Cosmic Encounters
The four of us sat down and played Cosmic Encounters last week and overall it was a very quick game to pickup and learn and a fun game to play. Each player in the game started out with five planets each with 4 ships on each planet. All of the players choose a class card (I don’t know what the game formally calls it) that describes their special abilities. Justin was a Healer which meant that he could save ships from the warp abyss. Joanie (?) was an Amoeba and could add more ships to her initial attack force, and Nick was the Zombie class and could reclaim his ships after every attack. I ended up with a Trader which means I could trade cards any time I wanted with any of the other players – something I regret not taking more advantage of. We were also dealt seven cards that we could use in battle/negotiating.
After Justin went over all of the rules we started to play. Play is done by flipping over a colored marker to determine which planet the player will attack first. The player than moves a number of ships (up to four) into the center warp area to commit to the attack – he also points the big mothership in the warp zone to which planet he wants to attack on the opposing color. At that point the player can ask for allies to join him; he can specifically ask a person or make a general call for help, or just go it alone. The defending player can do the same and the players not involved in the exchange can pick their sides. The battle itself is waged through the use of the cards. The attack cards have numerical values that along with the number of ships and allied ships summed together determine the attack strength or defense strength. Bigger number wins. If the attacker wins they can place their ships on the planet to colonize it; the loser is tossed into the warp abyss.
To end the game one player has to have five colonies on the other players’ boards. One big thing to note is that if you call for allies and they respond, and you win, your allies also claim the planet as one of their colonies. We had a blast just trying to ally with one another, but it got many players four colonies very quickly – except for me, I got trounced a few times. Another key thing to note is that when you have less than three colonies you lose your special ability. So by the time I was clairvoyant enough to understand what my ability was I had lost it.
The game in some respects reminds me of Illuminati. The race/class cards that we all had were like the various illuminati groups in that it granted each player a special power. The battles were similar as well, but instead of pulling resources from your Illuminati power structure, you ask the other players to ally with you. Like Illuminati all of the attack strength is summed together and the result comes down to who has a bigger number.
I had an enjoyable time with this game. I wouldn't mind playing this game again.
BTW, Justin has all of the pictures for our play experiment.