Cosmic Encounter

Cosmic Encounter is a science-fiction board game in which three to five players take on the roles of unique alien species struggling for cosmic supremacy through force, cunning, and diplomacy.¹² The object is to establish colonies in other players’ planetary systems, with the winner being the first to hold five colonies on planets outside their home system.²⁵ A game is playable in roughly one to two hours, and if two or more players establish their fifth foreign colony at the same time, they win together.²⁴ First published in 1977, the game is regarded by many critics as a landmark in board-gaming history.¹¹

The game’s premise frames the players’ species as the “children” of an ancient race called the Precursors, the first intelligent life in the universe, who seeded thousands of habitable planets with life and left behind hyperspace gates and caches of technology before vanishing.² The Precursors’ fate is unknown; they may have fallen to some threat or evolved beyond the universe, and by the time their offspring mastered space travel the elder race was gone.² Without the elder race to guide them, the younger races fell to squabbling among themselves, giving rise to the current Cosmic Age in which the game is set.²

Design and editions

The original design is credited to Bill Eberle, Jack Kittredge, Bill Norton, and Peter Olotka, with the first version made for two to six players, ages eight to adult.¹⁰ Over the decades the game has appeared in numerous editions from different publishers, including versions by Eon, Mayfair Games, and Avalon Hill, before the edition published by Fantasy Flight Games.⁷ The Fantasy Flight edition was released in 2008.⁶ Players who have tried several editions generally regard the Fantasy Flight release as superior, praising its production values and its expansions, which add new mechanics and aliens ⁷; some who have played only the earlier Avalon Hill version are advised that they have not experienced the game at its best.⁷

Gameplay

Each player chooses a color and takes a colony marker, five planets, and 20 plastic ships, stacking four ships on each of their five home planets.⁴⁶ The plastic ships are designed to stack on top of one another to save space during play.² A colony is defined as one or more ships of the same color on a planet, and a player may have only one colony on any given planet, though several players may each hold a colony on the same planet.² Colonies in a player’s own system are home colonies, while those in other players’ systems are foreign colonies, and establishing the latter is the key to winning.² Defeated ships are sent to a central board called the warp, where they wait to be freed, and each player’s colony marker tracks progress on a colony track around the warp.²

To begin, players prepare the destiny deck by taking the three destiny cards matching each chosen color, shuffling them with the wild and special destiny cards, and returning any cards of unchosen colors to the box.⁴ In the Fantasy Flight setup, players are dealt two flare cards apiece, take the corresponding alien sheets, and secretly choose one alien to play, returning the other to the box; the dealt flares are then shuffled into the cosmic deck.⁶ Each player is dealt a hand of eight cards from the cosmic deck.⁴

On a turn, the active player becomes the offense and resolves one or two encounters.⁶ Each encounter proceeds through seven phases—regroup, destiny, launch, alliance, planning, reveal, and resolution.⁶ In the regroup phase the offense retrieves one of their ships from the warp.⁶ The destiny phase follows: the offense draws a card showing a player color, which determines the opponent—the defense—and the system in which the encounter must take place.²⁶ If the offense draws their own color, they may draw again or attempt to drive a foreign colony off one of their home planets; a wild card lets them encounter any player in that player’s home system.⁶ The offense then aims the hyperspace gate at a planet and launches one to four ships.⁶ Both sides may invite allies, who commit one to four of their own ships to one side; the offense and defense may not invite each other.⁶

The encounter is decided in the planning and reveal phases, when each main player secretly selects an encounter card—an attack, a negotiate, or the morph card—and both are revealed simultaneously.²⁶ When both reveal attack cards, each side adds its card value to its total number of ships, and the higher total wins, with ties going to the defense.⁶ A negotiate card automatically loses against an attack but earns its player compensation; when both players negotiate, they have one minute to make a deal—trading cards or allowing a colony—or each loses three ships to the warp.²⁶ A deal cannot be empty: a card or a base must change hands for it to succeed.⁶ The morph card becomes an exact duplicate of the opponent’s revealed card.² A player who wins the first encounter may attempt a second, after which the turn ends and play passes to the left.²⁶

The defining feature is that each player holds an alien power that allows the breaking of a specific game rule, and where rules conflict with a power, the power takes precedence.² The Fantasy Flight edition ships with 51 alien sheets, each describing a power, an abbreviated power summary for other players, a flavor history with no effect on play, and a skill-level “alert lamp”—green for beginner, yellow for intermediate, red for expert.⁴⁶ Each alien sheet also notes which role a player must fill to use the power and whether using it is optional or mandatory.² Examples include the Parasite, who may join any alliance uninvited; the Amoeba, with unlimited ship movement; the Filch, who takes an opponent’s used encounter card; and the Philanthropist, whose power is to give cards away.⁴⁸ Flare cards, one per alien, supply additional powers and are returned to the hand rather than discarded after use, and they can be stolen by an opponent playing a negotiate card.⁴⁸

Beyond the core components, the Fantasy Flight edition adds optional systems, including a deck of 20 technology cards, reinforcement cards that add to an encounter total after cards are revealed, and artifact cards such as the Cosmic Zap, which negates the use of a flare or artifact.⁴ The box also contains special components like the Genesis Planet, the Prometheus Token, and the Lunar Cannon Token, along with 42 cosmic tokens and seven grudge tokens.⁴

Reception and play culture

Although structured as a hobby game with extensive rules and components, observers describe Cosmic Encounter as a social party game at its core, filled with wacky aliens and outrageous abilities, where players are encouraged to expect surprising outcomes and to focus on diplomacy rather than numerical strategy.³⁴ Experienced players note that losing can be as enjoyable as winning when participants adopt their aliens’ backstories and mindsets.⁴ The critic Erik Twice, who calls it one of the best games ever made, observes that it runs against modern conventions—being wild, comedic, highly interactive, and occasionally unfair—and that entrenched board-gamers often struggle with it most.⁸ He recommends playing with four or five, using green aliens and flares with newcomers, and warns that over-allying is the most common reason games fall flat.⁸ He cautions that three players is awkward because there is only a single ally, while six gives each player fewer turns and promotes overalliances.⁸

A point stressed when teaching the game is that players do not draw cards every turn except through specific means, so managing a limited hand—and planning one’s defeats to make the most of bad cards—is a central skill.⁸ Strategy guides written for the Fantasy Flight edition similarly emphasize choosing an alien suited to the number of players, since a power useful only to the offense may never be triggered before a large game ends.⁹ These accounts position the game as one whose apparent reliance on luck conceals considerable depth, rewarding out-of-the-box thinking and creativity.⁸⁹

Cosmic Encounter - for Newcomers - with Tom VaselThe Dice Tower