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Cosmic Encounter 2008 edition vs 42nd Anniversary edition

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Charlie Watson

@CharlieTau
@CharlieTau
 (edited)
Is it too early to say which version of Cosmic Encounter is better? I'm fairly new to board games and I want a copy of the game but I can't decide whether to get the new edition or the older one.

I've read a bit of criticism on the 42nd Anniversary edition around errors in the revised rules and the translucent ships, so any input from anyone who has played both would be appreciated.

Apologies if this is in the wrong forum.

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Ian Toltz

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 Designer
@Asmor
@Asmor
The only really relevant difference between the two editions is the ships, AFAIK. The previous FFG edition has opaque ships, the new one has translucent ships.

Someone here on BGG posted some pics of the translucent ships demonstrating that, at least in certain lighting, it can be very difficult to tell some colors apart. Especially for players who already have some sort of color deficiency.

For that reason alone, all other things being equal, I'd recommend going with the older edition.

That said, if there's a significant price difference, probably just get whichever is cheaper. I don't think there's any gameplay difference, and the errors in the rulebook are obnoxious but whatever, you can download the original rulebook or look here for corrections.

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Adrian George

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@georgeofjungle3
@georgeofjungle3
Ian Toltz @Asmor
The only really relevant difference between the two editions is the ships, AFAIK. The previous FFG edition has opaque ships, the new one has translucent ships.

Someone here on BGG posted some pics of the translucent ships demonstrating that, at least in certain lighting, it can be very difficult to tell some colors apart. Especially for players who already have some sort of color deficiency.

For that reason alone, all other things being equal, I'd recommend going with the older edition.

That said, if there's a significant price difference, probably just get whichever is cheaper. I don't think there's any gameplay difference, and the errors in the rulebook are obnoxious but whatever, you can download the original rulebook or look here for corrections.
Pretty sure the new edition has one new alien as well.

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David Stahler Jr.

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@Wheelockian
@Wheelockian
I think the new edition comes with a small deck of cards that suggest interesting alien combos for a range of different numbers of players.

I like the idea. Especially good for newer players or those who don't get to play often and would like to guarantee an interesting game. (What am I saying--they're always interesting!)

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Tobias F.

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@Pjupe
@Pjupe
After I've seen some reviews of the new edition this seemed like a no-brainer for me. It seemed that this should be the pick for people who don't have the game yet. The new ships look better, the rule book is much better, an additional race and cards with suggestions for the quickstart.

But then I saw what people said about the flaws. Colourblind issues (which would be a problem for me), horrible mistakes in the rulebook, incompatible expansions as the style of the new ships is exklusive to the new core game and won't be adapted by the expansions, quickstart cars only work with the base game...

Now I'm very unsure if the new version is worth the cost or if the older version would be the better choice.

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Just a Bill

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 Designer
@Bill Martinson
@Bill Martinson
shadowsclassic wrote:
you are not supposed to stack other peoples ships with yours.
You certainly are supposed to stack different ships if you are Fungus, or Crusher, or any of the likely future aliens that will take advantage of stacking.

Not to mention the fact that, depending on the lighting, these things don't even have to be stacked (just near each other) for players to potentially mistake one color for another. There are plenty of scenarios where misunderstanding who actually has colonies on a particular planet could leave you in a real bind after you've committed to a particular course of action. So I don't consider this only a "stacking" problem.

shadowsclassic wrote:
I suspect [the expansions] will also have new translucent ships.
They've said they have no plans to do this. The plastic change trick is clearly an isolated marketing gimmick and not a forward-looking strategy for the overall game system.

Tobias F. @Pjupe
Now I'm very unsure if the new version is worth the cost or if the older version would be the better choice.
It sounds like maybe you've answered your own question? If the problems noted in this edition bother you like they would me, and you don't care about the "combo" cards or the superset-ish Demon alien (which FFG apparently did not realize was supposed to have been revised before its official publication, as the "committee" had reported up the food chain way back when... sigh), then I suspect you will be happy with an earlier edition of the base game. (Get one while you still can.)

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Tobias F.

Germany flag
@Pjupe
@Pjupe
 (edited)
I guess you're right. There are more reasons to buy the old version.
But what could make a difference in favour of the anniversary edition however is another question: what about the errata in the latest FAQ? Is the latest version of the 2008 edition (at least the base game) "errorfree"? What about the new edition?
A rulebook can be replaced (by the old one). Ships probably as well. But the boards not so easily.

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Just a Bill

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 Designer
@Bill Martinson
@Bill Martinson
 (edited)
Tobias F. @Pjupe
Is the latest version of the 2008 edition (at least the base game) "errorfree"? What about the new edition?
Unfortunately, Cosmic Encounter is never going to be error-free because the publisher's rate of introducing new errors has always exceeded their rate of fixing old ones. Having said that, the 2011 edition did (as I understand it) incorporate five errata from the 2009 FAQ, and those appear to be in this edition as well. They've also fixed a few more things beyond the 2011 stuff (and introduced a few new bugs in the process).

Here is the current working draft of my attempt to document what was changed in the 2018 edition. So far, I've only looked at the rulebook (in another thread) and the alien powers, not flares, tech, etc.; so I can't say whether those got better or worse (though I suspect the latter on the flares). The changes listed below are all relative to the 2008 edition, since I don't have access to appropriate resources for the 2011 one.

Changes in 42nd Anniversary Edition - Alien Powers (does not consider flares)

Specific Aliens

Calculator — Capitalized the E in "You have the power to Equalize."

Citadel — Corrected "During each player's turn" to "During each encounter."

Clone — Capitalized the O, E, and C in "Keeps Own Encounter Card" (short power description). Capitalized the R in "You have the power to Replicate."

Demon — Changed timing icon from Launch to Alliance.

Fido — Deleted incorrect comma after "strict" in the history.

Macron — Finally has all three icons: Launch, Alliance, and Reveal. Macron now seems to be what FFG intended. Edit: There's a new problem with the Macron flare, which I will cover in my next update.

Mind — Deleted a duplicate the in "one of the the main players."

Oracle — Added the word facedown in "Only after you have seen your opponent's card do you select and play your card facedown."

Parasite — Uses newer artwork with differences in zoom, eye color, forehead sweat, skin tone, surface detail, etc. (probably was updated in 2011 to match the second box cover).

Reserve — Corrected the spelling of "became" in history.

Sorcerer — Uses new artwork from third box cover. Added the word both in "but before they are both revealed."

Spiff — Implements erratum from 2009 FAQ ("and you lost the encounter by 10 or more").

Tripler — Blindly changed "race" to "life-form" in the history, ignoring context (see below).

Vacuum — Added new paragraph: "The Vacuum cannot target itself with its power." (This is an awkward presentation... why they didn't simply add the word players' in "take along up to an equal number of other players' ships" is a mystery.)

Warrior — Attempts to implement erratum from 2009 FAQ. However, this rewrite is not really effective. The intention was to move the token generation into the following encounter to protect it from a prior Cosmic Zap, but the erratum as written does not accomplish that. ("After the encounter" still happens during the Resolution phase, when the zap is still in effect.) One must read the 2009 FAQ to understand the intent, since the Warrior erratum has been deleted from the 2018 FAQ.

Will — Launch icon was changed to Destiny (this is a good thing).

Typesetting

Text kerning, positioning, and (in some cases) font size were improved on many (if not all) of the alien sheets in the Blair Medium font used for alien titles, short power descriptions, prerequisites, and optional/mandatory indicators. The improvements are most noticeable in frequently appearing kern pairs like AT/TA and LY, as well as the cases where some short power descriptions were really crowding the alert lamps.

Life-Forms

Until now, FFG has consistently spelled life forms without hyphens in both previous editions of the base game and in five of the six expansion sets (Cosmic Storm did not use this term at all). In this edition they made a specific effort to change the spelling on Mutant, Parasite, Reincarnator, and Virus, and changed a good number of instances of race to life-form as well (see below). Their (mostly) consistent attention to detail on this one issue within this individual product is laudable, but one has to wonder whether they were/will be consistent across all the expansion sets they are reprinting. Much more to the point, though, why expend time and effort on something so trivial and unnecessary when there remain many actual errors that need to be corrected?

Racism Purge

The word "race" was (almost) eradicated from the alien histories, getting replaced typically by life-form, or occasionally by kind or species. The following aliens were affected: Barbarian, Chosen, Citadel, Clone (using kind), Cudgel, Demon (awkwardly), Dictator, Fido, Fodder, Hate, Kamikaze, Machine, Observer, Pacifist, Philanthropist, Remora (using both life-form and species), Tick-Tock, Tripler (which got corrupted), Void, Vulch (using species, but incomplete), and Warrior.

Some challenges with the history editing are apparent:

• Demon now has a weird singular/plural mismatch: "a life-form called Demons."

• On Vulch, one instance of "race" was changed but the other was not, so the space-buzzard is still a racist even in the 42nd century.

• Although Observer and Oracle both got their alien histories updated, they both still have the "millenia" misspelling.

• Tripler's former use of the word race was not about aliens, but rather was used to indicate a contest of speed. The opening phrase about "racing and betting" survives unscathed, but the reference to "their final race" got whammied; the poor confused Triplers are now running their "final life-form" across the Cosmos.

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Phil Fleischmann

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There seems to be a lack of internal communication within FFG. The developers and marketers don't seem to talk to each other.

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Tobias F.

Germany flag
@Pjupe
@Pjupe
Looks like it would hurt to play this game no matter what. This is a nightmare. And I thought the version which was released in my language was bad (well, I guess it's still much inferior to the English version).

Now I'm really struggling. Is this game (either version) really worth the cost?

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Phil Fleischmann

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@Phil Fleischmann
@Phil Fleischmann
Tobias F. @Pjupe
Now I'm really struggling. Is this game (either version) really worth the cost?
Absolutely, it is! Thanks to BGG and the CE forum users right here! We are happy to answer all your questions, and clarify whatever was unclear or wrong in the FFG rulebook.

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Just a Bill

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 Designer
@Bill Martinson
@Bill Martinson
It's always been a very good game, and back in the 70s/80s the writing was very clear and surprisingly future-proof. You just have to make peace with the fact that FFG (in many if not most of the games they publish) is outstanding on component quality and artwork, yet weak on QA and the written word.

The modern edition of Cosmic is visually beautiful, content-rich, physically well produced, imaginative as heck, and still growing, but the tradeoffs are FFG's mediocre QA process and the lack of the skillset needed to handle words with the level of care this game deserves. They're sort of like a foreign tourist who is confident enough to make a good try and knows enough English to get by most of the time, and their games are certainly playable with a little crowdsourcing help from the interwebs. But you won't find the linguistic craftsmanship shown by the Eon crew back in the day when Jack Kittredge was editor; it's just not a priority for this publisher. So you have to be flexible on those expectations.

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David Stahler Jr.

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Just a Bill @Bill Martinson
It's always been a very good game, and back in the 70s/80s the writing was very clear and surprisingly future-proof. You just have to make peace with the fact that FFG (in many if not most of the games they publish) is outstanding on component quality and artwork, yet weak on QA and the written word.

The modern edition of Cosmic is visually beautiful, content-rich, physically well produced, imaginative as heck, and still growing, but the tradeoffs are FFG's mediocre QA process and the lack of the skillset needed to handle words with the level of care this game deserves. They're sort of like a foreign tourist who is confident enough to make a good try and knows enough English to get by most of the time, and their games are certainly playable with a little crowdsourcing help from the interwebs. But you won't find the linguistic craftsmanship shown by the Eon crew back in the day when Jack Kittredge was editor; it's just not a priority for this publisher. So you have to be flexible on those expectations.
That's a fair assessment, and, in my opinion, a worthwhile trade-off.

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William Crispin

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@wwscrispin
@wwscrispin
Just a Bill @Bill Martinson
It's always been a very good game, and back in the 70s/80s the writing was very clear and surprisingly future-proof. You just have to make peace with the fact that FFG (in many if not most of the games they publish) is outstanding on component quality and artwork, yet weak on QA and the written word.

The modern edition of Cosmic is visually beautiful, content-rich, physically well produced, imaginative as heck, and still growing, but the tradeoffs are FFG's mediocre QA process and the lack of the skillset needed to handle words with the level of care this game deserves. They're sort of like a foreign tourist who is confident enough to make a good try and knows enough English to get by most of the time, and their games are certainly playable with a little crowdsourcing help from the interwebs. But you won't find the linguistic craftsmanship shown by the Eon crew back in the day when Jack Kittredge was editor; it's just not a priority for this publisher. So you have to be flexible on those expectations.
A well spoken analysis.

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Just a Bill

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 Designer
@Bill Martinson
@Bill Martinson
 (edited)
Okay, so today I did a run-through of the known icon errors, along with a bit more in-depth look at Demon, which I just now got confirmation on. There are a few new improvements (including some ones I reported earlier), some ongoing neglect, and some unexplainable changes that broke things in new ways.

Fixed

Some of these were, I believe, previously fixed in the 2011 edition and carry over to this one.

• Demon — Corrected from Launch to Alliance.
• Macron — Added Resolution to agree with the FAQ decision made 9 years earlier.
• Wild Mind — Corrected to As Any Player and Any Phase.
• Super Oracle — Corrected from Reveal to Planning.
• Wild Spiff — Corrected to Defense Only.
• Will — Changed from Launch to Destiny.

Still Not Fixed

• Super Dictator — Should be Offense Only.
• Super Observer — Should be Offense or Ally Only and Launch/Alliance.
• Super Parasite — Should be Alliance.
• Plasma Thrusters — Should be Launch and Alliance.

New Mistakes

Now, if you'd like to see some fresh examples of FFG's terrible QA process, look no further than the following. It's particularly sad how the 42nd edition has only one new alien in the whole product to worry about, yet that alien has five things wrong with it. I've already mentioned the two issues with the Demon base power (the history flub and the fact that it was forgotten that the gameplay was supposed to be revised); in checking its flare I found three more issues.

• The Demon alien sheet is still Yellow alert, but the flare was changed to Red alert.

• Wild Demon — Should be Main Player Only and Alliance, as seen in the CosmicCon preview version, but the version in 42 now reads Not Offense and Destiny (in spite of the text clearly starting with "As a main player, ...").

• Super Demon — Should also be Main Player Only and Alliance to agree with the base power (and the preview), but it has been nonsensically changed to Offense and Destiny.

• Super Macron — I previously reported that Macron was now finally all squared away, but I spoke too soon and should have waited for confirmation on the flare! It seems FFG's destiny is to forever keep revising this poor alien, making small improvements yet always doing something to mess it up in a new way. (Maybe attempt #6 in the future will succeed.) The purpose of this flare is to remove Macron's normal limitation on sending up to four ships into the encounter — as the offense or an ally. Thus the timing icon, Launch, has been wrong for 10 years; of course what it needs to be is Launch/Alliance, in agreement with the base power. (I know I've passed this information up the food chain in the past, more than once, and even pointed out that for comparison they need to look at a flare like Super Seeker or Super Bride to get the correct formatting.) In the 2018 edition, Alliance was finally put on the new flare — but then for no good reason whatsoever, they deleted Launch.

shake

So I think we can see why even a reasonably "error-free" version of Cosmic Encounter is a pipe dream. It would certainly be doable if FFG weren't so chronically resistant to correcting mistakes, but it seems there's just too much institutional apathy to overcome. Once upon a time I thought a goal of getting these things fixed would be attainable, but there's long been a big gulf between the mindsets. Best to let it go and accept the reality that nobody up the food chain from the players really considers it a priority to get these things right.

If there's any doubt, the poor handling of Demon should clear that right up.

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Hundertfrank

Germany flag
@100F
@100F
Quote:
Now I'm really struggling. Is this game (either version) really worth the cost?
It is. If you find yourself in a spot where your group doesn't know the correct ruling for a specific scenario, just find a solution that all of you can live with and handle it like this for the rest of the day. After that you can keep to it, read through the rules/faq/forum or open up a thread here. When you play next time, just explain how it actually should have been resolved.

It is really not that much of a problem to not play everything correctly. We played one of the basic rules incorrectly for about 50 matches it was our own fault as we didn't read carefully enough. But it didn't break the game and we still enjoyed it. Sometimes I even feel like it was better that way, but it had influence on some powers so we play it correctly now.

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Tobias F.

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@Pjupe
@Pjupe
Probably I will give the 2011 version a try. I'm still curious which errors were removed compared to the 2008 version.

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Just a Bill

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 Designer
@Bill Martinson
@Bill Martinson
The 2018 rulebook is riddled with errors, omissions, and detrimental revisions. Even if you end up getting the new edition, make sure you download and use the 2008 rulebook.

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Pierre

@Barbazoul
@Barbazoul
Hi guys !

I'm a complete newcomer to cosmic encounter.

I'm wondering what i should get.

Where i live, i can get the 42nd anniversary edition for 60 euros.

And on the other hand i could get the 2011 version for 40 euros.

What would you do ?

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Jacob P.

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@Kartana
@Kartana
Go 2011. It’s arguable which version you should get if they were the same price (I would lean toward 2011,) but at 20 euros cheaper, the 2011 one is definitely the better deal

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Pierre

@Barbazoul
@Barbazoul
Thanks a lot, i did !

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Ian Toltz

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 Designer
@Asmor
@Asmor
Des_Esseintes wrote:
What’s thedifference between 2008 and 2011?
3 years

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Adrian George

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Ian Toltz @Asmor
Des_Esseintes wrote:
What’s thedifference between 2008 and 2011?
3 years
And an alien on the cover.

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Gabriele Manzoni

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@Marhault81
@Marhault81
 (edited)
Just a Bill @Bill Martinson
Tobias F. @Pjupe
Is the latest version of the 2008 edition (at least the base game) "errorfree"? What about the new edition?
Unfortunately, Cosmic Encounter is never going to be error-free because the publisher's rate of introducing new errors has always exceeded their rate of fixing old ones. Having said that, the 2011 edition did (as I understand it) incorporate five errata from the 2009 FAQ, and those appear to be in this edition as well. They've also fixed a few more things beyond the 2011 stuff (and introduced a few new bugs in the process).

Here is the current working draft of my attempt to document what was changed in the 2018 edition. So far, I've only looked at the rulebook (in another thread) and the alien powers, not flares, tech, etc.; so I can't say whether those got better or worse (though I suspect the latter on the flares). The changes listed below are all relative to the 2008 edition, since I don't have access to appropriate resources for the 2011 one.

(...)
Well, reading all above printed fixes (thank you Bill!!) it looks like the latest edition (anniversary) is a no brain, despite price, color of the ships, etc ...

GREETING from 2019 ahhaha

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@HalloikbenJim

Just a Bill @Bill Martinson
The 2018 rulebook is riddled with errors, omissions, and detrimental revisions. Even if you end up getting the new edition, make sure you download and use the 2008 rulebook.
Is there a list with these mistakes? I would like to notate them in my physical rulebook

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