Welcome to my Cosmic Encounter WWW Index page
(Image is from
Eon original version. Many things are different in
other version such as the Destiny Pile uses Cards, not Discs).
The image at the left shows Greg and
Peter Olotka demonstrating the Hasbro/Avalon Hill version of Cosmic Encounter at GenCon (10/20/00). The current version is the Fantasy Flight version which has a number of expansions. There is a nice article on the history of the game at: http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2016-03-06-the-making-of-cosmic-encounter-the-greatest-boardgame-in-the-galaxy.
I have developed these pages as an aid to the Players of the board game
Cosmic Encounter, orginally put out by
Eon
and later produced by others such as West End Games, Mayfair Games, Hasbro/Avalon Hill, and now Fantasy Flight.
There are already a couple of useful sites relating to Cosmic but none which
include all of the available links and information. In particular, the
expansions and other ideas posted to the newsgroup
rec.games.board.ce are not available
anywhere. Special thanks to Steven Staton, Kurt Adam, Bryan Bowe, Jack Reda,
and all posters to the CE newsgroup.
For those interested in purchasing the game, you can purchase the currently in
print Fantasy Flight version or you can search for an earlier long out-of-print
version. The Eon set is out of print and generally very expensive when
individuals do sell it. The Mayfair set and its expansions (CE) are also out
of print and expensive to get when sold on eBay or the like.
Disclaimer: All of this material was freely posted to the newsgroup
rec.games.board.ce or is available on
the Web. Unless an author objects to his material being here(in which case
I will try to remove it) this material is freely available for your use as long
as you follow the restrictions which may be listed in a given article. NO
guarantees are made to the accuracy, completeness, or anything else of any of
this material. The material is distributed as is and may or may not be useful
to you. In some cases, I have done some minor editing to individual articles,
primarily to improve the formatting by restricting lines to 80 characters in
length and moving the news headers to the bottom of the articles. In the
very few places where I have actually added any material, it will be noted by
the notation (ADF).
Aaron's Requests
- My email address is
aarondf@bu.edu so send your comments and
suggestions there.
- If you have any updates to present information or more
recent/different/interesting info that might be good to have as part of this
page please let me know.
- If there are any other CE pages or material out there, let me know
about it and I will add links as appropriate.
Cosmic Notes (also, read the
FAQ)
- Abbreviations/Short Forms:
CE or Cosmic - The game Cosmic Encounter, all variations.
FF CE - Currently in print Fantasy Flight edition.
AH CE - Avalon Hill edition. Rules are basically those of the Eon version but many names are changed.
Mayfair Version - Mayfair version of Cosmic Encounter, includes MCE.
Mayfair CE - Mayfair "Cosmic Encounter" set, does not include MCE.
MCE - More Cosmic Encounter, the Mayfair Game expansion set.
Eon Version - Old Eon version of Cosmic (see below).
- Major Differences in the Eon Version: (from the Mayfair Version)
See this newsgroup discussion of other differences in the versions.
1) Lucre add to total in challenges. Each player starts the game with 4
Lucre and gets 1 additional Lucre per turn. Lucre can be used only to
buy tokens from the Warp(/Praw) or cards from the deck on a one-for-one
basis. Our house rule on conversion from Mayfair to Eon Lucre amounts is
'divide by 3 and round up'.
2) Flares, unless they specifically say they are "discard after use",
are multiple-use. You can continue using most flares as often as appropriate
until you get a new hand or the flare is flare-zapped or you lose the card.
See the link to the Full Eon Rules below. This applies to both
Wild and Super Flares.
- Note from Tom Smith at Mayfair Games regarding
Mayfair's current plans for future CE expansions. (7/19/96)
- Another note from Tom Smith regarding Cosmic's
status now that Mayfair is gone. (2/10/97)
- Mayfair is out of the Cosmic business and the license to the game is
now available again. Details on this are thanks to
Nick Sauer's post to r.g.b.ce. (6/20/97)
Other Cosmic Encounter Sites
CE Expansions off the Net (latest version I have a copy of)
Powers (Format: Power Set Name (# of powers))
- Players rank the Mayfair powers in terms of game strength
- Framingham, MA Group Powers - developed by Matt Stone, Rick Katz, Mark Katzoff, Pete Dateo, Aaron Fuegi, Phil Hill, Andy Latto, Ben Berman, Brad Seidel, Mark Amidon, Joe Lundy, Peter Sarrett, Gerald Katz, Alex Kay, Ed Lopez and playtested by the first 10 of these people plus others.
- Powers are not listed which we use basically in their original form from either the Eon or Mayfair sets.
- These powers have, for the most part, been extensively playtested - the original 4 members of our group (first 4 names above) have been playing regularly since Eon first introduced the game. However, given the number of powers and the nature of Cosmic, you may still have problems. Eventually I will put here a set of house rules of our group which may help to clarify some difficulties.
- Mayfair Compatibility Issues:
- "Do not use with...": If a power says not to use it with another power, this is what it means.
- The Praw and Hazards: These are two expansions we generally don't use but which some powers require. If you don't understand the Praw (Eon), don't use it. Hazards (Matt's homemade expansion) are linked to elsewhere on this page. A little more information on how we use these expansions is here.
- Lucre: Eon Lucre are worth much more than Mayfair Lucre, our scheme to convert from Mayfair to Eon is "divide by 3 and round up". "Multiply by 3" is thus probably reasonable for the reverse conversion.
- Star Discs: These don't exist in Mayfair. This is basically just a spot on your system where your Lucre goes. In Eon, it is a cardboard disc of the same color as your tokens and is placed on one's system hex.
- Powers in text form with authors credited whenever possible.
- Powers in PostScript format suitable for printing - 3 per page (also in PDF thanks to Tim Moore)
- Powers in PostScript format suitable for printing - 6 per page (also in PDF thanks to Tim Moore)
- Flares in PostScript format suitable for printing - 9 per page (also in PDF)- Flares for most, but not all, powers are available.
- New Powers, Flares and Other Cards from Gerald Katz
- Bad Powers (32)
- New Powers from Sonic (4)
Access Count
Maintained by:
Aaron Douglass Fuegi (aarondf@bu.edu)
