Cosmic Encounter is a fan-favorite game of space negotiation, and it’s been a big hit for quite some time. While players are busy taking on the roles of different alien races and conquering each other, Fantasy Flight has been at work with something to add to the game. They’ve just announced Cosmic Storm, a brand new expansion for the game.
Cosmic Storm adds space stations, a variant that allows players to add more to their home worlds. Each station has its own unique ability that can be used to help supplement your battle for supremacy. When playing with the space station variant, players each draw one space station card and attach it to one of their home worlds. Each of the ten included stations has a unique ability that can be used as long as you control at least one ship on the world the station is attached to. They can also be traded as part of a negotiation.
Two space stations that were previewed were Alien Outpost and Big Space Laser:
Both of these stations add something different to your game, as the Alien Outpost gains you additional alien power, while the Big Space Laser adds a ton of power to your attack if you have no allies during the attack. What makes these space stations even better is that they’re all compatible with other variants in the game. With their addition to the game also comes a new victory condition: the first player to grab five space stations by winning offensive encounters outside their home system wins.
The expansion will definitely introduce new alien races, and so far we’ve seen the Mouth and the Outlaws. The Mouth are voracious, and eat everything that stands in their way, while the Outlaws prefer causing mayhem through other means all throughout the galaxy. In a more recent post on Fantasy Flight’s site, designer Jay Little took some time to describe his thoughts on Cosmic Storm as a whole. We also got to see two new alien races, the Dervish and the Converter.
If you’re a Cosmic Encounter fan, make sure you head over to the Fantasy Flight post to see these new alien races, and learn more about the design behind Cosmic Storm. It will be releasing very soon, so you won’t want to miss out on this vital information. The galaxy depends on it!