this game is that it is very difficult to discern the purple ships from the blue ships once stacked, which I can confirm. This is exacerbated if you are colorblind or play the game under limited light conditions. However, for my group, we did not have any issues telling the ships apart. Your milage may vary though.So, if you already own the 2008 edition or just prefer opaque ships, do not get this edition.So why the 5 stars? Well, this is one of the best negotiation games out there and, regardless of the edition, is extremely replayable. With 51 aliens in the core set, you can have over 2 million combinations in a 5 player game. That basically means that every game you play will be totally unique.A quick caveat: playing with competitive people who are easy to point out the unfairness of a situation will probably have a bad time with this game. Only consider this game if your group enjoys silly situations. Even though it's not labeled as such, I consider this a story telling game rather than a serious index of skill and mental prowess. You can be born with a silver tongue and still lose.
Top reviews from other countries
Ruben isai Ponce barcelo
Exelente juego para un buen rato
Reviewed in Mexico on September 23, 2023Tomaso yowney
Best board game I’ve played so far!
Reviewed in Canada on July 22, 2021
ssmb212
As described, great quality brand new unopened.
Reviewed in Sweden on January 27, 2024