Cosmic Encounter
Game Information
The classic game of colonization, negotiation, conciliation and misrepresentation. Players are aliens on a mission to colonize the galaxy. Through force, guile and card play, be the first to spread out beyond your home system. Molded plastic ships, excellent graphics and 20 alien races allow countless player combinations.
Reviews and Articles About Cosmic Encounter
You May Also Like...
Expansions for Cosmic Encounter
Editor reviews
On Wonk
If wonk has a center, it is here, in Cosmic Encounter. Infuriating to players who like machine-builders, maths, multi-turn strategies. In other words: control-dissolving. A game of "giving in", like flying, like death. Hilarious, if viewed from the right location. If I fall into a sewer, some Roman said, that's...
Most of the fun of a big multi-player civ-building game stripped down to its bare essence and crammed into an hour or so play time. The different powers keep the strategy interesting and add spice to the negotiation element and there's just enough screwage potential to make things fun...
A divisive game. This is a game that consistently bombed on the times I have introduced it locally. The asymmetry stands on its own but I think the game falls into some traps (e.g. overinvitation) with inexperienced players that make initial games boring. And boring initial games...
User reviews
The Poison Needle on the Third Hug
Bluffing, gambling, negotiation, backstabbing, outrageous reversals—this game has it all. And a thick, gooey science fiction theme to boot! The rules are simple, almost laughably so, but that's not where the game is. The game is in finding the most clever way in which to use those rules to your...
Here I digress with the rest of TWBG. I would rather chew thumbtacks than endure another game of this while one dude desperately tries to wring fun out of it.
The Greatest Game Ever Made
Cosmic Encounter is the greatest game ever made. So much variety, and a rules framework that knows when to get out of the way and encourage above the table treachery. It's also one of those "the more, the merrier" games. I don't even want to play this game with...
How good is it?
It's so good, you don't have to be told how good, to know why this game is good on an instinctual level. It's that good.