Cosmic Encounter: Cosmic Conflict

 

Cosmic Encounter is a game that has had many versions and may expansions over its 37 year history. However Fantasy Flight’s latest version really seems to be the definitive edition, which has up to five expansions thus far. The first to be released was the excellent Cosmic Incursion Expansion. Today I will be looking at the second, titled Cosmic Conflict.

Additions

Seventh Player – New black ships and planets are added to the game in case you want to play with 7 players (if you also have the orange ships from the first expansion). The ships look sleek. A seven player game is crazy, but Cosmic is one of those games that feeds off of crazy.

Hazard Deck – There is a new deck added to the game which is one of those “everything is affected by the same change” things. Every once in a while, the hazard deck is triggered and a card comes into play. Some of these can be crazy, like the entropy beast which removes planets from play.

New Aliens – And of course, new alien races are added to an already insane amount of aliens. Some notable races are the saboteur who can lay out traps, the prophet who tries to predict who will win encounters, the changeling who can swap powers, and The Claw which lets you steal someone’s entire planet!

Critique

Best Feature: Having new alien races is probably the best feature for this one, as its always nice to have more variety and more chances for alien power wackiness! I mean, 14 of the 20 new races are either red or yellow level powers.

When to use: The new aliens can of course be thrown into the mix. The hazard deck isn’t an “always use” though. Only use it once in a while to switch things up, sort of like the tech cards from the base game.

Does it fit?: Yes, it fits with Cosmic Incursion as well, but its pretty full. I had to stick all the planets underneath the insert. I’m not sure I can fit a third expansion in there.

What type: This is a more of the same expansion, but the hazard deck could be considered a variant expansion.

Overall: Its alright, but I wouldn’t say its an essential Cosmic add-on. The hazard deck is cool every once in a while, and the aliens are great, but no real stand outs (except maybe the claw)