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These Are Our Readers’ 21 Favorite Board Games

Cosmic Encounter is my favorite game ever. There’s a reason it’s been around for 42 years.

It starts as a simple game were you send up to 4 space ships into a battle against one of your opponent’s planets (containing some space ships of it’s own). You each play a single card face down, which will add to your ship total. Highest total wins:

The game tells you who to attack. I’m attacking player 5.

Me: “We each have 4 ships in the encounter, and I can add 2o to my total with this card, making 24. The 20 is one of the higher cards but not the highest. Will I win?”

Player 5: “I have a 15, and 4 ships which gives me 19. Not bad. I bet I’ll win”

Then you add in alliances:

Me: “Hey Player 2, and Player 3 do you guys wanna be my allies and add your ships and cards to my total?”

Player 5: “I’ll take Player 2, Player 3, and Player 4 as my allies. Let’s beat Slamus!”

All players ally against me, giving 4 ships each to the battle.

My starting total: 4

Player 5: 16

Then you add in the best part. Alien Powers:

I’m playing as “The Loser” and I use my ability to declare that the LOWEST total shall win this encounter. I decide now to play a 1 instead of my 20.

Player 5 looks shifty and lays down his card.

We reveal cards,

I reveal a 1, bringing my total to a nice low 5,

Player 5 reveals… a Negotiate card.

if I had played one too we would both negotiate a deal, but since I didn’t they lose, as do all 3 of their allies. They’ll never trust him again.

Then the next turn starts.

Every Alien Power breaks the rules of the game significantly. The game comes with 50 and there are 6 expansions that all add 20-30 more powers.

with each alien, you add a special corresponding “Flare” card into the deck, which either powers up the alien that it goes with, or gives someone else a smaller crazy ability.

The core gameplay of Cosmic is really fun, and the alliance system keeps everyone involved. Then you add in Alien Powers and Flare cards and it gets really crazy. Every game is different, and every game is great. There’s strategy to be had, but someone can blow it up at any time so you need to have a backup strategy and a back up for that.

BUY IT – Slamus

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