Anyone have experience with this boardgame? Wassit like then?

It's pretty cool. Your "alien race" determines some special rules that apply to you. It's a very "socially interactive" game with a lot of deal-making and alliances.

There's an online version here: http://cosmicencounter.com

Yeah, I've played it a lot. Personally, I think it's okay, not great, but it's easy for a variety of people to get into, not just hardcore gamers.

The problem I always had playing it was that the group would just watch how close anyone was to winning the game and then ensure that everyone stayed even. So all the players basically approach victory at a steady pace and then you have a standoff until someone draws a good card combination. As each player then makes a bid for winning the game, the others play a sort of game of chicken with each one trying to expend the least resources preventing the win.

Structurally the issue I have with the game is probably that it doesn't really have any spacial relationships--all that matters is how many tokens you have in however many star systems. There's a wrinkle, in that something special happens if a player's home system is completely colonized by others (or something like that) but it basically shouldn't happen assuming competent play.

The only time I played the game and really enjoyed it, as opposed to just killing time with friends, was when we played with multiple powers--you take several alien cards and use the powers from all of them. The interactions were a lot more interesting then.

Discovered this game in college (88/89), wasted many hours playing it instead of studying.  It is a fun boardgame that when 2 powers are used per person it is a great deal of fun.  There is a lot of diplomacy, blufffing, threatening and keeping quiet to fly under the radar. Game play is simple but the powers add a very fun dimension.

(When I play, I remove many powers that either prolong or overbalance the game greatly. Terrorist, Assassin, Witch are three that automatically get removed.)

I play it whenever I can at GenCon.

Played this game for many many hours in the early 90s and had a lot of fun. Isn't it the grandpa of exception based games? It surely feels like it was a source of inspiration for Magic the Gathering.

Quote from: enelson;405889There is a lot of diplomacy, blufffing, threatening and keeping quiet to fly under the radar. Game play is simple but the powers add a very fun dimension.

My experience as well. Junta, VtES and Cosmic Encounter are games that we pseudo-role-played. I mean sure they're not RPGs but funny voices, differentiation between IC and OOC and also the way illustrations and fluff text stimulated our imagination... it partially scratched the same itch.  

Anecdote: among my friends Risk and Cosmic Encounters seemed to trigger temporary game designer vocations. It's pretty easy to create new alien races and play-test them in one evening.

Quote from: boulet;405894It surely feels like it was a source of inspiration for Magic the Gathering.

I'm pretty sure the designer of MtG said it was. Yep.

We played that one...not to death...rather to the glory of the morning sun, oftentimes. It is indeed one of the best non-war-games that exists. It is only surpassed by Dune, made by the same people. The reasons for Dune being better: The reasons Elliot mentioned.

The only real problems that we encountered with "Cosmic" are some weird combinations of races that suck the fun and all strategy out of it. THe Reincarnators are high on that list due to their attached racial minor powr card. Ugh!