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1[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/pic1521633.jpg]]
2''Cosmic Encounter'' is a board/card game in which each player takes on the role of one (or sometimes more) alien races. The goal of the game is to [[TakeOverTheWorld establish colonies on planets in other player's home systems]]. Combat takes place through the use of ships and cards which add to the power of the ships involved. The game actively encourages "wheeling and dealing" between players to form temporary offensive and defensive alliances, or even resolve "combat" situations without actual combat (you can, for example, offer to exchange a colony in your system for a colony in your opponent's system).
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4One of the distinctive features of the game is that in addition to the base rules, each alien species has the ability to "break" the rules in some unique way. This adds an additional strategic layer to the game beyond the part-luck-part-strategy aspect of the battles themselves, as the powers of the different aliens interact in different ways, leading to vastly different games each time.
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6Originally designed by Future Pastimes, ''Cosmic Encounter'' has been around for a considerable time and gone through several different publishers: Eon Games in 1977, West End Games (in the US) and Games Workshop (in the UK) in 1986, Mayfair Games in 1991, Creator/AvalonHill in 2000, and Fantasy Flight Games in 2008. Many of these publishers also published expansions to and/or variations on the base game. Most of these are distinct enough that expansions from one publisher are not compatible with the base game from another publisher (without some modifications), though people familiar with any version should be able to play any other after some explanation of the differences (especially in the case of rules which are present in some versions but not others). In particular, interactions between the powers may cause some races to be either wildly overpowered or effectively worthless if mismatched bases/expansions are used (though this is occasionally true of pairings even within a single publisher; Zombie's power is all but useless against Void, for example).
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8There is also an [[http://www.cosmicencounter.com/ online version]] playable via Tabletop Simulator on Platform/{{Steam}}.
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12!!The game provides examples of:
13* AwesomeButImpractical:
14** The Locust has the power to [[PlanetEater devour an opponent's planet]] if it's the only player who has ships on that planet, which removes it from the game and guarantees that no opponent will be able to take it back from them. However, it's so difficult for the Locust to actually get an opponent's planet all to itself because all other players will be extra careful to never leave it alone on foreign planets.
15** The Masochist has the power of winning the game if they get all their ships sent to the warp or removed from the game. Doing so is a lot easier said than done, though, especially since all the progress a Masochist makes toward their alternate win condition can be instantly undone by the Mobius Tubes artifact that sends all ships in the warp back to their players.
16* BlessedWithSuck: Some races' powers are more useful than others, though this partially depends on the playstyle of the player in question, and a race that's effectively terrible for one player may be terribly effective in the hands of another.
17** Some alien powers also become completely hosed if they're facing certain opponents; for example, aliens whose powers cause them to get an automatic boost in ships or attack card numbers like the Virus (multiplies the value of their attack card by the number of ships they sent), the Macron (each of their ships counts as four ships), and the Warrior (their attack power increases with each encounter they play) can all of a sudden find that their powers turn into drawbacks when facing aliens that can make the player with the ''lower'' attack total win the encounter, like the Anti-Matter or Loser.
18** Some people view the Zombie as this; their ships never get sent to the warp, which sounds awesome... but this also means that they never get compensation and can thus struggle to get more or better cards compared to other players.
19* DescriptivelyNamedSpecies: All of them.
20* DeusExMachina: The Chosen's power is to get "divine intervention" by replacing its encounter card or adding to it with one of three cards drawn from the encounter deck, which can help it win a lost encounter out of nowhere.
21* EasilyConqueredWorld: The Xenophiles are a race of curious, super-friendly space hosts, so tolerant that they [[HorribleJudgeOfCharacter don't actually realize]] that their new "visitors" are actually hostile invaders. These aliens benefit from letting other players establish colonies in their system.
22* FinalSolution: While it's only implicit in play, the FlavorText for some of the races indicate their long-term goal is complete elimination of all other races. In particular, this is true in most editions of Anti-Matter and Void.
23* FlavorText: Each race has its own.
24* TheFriendNobodyLikes: The Parasite can hop aboard any invading or defending team, even without an invitation. This allows them to win by piggybacking off of other players' work, who must either negotiate (as allies do not get anything from a negotiation) or [[TakingYouWithMe lose their own encounters on purpose]] to thwart the Parasite.
25* FriendToAllLivingThings: Empath can force its enemies to negotiate/compromise instead of fighting.
26* HealingFactor:
27** The Mutant has the power to "regenerate," allowing it to redraw any spent cards back to a full hand of 8. Many races' powers allow them to rescue defeated ships from the warp, and all players can get back at least 1 ship during the Regroup phase.
28** The Healer has the power to save opponents' ships from being sent to the warp or removed from the game and draw a card for each time it does this, although it can't use its power to save its own ships.
29* HeartIsAnAwesomePower:
30** The Empath's power is to change attack cards into negotiate cards. This can get the Empath player out of near-hopeless situations where they would otherwise lose all their ships as well as make a deal to get their game-winning colony even if a player is out of negotiate cards.
31** The Philanthropist's power is to give away its cards to other players. At first glance, this sounds like something you very much ''don't'' want to do except to help an ally in an encounter, but this power enables the Philanthropist to quickly get rid of their own bad cards and draw a new hand while sticking other players' hands with junk cards that they need to play to get rid of.
32** The Loser is the epitome of this. Would you believe that the jokey-sounding power of "can win an encounter by losing it" is near-universally regarded as ''the'' best power in the game, above even powers like "permanently remove opponents' ships from the game" or "multiply your attack card number by the number of ships you sent"?
33* HumansAreAverage / HumansAreSpecial: The Human race's unique power simply adds 4 (a relatively mild bonus) to their side's attack/defense total in an encounter. According to the flavor text, however, "exposing a human to Cosmic energy [[RadiationInducedSuperpowers can unlock strange and awesome powers]]" - attempting to cancel out the +4 with a "Cosmic Zap" card (which normally neutralizes any alien's power) results in the human's side automatically steamrolling the opponent. Naturally, the Human player can Zap themselves for just this purpose.
34* InstantWinCondition: Some races have this as their power. Many of them are [[AwesomeButImpractical quite hard to achieve]], however.
35* InterfaceScrew: A power for at least one race in the online version.
36* KilledOffForReal: Ships lost in an encounter are merely sent to the warp and can be retrieved later... unless they were defeated by the Void, who ''permanently'' removes opponents' losing ships from the game and ensures they're never coming back (well, unless you have the Healer in play, but that's only one alien who can do that).
37* MagikarpPower: Some aliens start out powerless but become deadlier the longer the game goes on, like the Warrior who gains more attack power with each encounter it wins or loses.
38* MassiveRaceSelection: The original game had 15 races, and nine(!) expansion sets bringing the total eventually up to a whopping 75(!). One of the later publishers was planning an expansion with yet another 35(!) but went out of business before the release. The Fantasy Flight edition has released six expansions (so far) and two promo aliens, bringing the grand total to a staggering 197 alien races.
39* {{Metamorphosis}}: Several aliens have the power to swap for an entirely different alien midway through the game. The Chrysalis sheds its outer form once eight turns have passed, beocming one of a randomly-drawn selection of 10 aliens; the Reincarnator changes into a new randomly-drawn alien each time it loses in combat; and the Pentaform becomes a different alien for each stage of its life cycle ([[UnstableGeneticCode shifting back and forth as it gains and loses colonies]]).
40* MovingTheGoalposts: The Schizoid chooses a victory condition at the beginning of the game that replaces the default winning condition, which only the Schizoid knows in full; the other players can only find out what it is by getting to ask yes-or-no questions about it each time they defeat the Schizoid in combat. If the Schizoid manages to acquire its flare card, it can change the victory condition during the game as well.
41* MutuallyExclusivePartyMembers: In some versions, some aliens are not allowed in games with other aliens. For example, Sadist[[note]]Wins if all other players have a majority of their ships in the warp[[/note]] is not allowed in a game with Zombie[[note]]Ships never go to the warp[[/note]] or Healer[[note]]Can revive other players' ships as soon as they are sent to the warp[[/note]].
42* PowerParasite: The Plant's power is to steal the power of any alien in whose system he has a colony. The other alien loses its power for one turn while the Plant can use it. (Note that while there is an alien called the Parasite, its power [[JustForFun/IThoughtItMeant does not fall under this trope]].)
43* PowersAsPrograms: Some species can steal or swap other races' powers.
44* {{Precursors}}: The backstory uses this to explain the massive number of different alien races: the Precursors were the only sentient life forms in the universe, so before they went extinct, they scattered the seeds of life across the universe so that new and wildly different forms of life would appear, along with hyperspace technology so that they could meet each other when their civilizations became advanced enough.
45** This is the explanation for the "Precursor Seed" technology card, which grants the player an extra alien power once it is completed.
46* RoaringRampageOfRevenge: The Fury stores up power with every ship they lose in battle, and can consume some or all of it to wreak merry hell on a future opponent.
47* ScrewDestiny: The Will is the only alien who can freely choose which player they want to encounter instead of having to draw from the Destiny Deck.
48* ScrewTheRulesIHaveSupernaturalPowers: Every single race in the game, each in a different way.
49* ShoutOut:
50** The Human's power is described as "[[Literature/TheHitchhikersGuideToTheGalaxy Mostly Harmless]]" and its Wild Flare lets a player change their attack card to a [[JustForFun/FortyTwo 42]].
51** The Spiff is a homage to Spaceman Spiff from ''ComicStrip/CalvinAndHobbes''.
52** The Vox's power lets it turn low attack cards [[Film/ThisIsSpinalTap up to eleven]].
53* TakingYouWithMe: The Vacuum gets to make other players lose ships equal to the number of ships they themselves lost.
54* TheTrickster:
55** The Trickster's player can choose to decide an encounter by hiding a token in one of its hands and having its opponent try to guess which hand has the token instead of the normal way.
56** The Cloak's player may call out a pause, force everyone else to look away, and then steal a card, move a ship, or make some other small change. If the others can't identify the change within 15 seconds, it remains in play.

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