I'll take the "Excellent" judgment! So glad to hear you are enjoying the content. I'm especially pleased with the Evolutions. Bubble and Inferno are my two favorites, but also really appreciate Throwback. I understand the feeling on Hazards- they are very divisive. But I did try to make the new batch less obnoxious than some of the originals, and the "Alt-Hazards" are actually a pretty fun alternative effect. Moons were a must for me, even if Space Stations do some of what they did. The thing with the general Space Station rules though is that you can't capture them from other players- you can only deactivate them. Sky Cities are a nice variation on that, but with Moons, control can absolutely change from player to player, and knowing the types can be a great way to modulate their value. I tend to pass out the tokens and then search for the matching cards, since the cards are easier to sort. For most of the types, there's only 8 of each, so finding your moons is usually easy. Looking forward to the video on the campaign- it's the one area FFG had the most input on the development, and I feel like they pumped it up in really fun ways.
I really like what you and the development team did with Moons in this edition, Jack. I've always liked the *idea* of Moons and often thought of incorporating them into the modern edition but the problem I had with classic Moons was their tendency to slow the game down. Even with just a few small changes, I think you've fixed Moons to let them still be impactful but without grinding the game to a halt. Thank you!
@Neil N 8 players is already soooo slow, I don't think 9 would be a good idea unless you found some magical way to shorten the game whilst ensuring that any new players who aren't fully used to the game's terminology still have fun.
@Neil N fair. I would love some off-beat colors like teal, pink, brown, or magenta (I could finally remove purple--I mean blue--no wait, that is purple)
Tom, I would like to make a suggestion, can you do a weekly game of cosmic encounter on camera (kind of like how you did your werewolf games), where you play with different modules or variants (of course aliens) of the game every week. I remember Zee said on one of the games you played on camera that one of the reasons he likes playing cosmic encounter is he always sees something new to the game when he plays. It would be great to see how all the modules and variants work in practice. Your cosmic encounter games on camera are one of the most entertaining games to watch! For example, When Mike played for the first time and how he won was very entertaining to see. I hope you consider this suggestion. Thanks!! Keep making great content, I love your videos! And if you do this videos series , everyone can prepare before getting on camera and can choose and review how to play their aliens and understand how modules or variants work so when on camera, the playthrough can go more smoothly , just an idea
I just played my first game of Cosmic Encounter (without the flare cards or technology or defender reward deck, because it was our first game) after many years of it being left unopened in our board game closet. Why did we never play it? I'm not sure, it sounds like a game that requires a lot of back and forth talking and my gaming groups tend to be a little quiet when they discover a new game. But my goodness, we had a blast. It was maybe the most fun we've had in a night of board gaming. So thank you very much Dice Tower for recommending this game so wholeheartedly many years ago, or we would have for sure missed out on this experience.
The coolest thing about this expansion to me is that it adds to existing content across the board. There is so much additional content that's easier than ever to curate your game to taste. Maybe space stations didn't interest you before, but you can trim the list down the ones you like and there are still plenty of them. Same for hazards, rewards, techs, etc.
Tom didn't cover it because they're hidden in the campaign game rules which is a shame but the Age Cards are almost my favorite part of this expansion. Randomizing what variants are in play is going to really mix things up for us and I'm glad for it!
Great review! I would be interested to get a recap with what you’re including in your final version of cosmic. Since the expansion doesn’t fit into my insert, I did some culling myself and left the moons out.
Been waiting for this. I was expecting loads of content, but this still shocked me with the sheer amount of variants and content. The wait was worth it!
One other thing cool with this expansion is if you can’t make up your mind on what module to use in your non-campaign game, you can randomly select one of the campaign cards and add that module. And you can pick a random campaign card to vary how you select aliens in your non-campaign game. I don’t know if i will ever do the campaign, but I probably will do the above 👆nearly every future non-campaign I play in the future.
Make your own? Tom's choices are his, and might not reflect yours. For example, I like hazards and hate space stations, unlike Tom. And powers which are blatantly dangerous like void or planet-destroying powers, I find to be great because they sort of unite every player against one and the game becomes more shakey in general, which is a nice change of pace. I can't quite remember which powers Tom took out originally, but I know my powers that I took out weren't the same. For example, Mind is just Demon but worse, so I removed it. Actually there's a number of aliens which could be described as "that other alien, but worse", and I removed them all. And Grumpus is not even a power, so that's gone, too. If you only follow Tom's list, you'll likely inadvertently take out powers which you would have enjoyed, or not take out powers which you dislike.
Oops, looks like the game info overlay at the start got carried over from the Cat in the Box review. 😅 Unless Cosmic suddenly got a lot shorter and 2-player friendly!
Isn't void literally Insane with this new change? OLD: ONLY as a Main player, losing ships are gone forever, nobody can do anything about it, void included NEW: As a Main player AND an Ally, Losing ships are gone forever AND if Void wants, it can free them as part of a deal BUT ONLY if Void wants to. So that means Void CAN STILL just keep them gone forever. So it's just a buff and it's a busted buff at that! (mostly because of the "or Allies" buff)
Yeah, you're right. But I'm all for it tbh. I love powers which are so broken they unite players against you. Cosmic is rather self-balancing since players will not be evenly targeted, depending on their power strength. So I don't think the power will hurt the game
Just a piece of advice. Evolution is a great variant. But find the Pyrology evolution card and, (as per its namesake), _burn it._ That card will add a ton of unnecessary bloat that will just make the game not fun. The 4 ship effect is really strong, so everyone will want to get it. But, when they do, _every time_ someone plays a flare, you have to go through the painstaking effort of making sure everyone else who has 4 on it gets a flare card. And this will get more and more frequent as more people get flares. It will completely blow up your game, and make everyone stuck with decision paralysis, making you go until 4 AM. And, in Cosmic Odyssey, there are several effects that allow you to play more than one flare at a time, which makes it even more obscene. This was not a very well thought out card, and you should make sure it _never_ comes in your game. (I can say the same for the super reward that makes you play double alien variant, but we all decided to let it do its other effect, that you gain 2 rewards, no matter when you play it.) Also, Lux seemed like a well designed concept _in theory,_ but had a massive design flaw. Basically the design flaw is that it's (almost) always better to pay 1 lux per reward than to spend lux on your card's effect. The catch is _supposed_ to be that if you declare one lux per reward, you're giving rewards to everyone, so it's better to allow only yourself, or yourself and another player to buy them at higher expense. However, if your turn is first, then you can simply plan to only launch one ship, declare "1 per reward for everyone", and guarantee that you get 3 rewards, and only one other person gets one, and that's it. You always want to take advantage of that. But, if you do that, then on the next encounter, everybody will have 0, and the offense will be in that same position again. So you end up in a scenario where, if everyone is playing the most logical action, then nobody ever has lux at the start of encounter, and the offense _always_ says "1 for everyone" and then launches with one ship and buys rewards. The designers needed to think of a more clever way to have people gain lux, such that you're actually incentivized to declare the other options, and spend lux on other things besides rewards.
This "expansion" really blew me away with not just the quantity but the sheer quality of its contents. Jack and everyone else who put their hearts and souls into the development and production of this box deserve our highest esteem. Coming from a game which has consistently delivered more than a half-dozen expansions over the course of more than a decade, it is really saying something to say that this has to be the greatest expansion yet. Honestly, the dedicated "campaign" elements of this box are quite minimal compared to just the sheer amount of modular content that can be included in any game of Cosmic. If you love Cosmic Encounter and just want a box full of amazing stuff to add to the experience, this is a no-brainer. Just buy it.
Some of the powers remind me of the old magazines for the Mayfair version of the game I had with weaknesses that you used instead of powers, Micron was one, I think Lemming was too, and I know there was cockroach as well. The powers they had are different than these, but still cool to see these brought forward. Will have to pick this up!
So glad they updated Grumpus. Kind of a shame how quickly Tom went past that. Grumpus was in my opinion the worst alien in the game, simply because a player with Grumpus literally may as well not have a power at all. If any new player played as Grumpus, they'd likely never play Cosmic again since the power is in practice "you have no power. Enjoy spectating from the sidelines while everyone else has fun!" Even Tourist, which hurts you more than helps you, at least does *something* interesting.
I think it's ok to say now but I tested this last year (was it last year? Or was it the year before? Whatever). Anything that adds to the chaos is great and this expansion was a BLAST. I was testing with a group of guys that weren't familiar with the game so it was funny to watch the reactions when you would go from last place to like winning the game in a single turn. SO much fun.
Are the green aliens included good for beginners? I choose expansions based on quality of beginner aliens to share my love of this game with family and friends - thanks!
I would say absolutely! Not only does this expansion have a lot of green aliens, but they seem almost tailored specifically for new players. Some notable highlights are Tentacle, Wrack, and Bubbles.
I only have the recent edition of Cosmic. Should I wait for a reprinting of all of the expansions (with new transparent ships design/card redesigns)? Or is this FF's last stand with this game you think?
Looks awesome, though definitely not new player friendly. I don't think I would ever want to use the moons or the lux, they look too fiddly or complex. I never really used tech before either, just another complication. But more rewards and aliens, great. Replacement aliens, greater. And evolutions look cool and easy to implement. Might even give space stations another chance to impress me. Really don't care about a campaign though. So kind of a case of, get it cheap when I can to bolster the content I like already.
It is New player friendly, because all you do in each game (campaign or single) is pull an Age card. This tells you: A) what method of Alien selection to use B) which variant will be added in the game eg Reward deck, Tech, Hazards. C) which page of the campaign book the rules for A and B are (although the owner of the game just needs to know this and explain to everyone). Only lux, stations and Moons are a bit complex... so for newbs... just redraw another Age card! It's an amazing expansion! Every variant has been improved, even the ones people didn't like: - Tech is easier to complete, and more interesting. - Hazards are less obnoxious - Ultra-rewards are bonkers! Even the campaign rules are not complicated, and each campaign is recommended to only last 4 games (can be 2-3 if u want) I wrote a summary of the campaign rules on bgg: boardgamegeek.com/thread/2899264/summary-cosmic-odyssey-campaign-rules Tbh apart from expansions that add ship colours, Odyssey is the only ESSENTIAL expansion for me now. The Age cards alone are worth it, so you don't have to debate which variant to use. Nor do variants sit collecting dust, since they're all interesting now.
I would not throw new players into a ton of variant options period. Lux and moons will never get used as they go ons step too far, game has enough bloat already.
Played cosmic encounter a year ago for the first time and it’s effin impossible to get a copy in German. Most of my friends avoid English versions of games like the plague. Hope this makes its way to us one day
Considering it's priced at almost the same as the base game, it probably should have a ton of stuff in it. To me this is all overkill, though, and even as someone who's bought all the previous expansions I don't think I'm quite in the target market for this one.
I absolutely love Cosmic Encounter, it really is my favorite game that I don't get to play enough anymore. But I absolutely hate all these new expansions. They make the game so convoluted. It's just too much and unnecessary. The game is perfect, new aliens are always welcome. New variants, not so much welcome for me. Yeah I know I don't have to purchase everything or play every way, but I need to own everything for it lol. Still, it's just way too much now. And buying an expansion and only using 25% of the box items bothers me.
There is a lot of content in "Cosmic Odyssey", but it also cost almost three times as much as the other expansions for "Cosmic Encounter". And that is just too much for a 7th expansion to a older game. And if you're not planning to use the campaign, the moons and the lux, then it's just way too pricey.
Its not if you think about it. Flairs are awesome but you can only play 1 per turn, so you can get in a position where your hand is full of junk that you cant play, if the flair is zapped you have to discard it, if you get cosmic zapped then you dont get the flair, and anything that steals cards from hands will make it incredibly hard to assemble Exodia. If you are super into flares, Aristocrat is probably a bit better
Interesting, but I don't think any of these modules change the fact that this game is just "Cosmic Munchkin Encounter", which is my main gripe with the game. 😂
