Cosmic Encounter Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Setup
• Basic Concepts
• Playing the Game
  • Start Turn Phase
  • Regroup Phase
  • Destiny Phase
  • Launch Phase
  • Alliance Phase
  • Planning Phase
  • Reveal Phase
  • Resolution Phase
  • Second Encounter Rule
• Additional Rules
  • Alien Sheets
  • Reinforcement Cards
  • Artifact Cards
  • Losing Home Planets and Alien Powers
  • The Colony Track
  • No Encounter Cards In Hand
  • Bystanders
• Advanced Game
• Variants
  • Technology Variant
• Clarifications
• Quick Reference

Setup

1. Choose Player Color: Each player chooses a color and takes the colony marker, five planets, and 20 ships of that color.
2. Set Up Warp, Planets, Ships, and Colonies: Place your planets in front of you, stacking four of your ships on each. Place the warp in the center of the play area. Place your colony markers at "0" on the colony track.
3. Prepare Destiny Deck: Take the three destiny cards corresponding to each player's chosen color and shuffle them with the wild and special destiny cards to create the destiny deck. Return unused-color destiny cards to the box.
4. Choose Aliens: Shuffle the cosmic combo cards and reveal the top card. Gather the alien sheets indicated for the number of players and deal one randomly to each player. (Experienced players can use the "Advanced Game" alien selection rules.)
5. Prepare Cosmic Deck: Shuffle the encounter, reinforcement, and artifact cards to create the cosmic deck. (Experienced players can include flare cards—see "Advanced Game.")
6. Deal Starting Hands: Deal each player a hand of eight cosmic cards. Players may look at their own cards but not show them to others.
7. Choose First Player: For a first game, the youngest player takes the first turn. Otherwise, reveal destiny cards until one matches a player's color; that player is first. Then reshuffle the destiny deck.

Basic Concepts

Aliens: Each player controls an alien that can alter the rules of the game.

Planets and Systems: Each player begins with five planets matching their color—their home planets, composing their home system. Planets that do not match a player's home color are foreign planets; all foreign planets of one color are collectively a foreign system.

Ships and Colonies: Each player has 20 ships. Ships of the same color are stacked on planets; each stack of one or more ships is one colony. A colony on your home planet is a home colony; a colony on a foreign planet is a foreign colony. Multiple players can have colonies on the same planet, but each player can have only one colony per planet.

Moving Ships: When you move ships, you choose which colonies they move from or return to (home, foreign, or a mix). You cannot return a ship to a planet where you do not already have a colony of at least one ship.

The Warp: The warp holds lost ships and tracks progress toward victory. A ship sent to the warp stays there until retrieved. Its outer edge is the foreign colony track.

Winning the Game: Players win by establishing foreign colonies. When a player establishes their fifth foreign colony, they win. If two or more players establish their fifth foreign colony at the same time, all of them win.

Playing the Game

Players take turns clockwise starting with the first player. During a turn, a player has an encounter—an interaction between two or more players trying to establish or defend a colony. The player taking their turn is the offense; their goal is to establish a colony on a foreign planet or remove a foreign colony from one of their home planets. The opposing player is the defense, determined by the destiny deck. Both are main players.

An encounter has eight phases resolved in order: Start Turn, Regroup, Destiny, Launch, Alliance, Planning, Reveal, Resolution.

Start Turn Phase

If the offense has no encounter cards, they discard their hand and draw eight new cards, repeating until they have an encounter card. Attack, negotiate, and morph cards are all encounter cards.

Regroup Phase

The offense retrieves one of their ships from the warp and places it on any of their home or foreign colonies, stacking it on another of their ships.

Destiny Phase

The offense draws the top destiny card and follows it. Destiny cards determine which player the offense encounters. There are three types:

• Color: Have an encounter with the named-color player in their home system. If the offense draws their own color, they may point the hyperspace gate at a foreign colony on one of their own home planets, or discard and draw a new card.
• Wild: Have an encounter with any other player of your choice in their home system.
• Special: Have an encounter with the player who has the most foreign colonies (other than you), breaking ties to your left; the encounter takes place in the other player's home system.

Launch Phase

The offense chooses the target planet by pointing the hyperspace gate at any planet in the indicated home system. Then the offense commits one to four ships to the encounter, placing them on the hyperspace gate. Ships can be taken from home and foreign colonies, and multiple ships can come from the same colony.

Alliance Phase

Both the offense and defense can form alliances:

1. Invite: The offense may invite other players to be allies, then the defense may. They can invite as many or as few as they like, and both can invite the same player. Main players cannot be allies.
2. Accept: Starting left of the offense and proceeding clockwise, each invited player chooses whether to accept, becoming an offensive or defensive ally. A player cannot accept invitations from both sides, and can refuse any invitation.

An ally commits one to four ships. Offensive allies place ships on the hyperspace gate; defensive allies place ships next to the target planet. There can be multiple allies on each side; players accept invitations in turn order, committing ships before the next player decides.

Planning Phase

Each main player simultaneously selects one encounter card from their hand and places it facedown. If the defense has no encounter cards, they reveal and discard their hand, then draw a new eight-card hand before selecting. If the offense has no encounter cards, their turn ends immediately and all committed ships (including allies') return to their colonies.

Reveal Phase

Both main players reveal their selected encounter card and determine the outcome:

• Attack vs. Attack: Each total = the value of their attack card plus the number of ships they and their allies committed. Higher total wins; on a tie, the defense wins.
• Attack vs. Negotiate: The player who revealed the attack card wins. The player who played the negotiate card collects compensation.
• Negotiate vs. Negotiate: All allies return their committed ships. The offense and defense have one minute to make a deal (see below).
• Morph vs. Other: A morph card becomes a duplicate of the other revealed encounter card, and the encounter resolves accordingly.

Resolution Phase

Resolve the encounter, then discard all played encounter cards.

Offense Wins: The offense and offensive allies move all their hyperspace-gate ships onto the target planet (forming a new colony or reinforcing an existing one). The defense sends all their own participating ships and all defensive allies' participating ships to the warp. Non-participating ships on that planet are bystanders and are not sent to the warp. Each player who gains a new foreign colony advances their colony marker.

Defense Wins: The colony survives and all ships on the hyperspace gate go to the warp. Each defensive ally gains defender rewards: for each ship they committed, they may either draw one card from the cosmic deck or retrieve one ship from the warp to a colony. Defensive allies do not establish a colony on the defended planet; the defense itself receives nothing. The offense collects compensation if they played a negotiate card against an attack card.

Successful Deal: Carry out the agreed terms; the offense returns any hyperspace-gate ships to their colonies. A deal can involve:

• Trade: A player gives any number of cards to the other (specific cards, types, or at random). A player can give cards without receiving any.
• Establish Colony: A player lets the other establish a colony on a planet where they have a colony, using ships from the hyperspace gate or colonies.
• At minimum, a successful deal must result in one card being traded or one colony being established, within one minute.

Unsuccessful Deal: If no deal is reached within one minute, each main player sends three of their own ships to the warp (from colonies or the hyperspace gate).

Compensation: A player who loses by playing a negotiate card against an attack card takes cards at random from the winner's hand equal to the number of ships they sent to the warp from losing (or as many as the winner has).

Second Encounter Rule

If the offense won or made a successful deal and this was their first encounter this turn, they can have a second encounter, starting with the Regroup Phase. Otherwise, the next player clockwise becomes the offense.

Additional Rules

Alien Sheets

Each alien sheet shows the alien's name and unique power, with an upside-down one-line summary at the top for other players. The upper blue bar indicates which role a player must have to use the power (main player, defensive ally, etc.); the lower phase bar highlights in orange the phases when the power can be used. If a power's orange bar shows an alien must use it, that use is mandatory; otherwise it is optional.

Alert Lamps: Each alien sheet has a green, yellow, or red alert lamp indicating power complexity (green = less complex, red = more complex). Complexity does not correlate to strength.

Reinforcement Cards

After the main players reveal their encounter cards, each participating player can play reinforcement cards to benefit either side. Each card's value is added to the chosen side's total. Reinforcement cards are discarded after the encounter.

Artifact Cards

Artifacts provide powerful, single-use effects, played per the card's role and timing bars, then discarded. Zapping Powers: the "Cosmic Zap" artifact cancels one use of an alien's power for the rest of the encounter. Powers (or parts of powers) that function without being "used" cannot be zapped.

Losing Home Planets and Alien Powers

When a player removes their last ship from a home planet, that planet is lost; ships cannot return to lost planets. If a player ever has fewer than three home colonies, they lose their alien power (flip the sheet facedown). Regaining three or more home colonies restores the power.

The Colony Track

The colony track always reflects each player's number of foreign colonies. Establishing the fifth foreign colony wins the game (ties win together).

No Encounter Cards In Hand

• Start Turn (offense): discard your hand and draw eight, repeating until you have an encounter card.
• After a successful first encounter (offense): with no encounter cards, you cannot have a second encounter.
• During an encounter (offense), before Planning cards are selected: if you have no encounter cards, your turn ends immediately and committed ships return.
• Defense: if you must play an encounter card and have none, you may first play any cards playable in the current phase, then discard your hand and draw eight, repeating until you have an encounter card.

Bystanders

Foreign colonies on the planet where an encounter occurs are bystanders—their ships don't contribute and aren't affected by the outcome. An ally may commit any ships, including bystanders, from any of their colonies.

Advanced Game

Once comfortable with the core rules, add flare cards. Flares provide powerful, repeatable abilities. Each flare has a wild ability (used by any player) and a super ability (used only by the player with the matching alien sheet, who must use super instead of wild). After playing a flare, return it to your hand. A player cannot play more than one flare per encounter, and the same flare cannot be played more than once per encounter. A player whose alien sheet is facedown can use only the wild ability.

Advanced Setup replaces steps 4 and 5: 4. Choose Aliens: Shuffle the flare cards and deal two facedown to each player. Each player takes the two matching alien sheets, keeps one, returns the other, then all reveal simultaneously. 5. Prepare Cosmic Deck: Collect the dealt flare cards; if fewer than five players, add random flares to total 10. Shuffle those 10 flares with the encounter, reinforcement, and artifact cards.

Variants

Four Planets: For a shorter game—four planets each, 16 ships (four per planet), win at four foreign colonies, and lose alien power below two home colonies. Recommended for multiple quick three-player games.

Single-Encounter Turns: The offense is limited to one encounter per turn, even after a win or successful deal.

Hidden Powers: Each player keeps their alien secret (sheet facedown, flare shuffled into the cosmic deck unrevealed) until ready to use it. A facedown alien's power cannot be used; a player may flip their sheet faceup at any time, after which it stays faceup.

Cosmic Combos and Flares: To add flares while using cosmic combo cards, build the cosmic deck with the flares matching the aliens on the combo card plus enough random flares to total 10.

Technology Variant

Tech cards represent researchable technologies. Setup: deal two tech cards to each player; each keeps one facedown and discards the other. Each tech has a research number. During the start of any player's Regroup Phase (before retrieving a ship), each player may research, complete, or abandon a tech.

• Researching: place one of your ships from a colony on the facedown tech card; it stays until the tech is completed.
• Completing: when the ships on the card equal or exceed its research number, flip it faceup and return the ships; you may now use its ability.
• Abandoning: reveal the card, discard it, and return its ships.
• Using: the card's bars indicate the required role and phase.
• Acquiring New Tech: if the offense's first encounter succeeds and they still have an encounter card, instead of a second encounter they may draw tech cards equal to their current foreign colonies plus one, keep one, and discard the rest. There is no limit to tech cards held, but only one may be researched or completed per Regroup Phase.
• Combining with the Four-Planet variant: remove all tech with research number 8 or greater.

Clarifications

• Timing: Resolve powers/abilities in the phase indicated. When multiple players act in the same phase, resolve in order: Offense, Defense, then other players clockwise from the offense's left.
• Alien Power Precedence: If an alien power contradicts a rule in this booklet, the alien power takes precedence.
• No Colonies during Regroup: If a player retrieving a ship has no colonies, they place the ship directly on the hyperspace gate.
• Re-Establishing a Home Colony: If you draw your own color destiny card and have a home planet with zero ships, you may aim the gate at it to automatically re-establish a colony with up to four ships from your other colonies. This counts as a successful encounter (allowing a second encounter if it was your first).
• Defending without Ships: A defense with no ships on a planet still plays encounter cards, can receive allies, and defends normally; their own ship value is zero.
• Special Destiny Card Color: For game effects, a special destiny card is treated as a color card matching the indicated defense player's color.
• Depleting the Destiny Deck: If only one destiny card remains, it cannot be drawn; shuffle it into the discard pile to form a new deck.
• Cosmic Quake: If you must draw from the cosmic deck and both deck and discard pile are empty, all players discard their hands, the discards are shuffled into a new deck, and eight cards are dealt to each player.
• Cosmic Tokens and Grudge Tokens: Many powers require tokens; cosmic tokens have no inherent effect and produce the effect described by the power (some powers use specific tokens like Grudge tokens).

Quick Reference

Phases: 1. Start Turn — offense with no encounter cards redraws a hand of eight. 2. Regroup — offense retrieves one ship from the warp. 3. Destiny — offense draws a destiny card. 4. Launch — offense aims the hyperspace gate and commits one to four ships. 5. Alliance — offense then defense invite allies; allies join clockwise from the offense's left, each sending one to four ships. 6. Planning — both main players play an encounter card facedown. 7. Reveal — cards turned faceup and totals added. 8. Resolution — determine the winner and resolve effects.

Timing Conflicts: resolve Offense, then Defense, then other players clockwise from the offense's left.