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Science fiction board game

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, each with a unique power to bend or break one of the rules of the game, trying to establish control over the universe. The game was inducted into the Academy of Adventure Gaming Arts & Design Adventure Gaming Hall of Fame in 1997. 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 five players, although official rules exist for playing with as many as eight players.

Cosmic Encounter is based on a fixed set of rules which are subsequently modified by other elements of the game. Each player begins with a color coded "home system" containing five planets, and twenty ships (formerly referred to as "tokens") representing starships that populate these planets as "colonies" (formerly known as "bases"). A central "warp" is used to place defeated ships for all players. The object of the game is to establish colonies on five planets outside one's home system. Each player is dealt a hand of cards from the "cosmic deck," which includes several types of cards: Attack cards with numbered values, Negotiate (formerly Compromise) cards, Reinforcement cards, and Artifact (formerly Edict) cards. The turn player is referred to as the "offense." On a player's turn, they retrieve one ship from the warp, and then draw a card from the "Destiny" deck, containing color coded cards which indicate which player they must have an encounter with; that player becomes the "defense." Using a special "hyperspace gate" (formerly "hyperspace cone" or simply "cone") indicator, the offense selects the planet at which the encounter will take place, and then places 1 to 4 of their ships on the gate; the defense simply defends with however many ships they have on the targeted planet. Both the offense and defense can then ask the other players individually to ally with their side; each invited player may commit up to 4 ships to either side of the conflict. Once allies have committed, the offense and defense both select encounter cards from their hands to place face down, then reveal them and play out the encounter based on the types of cards they used. If players use Attack cards, the total of the card's value and number of allied ships are added for both sides, and the side with the larger value wins, with the defending player winning in case of ties. All players involved in the encounter may play Reinforcement cards from their hands to add numerical bonuses to each side's forces. If the offense's side wins, the defense's colony is lost and all ships on the defense's side are sent to the warp, and the offense and their allies land their ships on that planet, establishing new colonies on it (or adding more ships to existing colonies there, if they already had colonies there). If the defense's side wins, all ships on the offense's side are sent to the warp, and defensive allies gain a reward of either a ship from the warp or a new card drawn from the deck for each of their ships that they sent to help defend. If both players use Negotiate cards, they have one minute to make a deal, such as exchanging colonies or cards from their hands, while all allies are sent back to their owners' colonies (allies get nothing in this situation). If a deal can't be made, both players lose three ships each as a penalty. If one players plays a Negotiate card and the other plays an Attack card, the player who played the Negotiate card immediately loses, but they get "compensation" from the victor by drawing cards from the victor's hand equal to the number of ships they lost in the battle. Allies on the Negotiate player's side do not get anything. At the end of the offense's turn, they may have a second encounter if they won an attack or made a deal. If they can't, choose not to, or have already had two encounters this turn, then play proceeds to the next player.

More advanced optional game components can add further levels of complexity and unpredictability. Various editions have included varying numbers of these optional components. They include:
Flares: Cards that grant a limited version of an alien power, or, if used by the player who possesses that power, a significant boost to their own power. Lux (formerly Lucre): In game currency that allows more control of resources (such as buying more cards for one's hand or ships back from the warp). Moons: Special tokens which may be occupied by players, doing so grants one 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: Added in an expansion to the Eon Productions version of Cosmic Encounter and kept in the Mayfair version, 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, which must be researched (by placing ships on them) for several turns before they can be put into play. The power of technology cards varies wildly, with more powerful technologies requiring more turns to research. For example, the Xenon Lasers tech costs two ships, and its owner may change encounter totals by one point, while the Omega Missile tech costs eight ships, and destroys a planet. Rewards: A deck of powerful cards that 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 are ever taken from another player's hand. Large group games: Official variants include rules and cards for adding a seventh or eighth player. However, with unofficial variants, the game can support as many players as the number of available player colors. With all expansions, the Mayfair Games edition has ten player colors for a ten player game and Fantasy Flight Games' edition has eight player colors for an eight player game, or up to 13 player colors if the translucent plastic ships from the 42nd Anniversary Edition are each included as their own color.

In 2003, original designer Peter Olotka and partners launched a new version called Cosmic Encounter Online that could be played over the internet. In the June–July 1978 edition of White Dwarf (Issue 7), Fred Hemmings found the game "simple to learn, and yet at the same time is so full of good ideas and potential player skill." Hemmings admired the "beautifully produced" game components, but wished that there was more than one winning objective — although he did note that using the two available expansions resulted in 35 alien races to choose from, giving a potential for more than a million combinations. He gave the game an overall rating of 8 out of 10, saying, "What makes this game is the aliens —they vary from good to excellent, and so does the game." In the September 1978 edition of Dragon (Issue 18), Dave Minch questioned the science fiction angle of Cosmic Encounter, saying it was "nothing more than hype." When Minch delved below the SF "patina", he found a game that "combines several elements of classic, abstract games. There are cards which introduce both chance and strategy of play, as in poker or bridge. There are chips representing the
bases which you must build to win the game, giving the positional and matching requirements of pit and pebble games, as well as a betting flavor like poker." Minch concluded with a recommendation, saying, "This is a simple game both to learn and to play. Best of all, it’s fun and pretty much open ended." In the inaugural edition of Ares Magazine (March 1980), Greg Costikyan rated the game 9 out of 9, saying, "The result is a weird, constantly mutating, and gripping game that does not lose its appeal even after innumerable playings. The addition of any of the four expansion sets makes Cosmic Encounter even more fascinating." In the March 1981 edition of The Space Gamer (No. 37) Steve Jackson gave a thumbs up, saying, "I like Cosmic Encounter. It's totally original, and a lot of fun. I recommend it without reservation to gamers". In the October 1981 edition of The Space Gamer (No. 44), Forrest Johnson thought the continued publication of expansion sets (six to that point in time) was perhaps an indication that the game was losing replay value: "Expansion sets 1 and 2 would be more valuable to a new player; Eon Products is approaching the point of diminishing returns. But sets 6 and 7 still have a lot of value for CE enthusiasts."

In the March 1986 edition of White Dwarf (Issue 75), Tim Wilson gave the re issued game an overall rating of 8 out of 10, saying, "Cosmic Encounter is an easy, light hearted game with plenty of scope for devious strategy and backstabbing The earlier version of this game [published by Eon] proved too scarce and expensive for it to become well known: try it now, and see why it was worth re releasing."

In the November 1991 edition of Dragon (Issue 175), Allen Varney gave an ebullient review, saying, "This brilliantly interactive and spectacularly fun 1977 design is my very favorite game, bar none." Varney questioned the high price of the Mayfair Games re issue, but concluded, "You definitely will get $35 of fun out of this box. I’ve played the original Cosmic Encounter game (from the late Eon Products) over a hundred times; every game was wildly different." Varney again gave a very positive review of the Mayfair edition in the December 1993 edition of Dragon (Issue 200), but questioned some of the new rules in Mayfair's expansion set, saying the set "offers many terrific powers (and some terribly unbalanced ones) plus new cards and forgettable rules additions like Lucre and Moons." In 1992, a new edition of Cosmic Encounter won the Origins Award for Best Fantasy or Science Fiction Boardgame of 1991 and placed 6th in the Deutscher Spiele Preis.

Cosmic Encounter was chosen for inclusion in the 2007 book Hobby Games: The 100 Best. Bruno Faidutti commented, "The box for Eon's first edition of Cosmic Encounter proclaimed 'the science fiction game for everyone.' And, indeed, long before today's collectible card games, live action roleplaying games, and massively multi player online RPGs, Cosmic Encounter was the game for everyone." Quintin Smith, in a 2014 review from Eurogamer, complimented the variety of aliens, theme, entertainment value, the negotiation mechanism, and uniqueness.