Cosmic Encounter

Cosmic Encounter

Designer(s)	Peter Olotka, Jack Kittredge, BIll Eberle, Bill Norton
Publisher(s)	Eon Products, Inc, West End Games, Games Workshop Mayfair Games, Avalon Hill, Fantasy Flight Games
Players	3–6+ (depending on edition)
Age range	https://www.facebook.com/cosmicencounter
Setup time	5-10 minutes
Playing time	20-120+ minutes (depending on various factors)
Random chance	Medium
Skill(s) required	Prediction, diplomacy, card management

Cosmic Encounter is a science fiction-themed strategy board game, designed by "Future Pastimes" (collectively, Peter Olotka, Jack Kittredge and Bill Eberle, with Bill Norton) and originally published by Eon Games in 1977. In it, each player takes the role of a particular alien species with a unique power to break one of the rules of the game attempting to establish control over the universe. In 1992, a new edition of Cosmic Encounter won the Origins Award for Best Fantasy or Science Fiction Boardgame of 1991,^[1] and placed 6th in the Deutscher Spiele Preis. The game was inducted into the Academy of Adventure Gaming Arts & Design Adventure Gaming Hall of Fame in 1997.^[2]

Cosmic Encounter is a dynamic and social game, with players being encouraged to interact, argue, form alliances, make deals, double-cross, and occasionally work together to protect the common good. Most editions of the game are designed for three to six players, although official rules exist for playing with as few as two or as many as eight players.

Gameplay

Cosmic Encounter combines a simple basic structure with a wide selection of complications. Each player begins with five planets (the "home system"), four starships on each planet, and a hand of cards. The goal is to found colonies on (i.e. have ships placed on) five planets outside of one's home system. There is also "the Warp," an area where lost ships go, and two decks of cards: one that the players draw their cards from, and one "destiny" deck.

On a player's turn, he or she retrieves one ship from the Warp, turns over a card from the destiny deck that determines which system to attack, and sends one to four ships to any planet in that system. The attacker and the defender then have the opportunity to ask other players to send in ships to help. They both select a numbered card from their hands, play the cards face down, and flip them over simultaneously. The cards and ships are added up, and the higher total wins. All ships on the losing side are sent to the Warp, where they cannot be used until retrieved. A victorious attacker's ships and allied ships land on the planet. A victorious defender gets to keep the planet, and any allies are allowed to take ships from the Warp or draw cards from the deck; usually, a player may only draw cards after using up a hand.

Each player has one or more alien powers which distort, extend, or break the rules in some way. For example, Macron's ships are worth four of any other's ships, Zombie never loses ships to the Warp, and Oracle can see what card its opponent plays before it chooses one. Some powers encourage a limited role-playing aspect, for example the Sniveler, with the power to "whine" when doing worse than the other players. While some powers have limited effects that affect a single aspect of gameplay (such as Clone being allowed to keep a card it has just played instead of discarding it), others change the game more substantially (such as Void removing enemy ships from the game permanently) or even change the object of the game (such as Masochist instantly winning if all of its ships are lost).

Powers are selected randomly at the beginning of the game, so each game requires a different strategy to win. Many of these powers interact with one another in complex ways that are not immediately apparent, sometimes even requiring group consensus (or experience) to resolve conflicts. However, should a player have fewer than 3 colonies in their system, their alien powers become inactive until the player can regain a 3rd colony back in their home system.

Players' cards include both numbered ("encounter") cards and "artifact" cards, which may be played at various times with many different effects, such as instantly releasing all ships from the Warp. There are also "negotiation" encounter cards that lose the encounter to any numbered card, but the loser may draw cards from the winner's hand. When both sides of an encounter play negotiation cards they can trade cards, colonies, and other game properties, though if no deal is reached within a short time, both players lose ships to the Warp.

More advanced optional game components can add further levels of complexity and unpredictability. No edition has all of the optional components. They include:

• Flares: Cards based on the alien powers that provide a player with a limited aspect of that power. If a player holds a Flare that matches his or her alien, the Flare upgrades that power instead.
• Lucre: In-game currency that allows more control of resources (such as buying more cards for one's hand). Multiple alien powers affect Lucre.
• Moons: Colonies on moons do not count towards victory conditions, but occupying one grants access to its special ability. Moon abilities can be powerful (such as retaining an alien power when it would normally be lost), while others are best described as "silly" (such as forcing the owner to speak in rhyme).
• Special planetary systems: Printed on the reverse side of the normal systems in most prints of Cosmic Encounter, the special systems have additional rules in regards to the player's initial setup, colonies, and victory conditions.
• Technologies: An array of boosts and special abilities, none of which can be used right away. Technology cards are placed face down on the table. The owner may move one ship from a planet onto the card at the start of any player's turn. Once the number of ships on the card meets the cost printed on it, the technology is "discovered," the ships return, and the card is flipped face up. The power of technology cards varies wildly. The Xenon lasers card costs two ships, and its owner may change encounter scores by one point. The Omega missile card costs eight ships, and destroys a planet.
• Rewards: A deck's worth of incentives, reward cards can only be drawn by victorious defensive allies. Reward cards include "kickers," multipliers for encounter cards, and "rifts," booby traps that free ships from the warp, or send ships there if they ever change hands.

Some players have created their own "homemade" powers, and have posted these along with other various game extensions on the Internet.

Major variants include multiple-power games (in which players have multiple alien powers at once) and hidden-power games (in which powers are not revealed until their first use). Official variants include rules for adding a seventh or eighth player, and there has been a version providing enough components for a ten-player game (when combined with a previous release).

History

The original version of Cosmic Encounter had exactly six alien powers and was designed for up to six players. This edition was nearly published by Parker Brothers in the mid-1970s; when it was not, the designers founded Eon Games to publish it.

The first Eon edition was released in 1977. It allowed up to four players and included fifteen alien powers. Over the next five years, Eon released nine expansions, adding sixty more alien powers, components for a fifth and sixth player, and several new types of pieces, including "Flare" cards, money (Lucre), Moons, and special power planet systems. The artwork on these early editions included images painted by Dean Morrissey.

In 1986, the game was republished in the U.S. by West End Games. The game used the same deck of cards and number of players, and the same powers with five additional powers from Eon expansion sets #1 and #2. However, the cards and tokens were incompatible with the Eon edition. Meanwhile, in the UK, the game was published by Games Workshop. The GW edition supported six players, with powers from the Eon base set and some of the first three expansions.

In 1991, the game was licensed by Mayfair Games. Mayfair published Cosmic Encounter, an expansion called More Cosmic Encounter (1992), and a stripped-down introductory version of the game called Simply Cosmic (1995). The Mayfair edition revised some powers from the original Eon set, introduced many more, and significantly revised some of the existing components. It also introduced several new components. By combining the three Mayfair products, it is possible to play a 10-player game.

In 2000, Avalon Hill (by then a division of Hasbro) published a simplified version in one box with plastic pieces. This version was limited to 20 powers and four players.

On Aug. 17, 2007, Fantasy Flight Games announced plans to reprint the game "in the Summer of 2008."^[3] This was later updated to "November 2008."^[4] Game designer Kevin Wilson gave demonstrations of the Fantasy Flight Cosmic Encounter version at Gen Con 2008. This was released in December 2008, and included 50 alien powers, a new Technology variant, and support for 5 players. Fantasy Flight released an expansion set called "Cosmic Incursion" in February 2010 that added 20 aliens (some new and some old), ships for a sixth player, and a "Rewards" deck which includes, among other things, Kickers and Rifts. In February 2011, Fantasy Flight released the second expansion set, "Cosmic Conflict", which included 20 alien powers, ships for a seventh player, and a "Hazard" deck which adds special conditions to encounters.

Online version

In 2003, original designer Peter Olotka and partners launched a new version called Cosmic Encounter Online that may be played over the internet. As of 2010^[update], this version has 35 powers, including four new aliens and two more that are designed for online play (such as Dork, which blocks other players' screens).

Influence

The possibility of an organic and completely different experience every time one plays was one of the influences in the design of the card game Magic: The Gathering. Magic designer Richard Garfield has often cited Cosmic Encounter as being influential in the design of Magic, going so far as to say, "[Magic's] most influential ancestor is a game for which I have no end of respect: Cosmic Encounter."^[5]

The game also heavily influenced the Dune board game, which was also designed by Future Pastimes.^[6]

References

1. ^ "Origins Award Winners (1991)". Academy of Adventure Gaming Arts & Design. Archived from the original on 2008-03-15. http://web.archive.org/web/20080315071737/http://www.originsgamefair.com/awards/1991/list-of-winners. Retrieved 2007-11-02. 
2. ^ "Origins Award Winners (1996)". Academy of Adventure Gaming Arts & Design. Archived from the original on 2007-12-21. http://web.archive.org/web/20071221022725/http://www.originsgamefair.com/awards/1996/list-of-winners. Retrieved 2007-11-02. 
3. ^ "Fantasy Flight Games to republish classic Eon games". Fantasy Flight Games. http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/PDF/eongames-pressrelease.pdf. Retrieved 2008-05-15. 
4. ^ "Cosmic Encounter, coming in November". Boardgame News. http://www.boardgamenews.com/index.php/boardgamenews/comments/cosmic_encounter_coming_in_november/. Retrieved 2008-08-02. 
5. ^ Game design workshop: a playcentric approach to creating innovative games
6. ^ W. Eric Martin. "Peter Olotka on Cosmic Encounter and D*ne". Boardgame news. http://www.boardgamenews.com/index.php/boardgamenews/comments/w_eric_martin_peter_olotka_on_cosmic_encounter_and_dne/. "We stole heavily from Cosmic Encounter when we designed Dune; the idea of having these well-defined and different powers, we applied it to Darkover, to Dune, and to Cosmic Encounter." 

• Hemmings, Fred (June/July 1978). "Open Box: Comic Encounter". White Dwarf (Games Workshop) (7): 18. ISSN 0265-8712. 

External links

Official sites

• Cosmic Encounter's Facebook [1] page
• Cosmic Encounter Online Cosmic Encounter Online
• Fantasy Flight Games' Cosmic Encounter page
• Avalon Hill's Cosmic Encounter product page

Wiki

• Cosmic Encounter Wiki

Discussion and reviews

• Cosmic Encounter Library showing the complete version history along with photos and components as well as general CE information.
• TheDiceTower.com Interview with game designer Peter Olotka, June 13, 2005
• GameSpy.com Interview with game designer Peter Olotka, January 2002
• Eon Games article (with brief mention of Cosmic Encounter) at TheGamesJournal.com
• Cosmic Encounter at BoardGameGeek