Create alliances, negotiate and bluff; in other words, practice diplomacy. That’s what’s at the core of Cosmic Encounter, a 3-5 player game that plays in about 1,5 hours. In this game you’ll take on the role of an alien race battling for the supremacy of the galaxy. But don’t mistaken this with a tactical game, you won’t be a general here: you’ll be a diplomat.
The main game mechanics can be summarized and simplified as follows:
- Each player will take on the role an alien race with a special power and have 5 planets on which initially there will only be space ships of his race. Also, each player will have cards in his hand which he will be able to use, primarily for resolving attacks, but also as special abilities. The goal of the game is to have 5 colonies (ie. space ships) in other player’s planets.
- To do this, players will take turns at attacking each other’s planets. At the begining of a player’s turn, he will draw a card that will tell him which other player he will attack this turn. He will then decide with how many ships (and from which of his colonies) and say which other players he will allow to join him on his offensive (if any). Then, the defending player may say which players he invites to join him in the defense of his planet (if any). The players invited to attack and/or defend decide who they will support (if they actually want to participate), with how many space ships, and then the clash is resolved.
- For the resolution, the attacking and defending players (not the allies) will play a card from their hand. These cards will be either numbers (in which case each side’s ships are counted and added to the number of the player’s card, and the one with the highest score wins) or a negotiation card. If both players have used a negotiation card, they have 1 minute to resolve the conflict by reaching an agreement where cards and/or colonies are exchanged. If only one othe players used a negotiation card, he loses the fight but may take as many cards from the opposing player’s hand as ships he has just lost.
- When any of the players (main or ally, attacking or defending) loses, all the ship they had committed are relegated to “the warp” (an outer space place from which you will be able to eventually recover them, but from which they are unable to participate in any fight).
- When the offensive player is successful in the attack, he creates a colony in that planet (represented by placing his attacking ships on it). If he had allies, they will do the same.
- When the defensive player is successful, he simply fends off the assault. If he had allies, they will be able to recover as many ships from “the warp” as they had committed to the fight, or they may chose to draw more cards for their hand from the draw pile.
- This is a link to a great video review of the rules (and game in general) by Tom Vasel from The Dice Tower.
This all may sound a little complex at first, but it really isn’t: players take turns to attack a random other player, create alliances and resolve the encounter. That’s pretty much it. But then come into play the alien races’ special powers, as well as special abilities cards (such as artifact cards), which twist the rules in some way. For example, the alien race “Pacifist”, instead of losing when playing a negotiation card in an encounter when the opposing player has played an attack card (one with a number on it), he wins it. As an example of an artifact card, there is one which, when played, makes all the ships in “the ward” return to their owners.
So here are the reasons why this is a “make me better” game:
- Choose your allies wisely: when you ask someone to join you in an attack or a defense, you have to think carefully about who you are inviting to join you. You might know you have very little chance of success (you are the only one who knows your hand) and might invite the winning player to join you, or if you are confident you can do the job on your own you might prefer to do it solo, etc. Also, you have to keep in mind your race’s special power as well as those of your possible allies and opponent, as they might affect you negatively (or possitively!). You have to also be very aware of these things when accepting an invitation as an ally: does it look like we will win? Can I afford the loss? Is the risk worth taking?
- No hard feelings: in this game, you have to be impersonal (I admit I was terrible at this at first). First of all, during your turn to have to attack a player that is designated randomly (kind of having to defend a side in debate class in school); you might like it or not, it doesn’t matter, just do it as best as you can. Second of all, you might feel the urge to help out a player that is not doing well; don’t do it unless you will gain something out of it, or else they might (and very probably will!) drag you down with them. I know it sounds harsh, but this is a game where you have to stand up for yourself and defend your side’s (alien race) interest above all. In the opening paragraph I mentioned you act like a diplomat, and this is what I meant by it. You are always looking for win-win situations; if you see one, go ahead, but if not, stand back.
If you’d like to watch a whole game played, here’s a link to a live game from CosmicCon. Also, here’s a video from Board Game Replay were the game is explained and post game discussion is held by the players with instant replays of the moments they refer to.
Lastly, I’d like to add that this is a game that was originally published in 1977, so it has, by far, passed the test of time!