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Cosmic Encounter
With that in mind, someone PLEASE point me to a good review / game-play / something, preferably YouTube where the person really captures the game well to show me the error of my ways or that I should pass and be OK with it. I don't want to slog through random channels for a game I already don't want yet.
Thanks, or come-on please? Depending on what you plan to do.
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- Jackwraith
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- Michael Barnes
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But there's more to it. The combat mechanics not only require players to bring others onboard and offer kickbacks, they also allow for strategic loss and the classic douchebag maneuver of luring folks to your side and throwing the fight. Playing the number cards is hugely compelling- I actually like getting a terrible hand because it forces you to be resourceful. Of course, what a terrible hand is varies depending on your alien.
It is a wildly volatile game, and this is a spot where it abraids against modern gaming sensibilities. It will not provide you with a stable experience, and there is absolutely no "fixed" way to succeed. You might play a game where player personalities, powers, and cards just don't line up quite right and it won't be the best example of the game. But the next session might be extraordinary, hilarious, dramatic, ridiculous, complex, or all of the above.
It is also absolutely a game best played with friends- not convention randos. I've been playing with my group for 8-9 years, and there is such a complex legacy of events that it really puts so-called legacy games to shame. I am, for example, forbidden from playing Filch. This comes from an incident where I filched almost the entire encounter card deck. We don't need to write on the game to remember.
It is obviously a highly social, highly interactive game which there again rewards familiarity not just with the gameplay and options but also with other players. All the good stuff is here- bluffing, stonewalling, patronage, backstabbing, reneged deals, and plain old lying. If you want to play a heads down tableau examination game, this is not it.
Finally, there is a purity of execution that is remarkable. There really isn't much to it. We've had too many players before and drew planets on a piece of paper (all named for Chinese restaraunts once, another time the cities of Dutchland- long story) and used crackers for ships.
This is the one true game, and the one I would save if I had to get rid of everything but one.
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Of course in a perfect world you would only play games with a group that is all your BFFs and is 100% on all the time. In that case, CE is perfect. In the real world, CE is a crapshoot that has failed for me too many times.
You can buy mine if you want. No box inserts but it's all sleeved.
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- san il defanso
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Here's what people who don't like Cosmic Encounter will tell you: that it's a chaotic mess, that it's all random with no thought. The truth is that it really rewards lots of different kinds of play. Mechanical nuance, long range planning, sneaky diplomatic tricks, ridiculous chaotic card play, the good Cosmic Encounter player needs to be able to do all of those things.
But like Michael says, it doesn't reward any of those things in the same measure from game to game. You can never be good enough at something to win every time, because the circumstances change constantly. Roll with it, or you get left behind.
Here's the thing I've noticed: people don't like leaving a game experience to something as flaky as humans. It's one reason board gamers keep trying to pull RPGs away from their volatile human origins, and it's one reason some people just can't handle Cosmic Encounter. But more than any other board game, Cosmic Encounter makes humanity its central mechanic. The amazing thing about that is that it totally works.
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- Matt Thrower
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san il defanso wrote: Here's what people who don't like Cosmic Encounter will tell you: that it's a chaotic mess, that it's all random with no thought. The truth is that it really rewards lots of different kinds of play. Mechanical nuance, long range planning, sneaky diplomatic tricks, ridiculous chaotic card play, the good Cosmic Encounter player needs to be able to do all of those things.
I'm not going to argue with this, but I do think that's not the key reason why people don't like Cosmic Encounter. The real reason is that it's an oddly-structured, confusing game which - even 40 years after release - plays like almost nothing else out there. It takes a number of games to get a handle on what's going on and, thanks to those variable powers, there's a not insignificant chance some of those plays won't work well.
So it's very easy to give up on. I almost did. It was only the endless enthusiasm shown by fans of the game and the relative ease of getting it to the table that kept me going. Now, I love it. And a big part of that is, I think, the colour-coding on the alien powers in the FFG version. It works a whole lot better with new folk if you just stick to the green aliens. In fact, I can't remember the last time I used the yellow and red ones. And it's still great, even with that reduced selection.
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- san il defanso
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I've actually had a lot of success introducing the game to either younger or casual gamers. That might be because they are less tied to convention and genre in board games.
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I traded mine away with an expansion or two for Spartacus and Sekigahara and got WAY more mileage out of those titles.
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- Legomancer
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Is there something there? Probably. People who have decent opinions love it. But I am okay with just taking their word for it and letting it pass me by. I already have games I like that I don't need to play 40 times before it will click with me. It's not huge in my main group and I don't feel I'm missing anything.
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Totally agreed here. I stone cold SMOKE people that haven't played CE before. Like 5-2-1-1-1. I think a lot of folks here would. The game is ending long before new players recognize it. It's not a timed affair where we tally points at the end of Round 7. It's over when I was able to Ally with you on your second turn and had six cards. Obviously, more experienced players should be winning games, but there's a Dunning-Kruger effect in CE where the new players don't even know what they don't know. That can be off-putting, because despite understanding the (pretty simple) rules, they don't get the game at all the first couple of times they play.MattDP wrote:
san il defanso wrote: Here's what people who don't like Cosmic Encounter will tell you: that it's a chaotic mess, that it's all random with no thought. The truth is that it really rewards lots of different kinds of play. Mechanical nuance, long range planning, sneaky diplomatic tricks, ridiculous chaotic card play, the good Cosmic Encounter player needs to be able to do all of those things.
I'm not going to argue with this, but I do think that's not the key reason why people don't like Cosmic Encounter. The real reason is that it's an oddly-structured, confusing game which - even 40 years after release - plays like almost nothing else out there. It takes a number of games to get a handle on what's going on and, thanks to those variable powers, there's a not insignificant chance some of those plays won't work well.
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Although I own all but two of the Eon expansions (and I think I have three base set copies still) my favourite edition of the game was the West End version. It had a good mix of powers which all could compete in any given game. I haven't really delved into the FF era editions, but they seem to have done a good job on it.
Cosmic Encounter is a gem. It has some of my favourite late high school / college era memories in gaming. So many all night 3 player games.. i actually think 3 players may be the sweet spot.
~mb
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- san il defanso
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In the interest of balancing out my rapturous first post, here are some potential reasons you might NOT like Cosmic Encounter:
- Many times the game comes down to a well-placed knife that will only be anticipated by an experienced player. For example, an experienced played will know to keep an eye on the Attack 40, and to track where it is. Otherwise it can appear at inopportune times in the late game.
- As stated previously in this thread, the game often comes to a point where everyone has four colonies, and one thing will slide into place giving one or more players the win. This comes from groups that invite pretty much whoever to ally all the time. A lot of people really don't like this, but I don't mind.
- For those who like strategy, four or five people is about the only player count that will work there. Four players can be VERY intense, and with four evenly-matched people it's one of the most nuanced games out there. Once you start adding expansions, the game becomes really goofy really quickly. Not so bad that you don't have to play well, but the swings become progressively more extreme as you add players.
- Players can share wins. I think this is a necessary element of the design, to allow people with bad hands to still finangle their way to victory. But I know a lot of people who don't like it. One friend of mine said a shared win was like "kissing your sister."
- This is more a problem for people who buy tons of expansions, but the actual volume of really GOOD alien powers can shift wildly between expansions. Now that we are well over 200 of them, there is a lot of redundancy in the aliens available, some of which results in lousy aliens.
- It requires a patient teacher who can sell it as you go. It requires someone to both break down the structure of the game, promote the more free-wheeling atmosphere the game deserves, but to still play seriously. This is a tough thing to do.
There are other reasons that others have stated here. I'm just trying to balance out my earlier gushing (which was absolutely not hyperbole in my mind).
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- Colorcrayons
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I am envious of those who have regular groups to play ce, because I think it's one of the best games made.
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