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Review of Cosmic Eons
Blurb from the publisher: 'A power that transcends the ages!
Stretched beyond the confines of space and time, a crack in the cosmos has revealed a slew of ancient alien races, once forgotten to the annals of history. With an unmatched level of conflict experience, these races have arisen from their temporal sleep, preparing to bend the younger races to their indomitable will.
In Cosmic Eons, 30 new alien races explode onto the galaxy! Players will be terrified by the Nightmare, pledge their allegiance to The Cult, develop rapport with the Bleeding Heart, and just watch the world burn with the Anarchist!
Cosmic Eon is proudly designed by the original creators of Cosmic Encounter. It introduces new alliance dials, which hide pivotal support values of all players, as well as unique essence cards for certain aliens, allowing access to an unprecedented level of creative design space.
This is not a standalone product. A copy of the Cosmic Encounter Core Set is required to play.'
What you get: Your USD 24,95 or equivalent will buy you Cosmic Eons, one of the six expansions for the Cosmic Encounter game line. It is reminded that the Cosmic Encounter 42nd Anniversary Edition is the game's current base game and the newest iteration of the 3-5 player classic boardgame of exception-based aggression, simultaneous bidding, hand management, bluffing and deceit. Depending on the number of players and their familiarity with the game's nature, expect a game to last around two hours. The present expansion can be purchased autonomously of any other expansion. No expansion is a prerequisite for another.
In addition to the 2 pages of rules that can also be downloaded from the publisher's website free of charge, the game contains the following: 85 cards (55 Essence, 30 Flares), 30 Alien sheets, 35 Alien tokens and 6 Alliance dials.
Gameplay: Cosmic Eons is the first Fantasy Flight Games expansion to feature the designers of the original 1977 game. The 30 new aliens cover all levels of difficulty, with 4 easy ones, 11 moderately difficult, and 15 hard. They include Hunger (continuously steals cards from other players' hands), the Assistant (gains Rewards by helping his allies), and the Peddler (sells cards that he has drawn for that reason).
The new Flare cards are similar to those found in the base game. All cards bear the mark CE. One can thus easily distinguish them from the cards of the base game and those of the other expansions.
Essence is the expansion's new subsystem. Seven of the aliens in this set (e.g. the Alien, the Nightmare, and the Sherrif) use Essence. Essence signifies different things for different aliens. The Alien has 9 trauma cards, which are different to the Assistant's 6 help cards, which themselves are different to the Oligarch's 5 privileges. Each faction plays its Essence cards differently. In any event, these cards cannot be mixed in any way with other cards, nor do they go to the same discard piles.
By using the Hidden Alliances variant players can participate in alliances by simultaneously revealing who they support as well as the strength of the support. Players reveal their choices simultaneously. An additional rule (Foreign Aid) allows non-main players to send cards to the main players.
The strong points: Even when one doesn't know that the game's original designers were behind this expansion, he can easily tell that there is something unique about Cosmic Eons.
Hidden Alliances are fantastic! Who will support you, and with how much force? This simultaneous revelation alters the game's dynamics. Once you change to this mode there is no way you will revert to the previous one. The game becomes much faster, while at the same time the element of bluffing is buffed up. Watch out though: so do the grudges, since you will have less time to whin- eloquently and diplomatically convince your competitors to support you. Foreign aid is also a sublime addition. You are trying to help, yet this is not the kind of help that the participants asked. Your help might be appreciated, and you might get in an alliance, or you might be left looking from outside. That's a very strong addition to the game's bluffing aspect, and again, one that you will most likely keep once you try it.
The designers went quite far out with the aliens this time, and I like that a lot. Read their short diary inside the game and you will realize that they wanted to go even more crazy. The Anarchist can fundamentally influence the game (and win it, of course), through his constant rules disruption. Cloak is one of the weirdest factions ever (he can move things around while others are obliged not to look), yet if played by an experienced player it can light up your table. The Hypochondriac denies victory from the faction that accumulates the most anxiety; don't allow him to use all his Essence cards. Some factions like the Tortoise are totally out there; these guys can win alone after the game is over, and let me not forget the Cloak, which forces players to participate in real-life 30-second memory games. If you play seriously, the faction feels like a curio. Have a couple of beers however, and you will realize how much it encapsulates the spirit of Cosmic Encounter.
The weak points: The standard stuff: Cosmic Encounter is a particular beast. You may like or dislike it for what it is, this cannot however be changed by an expansion. This is more about thinking on your feet and making the best out of the things you already know, than about strategizing for the far future. There's chaos, there's playing the players, there's grudges and slapstick comedy. If you didn't like all that in the first place, I don't see why you will like it now.
If you are uncertain whether you need this expansion or whether you should invest into other ones, the answer is fairly straightforward. This expansion does not increase the number of players, yet it adds some fantastic new aliens while introducing mechanics that will become a staple in your game. If you want to experience what the game's original designers bring to the table today without increasing the number of players, you can't go wrong.
I can't believe that the publisher waited until the line's closing expansion to put out the simultaneous alliance revelation rule. This is such an obvious addition for this game, you would expect it to be a variant in the basic box already. If it were, there would be no need for alliance discs here, thus there would have been additional components, and potential more zany rules. Oh, well.
Spaced out aliens can be both good and bad, depending on the experience you are after. Some might dislike the totally weird stuff like the Cloak. Others might dislike the Nanny because it turns the game antisocial, or the Particle because you really need to deal with early in the game if you don't want it to cruise towards victory. Look at the big picture. No matter the experience you are after, there are enough aliens in this set to thrill you, and enough to pique your curiosity at least for a couple of games.
The expansion has not been brought in line with the current, 42nd Anniversary Edition base game. There are no suggestions on how to use certain aliens with others, there are no combos, there is nothing... at least not inside this box. Scour the net for more info on how to create interesting matches.
The box/insert combination is a joke. If you sleeve your cards, the components fit only if you arrange them chaotically. This is a typical case where the publisher cares about the components getting to you, but not about you keeping them safe and usable forever. That's zero out of six, FFG.
The price is expensive for what the game includes. Frankly, it should have been around the USD 15 to 20 mark. It shouldn't be impossible to find it at those prices as opposed to its catalogue price.
Conclusion: Cosmic Eons is a blast for the hidden alliances alone and the additional options they provide towards screwing your opponents. The aliens include some of the best ones ever published for the game; these designers are not that bad after all. A very cool expansion all in all, and even more so if you own other expansions already, it takes your Cosmic Encounter experience to the next level and closes the line with a bang.
For more info on Cosmic Eons visit Fantasy Flight Games at https://www.fantasyflightgames.com.
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