Cosmic Encounter

The FFG base game supports three to five players. Each starts with five home planets and twenty ships, four per planet, and zero foreign colonies. Choose one of the two aliens indicated by the two flares dealt to you. In normal play, shuffle those flares and enough random additional flares to total ten into the cosmic deck; deal eight cards to each player.

Players take turns as offense. An encounter has seven phases: Regroup, Destiny, Launch, Alliance, Planning, Reveal, and Resolution. At turn start, an offense with no encounter cards reveals and discards remaining cards and draws eight. Only winning the first attack or making a successful deal while retaining at least one encounter card permits an optional second encounter; two is the maximum.

Regroup retrieves one of your ships from the warp to a colony. Destiny identifies the system and defense. Drawing your own color allows a redraw or an attempt to drive out one foreign colony in your system. A completely empty home planet may instead be recolonized with up to four ships, counting as a successful encounter.

The offense aims the hyperspace gate at a planet in the specified system and commits one to four ships from any of their colonies. The defense uses their ships already there and cannot freely add or remove them, even defending with zero ships. Other uninvolved colors on the planet are bystanders and do not automatically participate.

The offense invites allies first, then the defense. Beginning to the offense's left and proceeding clockwise, invited players accept or decline, supporting only one side or neither. Each ally commits one to four ships: offensive allies put ships on the gate, while defensive allies put them beside the target planet.

In Planning, each main player secretly selects an encounter card: attack, negotiate, or morph. A defense with no encounter cards reveals and discards remaining cards and draws eight, repeating if necessary. An offense needing an encounter card without having one during the turn ends that turn; offensive and allied ships return to their colonies.

With two attacks, compare each attack value plus that side's participating ships, including allies; ties favor defense. Applicable powers and cards can change the calculation. Morph copies the opposing encounter card when revealed. An offensive win lands all offensive and offensive allied ships, sends participating defenders to the warp, and leaves bystander colonies intact.

A defensive win sends offensive and offensive allied ships to the warp; defensive allied ships return to their colonies. For each ship committed to the successful defense, each defensive ally gains one reward: draw one cosmic card or retrieve one of their ships from the warp, mixing choices if desired. The main defense receives no such reward.

A negotiate normally loses against an attack, but its player takes random compensation cards from the opponent equal to their own ships actually lost to the warp, excluding allied losses. Two negotiates return allies without rewards and give the main players one minute to trade hand cards and/or grant each other one colony on a planet they already occupy. At least one card or colony must change hands; failure costs each main player three ships.

Normally, having ships on five different planets in other players' home systems reaches five foreign colonies; multiple ships on one planet still count once. The 2018 FAQ checks ordinary victory at the end of Resolution, allowing shared wins. Alien powers override general rules while observing their stated role and timing. Fewer than three home colonies immediately disables your power; recovering at least three restores it.