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Two Player Cosmic Encounter Variant

This document provides rules for playing the board game Cosmic Encounter with two players instead of the recommended 4-6 players. The key aspects of the two player variant are: 1) Each player controls two alien races/colors instead of one, representing a four player game. The colors are kept completely separate. 2) Winning requires establishing bases with one of the player's two colors, following the standard Cosmic Encounter rules. 3) Players alternate taking turns with their two colors to avoid challenging themselves. Certain powers that could lead to this are removed.

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50 views2 pages

Two Player Cosmic Encounter Variant

This document provides rules for playing the board game Cosmic Encounter with two players instead of the recommended 4-6 players. The key aspects of the two player variant are: 1) Each player controls two alien races/colors instead of one, representing a four player game. The colors are kept completely separate. 2) Winning requires establishing bases with one of the player's two colors, following the standard Cosmic Encounter rules. 3) Players alternate taking turns with their two colors to avoid challenging themselves. Certain powers that could lead to this are removed.

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Two Player Cosmic Encounter Variant

Disclaimer: Playing Cosmic Encounter with less than 4 players is never going to be the same or
as good a game as with 4-6 IMHO. However, the following set of simple rules is a reasonable
way to play, particularly for teaching purposes, if 2 is all you can get.

2 Player Options if you are dead set on playing Cosmic:


1) Get more players - this would be best but isn't always possible.
2) Play the 2 player variant in More Cosmic Encounter - I have only played this variant once but
found it rather unsatisfying. In addition, I would definitely not recommend it for teaching a new
player as a lot of the rules are very different from the normal game and it will thus not be a good
introduction to the regular game.
3) Try this variant. I have played it about 3 times and it worked pretty well. The particularly nice
thing about it is that it very closely follows the standard rules (really only 2 rule changes) so it is
an excellent teaching environment.

Two Player Cosmic Encounter Variant Rules

1) Follow all standard Cosmic Encounter rules for the set you are using unless a change is
indicated here.

2) The primary difference in this variant is that each player controls two systems/colors,
artificially creating a four player game. Each of these systems/colors is 100% independent with
its own power(s), hand, destiny color, moons (if used), lucre (if used), etc... The player who
owns each system/color can at any time look at anything associated with that system but may
never, except following normal rules (such as Philanthropist) transfer any material from one
system to the other.

3) The win condition is the standard one. If either of a given player's systems/colors establishes
5 external bases, that system/color's owning player wins.

4) I recommend that you physically place a given player's two systems next to one another but
turn order should alternate between the two players. Consider the following example with Player
1 (P1) controlling the Red and Orange systems and Player 2 (P2) controlling the Purple and
Yellow systems.

____ ____
/ \ / \
/ \ / \
| RED | | PURPLE |
| P1 | | P2 |
\ / \ /
\____/ \____/

____
/ \
/ \
| WARP |
| P1 |
\ /
\____/

____ ____
/ \ / \
/ \ / \
| ORANGE | | YELLOW |
| P1 | | P2 |
\ / \ /
\____/ \____/
Randomly select which color goes first. The diagonally opposite color goes next followed by
the color horizontally opposite the second player followed by the remaining player who would
diagonally opposite the third player and then back to the starting player.
In the example above, if Yellow were determined to go first the turn order would be: Yellow
(P2), Red (P1), Purple (P2) Orange (P1). Truthfully you can do it anyway you want: the
important thing is that the players alternate turns - no player should have his two colors play
one after the other.

5) Major Rule Change: A given player may never end up challenging himself and should
never end up in a deal situation with himself. To facilitate this, the following rule changes:
A) If a player's destiny flip forces him to attack his other color, he must flip again.
B) If a player flips his other color and moons are in the game, he may attack a moon (assuming it
is not occupied by his other color) or may flip again. Note that (particularly if you are not
playing with moons) I recommend these reflips are treated as if they never happened for
purposes of powers such as Assassin and Disease.
C) If by some chance a player ends up in a deal situation with himself, he is not allowed to deal
and both colors lose 3 tokens to the Warp. However, this should never be allowed to happen (see
below).
D) Items which seem likely to lead to violations of this rule should be removed from the game
(see #6 below).

6) I recommend not using the following Powers in this variant. Note that I generally play Eon
rules and don't offhand remember all the Mayfair powers - most of this is common sense
anyway. If you get one of these powers, randomly draw a new one to replace it.
Too Powerful: Magnet, Silencer1
Will likely lead to violations of Rule 5: Demon, Diplomat, Dictator, Delegator

7) In order to avoid someone getting a bad hand and just being stuck with it, you may wish to use
the Punt Option. This option would allow any player to skip the entire turn for one of his
colors in order to discard that color's hand and get a new one. This is entirely an optional
suggestion.

Footnotes
1) If you do use Silencer, the power would silence the color, not the player.

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