Cosmic Encounter: Cosmic Eons
Cosmic Encounter: Cosmic Eons Rulebook
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Game Components
This section describes how to incorporate the Cosmic Eons expansion into the Cosmic Encounter base game.
All cards from this expansion are marked with the Cosmic Eons expansion symbol to distinguish these cards from those in the base game.
Prior to game setup, follow the steps listed below.
- 30 Alien Sheets: Add the new alien sheets to the stack of available alien sheets.
- 30 Flare Cards: Shuffle the new flare cards into the existing deck of flare cards.
- 55 Essence Cards: Set the essence cards to one side of the play area.
- 37 Alien Tokens: Set the special alien tokens to one side of the play area.
- 6 Alliance Dials: Assemble the dials as described to the right.
Assembling the alliance dials: assemble the dials as shown in the rules insert, firmly snapping together the two plastic connectors. The illustration labels the gate piece, the dial, and the number wheel.
New Rules
Essence Cards
Several aliens begin the game with a new component called essence cards. Each of these aliens has an essence symbol on its sheet and its own set of essence cards which enhance its power.
Aliens with Essence Cards
The essence symbol is printed on the alien sheet of each alien that uses essence cards. Each alien's set contains the following number of essence cards:
- Alien: 9 traumas
- Anarchist: 8 disruptions
- Assistant: 6 helps
- Nanny: 8 consequences
- Nightmare: 10 bad dreams
- Oligarch: 5 privileges
- Sheriff: 9 tickets
Before playing as an alien with essence cards, shuffle that alien's essence cards and place them facedown as a set. Then, draw three cards from that set as your essence card cache. When referred to by game effects, a set of essence cards is not considered to be a deck and a cache of essence cards is not considered to be a hand. Cards in a player's cache are kept separate from the set and kept secret from all other players until played.
Players will always maintain a cache of three cards; each time players play or are forced to lose an essence card from their cache, they replace that card by taking the top card from their set and placing it in their cache. Any essence cards that are played or lost are kept in a faceup unavailable pile. When there are no essence cards left in a set, that player shuffles his unavailable essence cards to form a new set.
When an alien sheet with the essence symbol is lost or flipped facedown, all essence cards still in the game belonging to that alien are returned to that player's unavailable pile.
Players can always look at their cache as well as essence cards they have played on another player. Players who have been given essence cards may not look at them if they are facedown.
Alliance Dials
The six alliance dials are used with the Hidden Alliances variant described below. Assemble the dials as shown in the illustration, firmly snapping together the two plastic connectors.
Variants
This section contains rules for a new variant that players may enjoy using.
Hidden Alliances Variant
This variant is recommended for games with four or more players and allows all players' decisions during the Alliance Phase to be revealed simultaneously, creating a more suspenseful situation with opportunities for persuasion, misdirection, and betrayal.
During each encounter, after both main players have invited allies, each player who is eligible to become an ally picks up an alliance dial and rotates it to indicate both the side that he or she is joining and the number of ships he or she is committing, as follows:
- The number of dots in the window on the hyperspace gate end of the dial indicates the number of ships a player is committing to the offense.
- The number of dots in the window on the planet end of the dial indicates the number of ships a player is committing to the defense.
- A dash (–) in both windows indicates that a player is not committing ships to either side.
- A star is used to show special cases, as presented on individual alien sheets or cards (e.g.: using the Plasma Thrusters tech card).
- The rectangular card icon on the dial is used in the Foreign Aid Option, as described on the following page.
Each player who is eligible to ally must rotate his or her dial to one of the positions listed above, even if he or she does not intend to join the encounter. This keeps decisions among all players secret. Players are allowed to make claims out loud about the positions of their dials, whether true or not.
After selecting positions on their dials, players place their dials facedown in front of their alien sheets. When the dials of all eligible players are in front of their alien sheets, all of them are revealed simultaneously. Those who have chosen to ally send their ships to the encounter according to the position of their dial.
In special circumstances where the alliance dial cannot show enough information to indicate a player's intentions (e.g., when using the Yin-Yang alien in Cosmic Dominion), the player dials the star into an appropriate window. After all of the dials are facedown in front of alien sheets, but before they are revealed, the player with such a special circumstance announces his or her choice out loud.
Foreign Aid Optional Rule
This optional rule allows non-main players to send cards to main players as foreign aid using their alliance dials. Non-main players must position their dial even when they have not been invited to ally. Any non-main player, invited or not, may position his or her dial to show the miniature card for either the offense or the defense. When the dials are revealed, each player who chose to send foreign aid secretly offers one card from his or her hand to the chosen main player. The main players review their foreign aid offers and must accept or reject each one. If a card is rejected, it is returned to the offering player. If a card is accepted, the offering player immediately gains one reward and the main player may also invite the offering player to send a specified number of ships (subject to all applicable limits) to become his or her ally.