In Cosmic Encounter, doesn't the Tick-Tock appear overpowered? It's almost paralysing all other players' tactics while unhindering its own player...

It does have a big impact on how you play the game. But then so do Virus, Warpish, Looser, and a bunch of others. It is also a yellow alien, not for beginners, but it isnt' a red. If you think this is bad, just wait until you see the some of the really wacky reds. Grudge is by no means the weirdest one.

I'd advise you play a bunch of games with other aliens and count how often the Tick-Tock's alternate win condition might have come up. The offense doesn't actually loose as often as many people think they do.

And remember you can cosmic zap the TickTock to keep them from discarding tokens. They tend to draw more than their fair share....

I have played yesterday against one tick-tock. Remember that the power is turned off when he lose 3 or more home colonies!

Interesting; this reminds me a lot of my experiences playing DUNE. Can't wait to discover this game. Seems very strategic with excellent replay value...

silenceindigo said:

Honestly ... no.

As mentioned above, T-T has the potential to alter the way the game is played , but once the other players make adjustments to compensate, I don't see it as particularly powerful. In fact, I'd guess that T-T will win just as many games the "regular" way as it does by getting rid of all its tokens.

Tick-Tock is a fantastic alien and truly Cosmic! My suspicion is that he is by no means over-powered, but I can totally understand how it looks that way. But it's not an absolute time limit, not even as hard a time limit as Warrior ends up being.

What strikes me is T-T seems to get more powerful as the number of players increases. And I don't see this being balanced by he fact that you have more enemies. Although your opponents are more plentiful, your colour in the destiny deck becomes scarcer.

This is okay, though. CE has never had a perfect balance of alien powers, but it has always played well anyway. If alien power levels an vary based on which aliens your are against (which they do), I see nothing wrong with a power level which varies based on how many aliens you are against.

I don't have my copy yet - I'm excited!

That may concern some, but to me that's what Cosmic is about. You have to alter your play style to accomodate the subtleties of each power like Tick-Tock as the Cosmic climate changes. Maybe he will be overpowered when six or more players are added; we'll just have to gang up on him then, won't we?

If we want to get technical -- and, of course, no one wants that except for me -- this release is officially for a maximum of five players, so T-T's 5/10 scheme works just fine.

Anyone adding a sixth player now should probably just adjust T-T in homebrew fashion. I suspect we'll get a more official ruling on that once the first expansion is released.

Actually, Tick-Tock's timer seems to be based on number of colonies to win, considering how it starts at 10 in a five-planet game (5 to win) and 8 in a four-planet game (4 to win). If number of players was the issue, they would say "the counter starts at double the number of players" or something.

I personally don't see how number of players affects Tick-Tock all that much (although I may be biased since my opinion is not backed up by actually playing with it). The timer isn't affected by whose turn it is, just whether the offense beats the defense - and I see no reason for the offense's win percentage to vary depending on the number of players.

I assumed (who knows why) that the power was not in effect on Tick Tock's turn. In light of that correction, I'm not sure I follow why the amount of players in the game matters either, but even if it does somehow affect Tick Tock's power, I'm fine with him being extra powerful.

Probably also worth pointing out that while the ability of an alternate win is powerful you basically have no power during gameplay. Most powers either help your offense or your defense, Tick-Tock just plays normally. So while the effect is strong everyone can easily see it coming and knows how to defend against it. And when the other aliens join forces to attack him he has no real power to fight back with. I think that is what keeps it balanced.

Toomai said:

Adam said:

The more players in the game, the more encounters in a round. In a theoretical super huge 100 player game, TT could win without ever getting a turn or ever being invited on the offense.

Infininight said:

Definitely worth noting! A lot of powers seem stronger than they are because of this - Like the guy who manipulates the destiny deck. The nice thing about TT is, while their power gives them no help with gaining or holding colonies, it lets them sometimes win without gaining colonies.

I don't believe the number of players effects it at all... it doesn't increase the likelihood of either the offense or defense winning. In a 100 player game, it's true that Tick Tock could win with his power without ever having a turn, but it's just as likely (perhaps even moreso) that someone (even him) could win by getting 5 bases before he ever had a turn.

crimhead said:

One other thing to look at, the easiest way to counter Tick-Tock's power is to take his bases, people can gang up by all allying with the offense when TT's color comes up. The more people in the game the easier it will be to pick allies without getting help from someone that is close to winning. So it may be marginally easier in a bigger game to take him down.

Agreed, more players does not increase the likelyhood of the defensive player winning per encounter .

But it increases the number of battles that will occur between your turns. Say (for arguments sake) that the defender wins half the time. in a three way game, there'll be 2-4 encounters between TT turns. That means 1-2 counters. But in a five way game, there'll be eight encounters between TTs turns, meaning 2-4 defender wins.

Of course I've simplified the math - If the defender win half the time, TT has a seventy five per cent chance of removing a token per each oppontent's turn. More generally, if n percent of battles result in defender wins, TT has a 3n/2 % chance of removing a token on any given players turn. Every time a player takes a turn, TT has a chance at removing tokens. The more turns in a round,

In ths 100 player game, the threat of lossing conventionally before having a turn would affect all players equally. TTs ability would still give a advantage that is stronger than it would be in a regular sized game. Other powers also thrive in large games, like Parasite. Parasite and TT have powers that give them an advantage on oher players' turns, hence that advantage increases with the addition of more opponents.

Conversely, There are many powers that only give an advantage while you are a main player (Sorcerer, Filch, etc). These powers are less effective in a large game for the same reason.

The Warp said:

Agreed, more players does not increase the likelihood of the defensive player winning per encounter .
But it does increase the number of battles that will occur between your turns. Say (for arguments sake) that the defender wins half the time. in a three way game, there'll be 2-4 encounters between TT turns. That means 1-2 counters. But in a five way game, there'll be eight encounters between TTs turns, meaning 2-4 defender wins.

Of course I've simplified the math - If the defender win half the time, TT has a seventy five per cent chance of removing a token per each opponent's turn . More generally, if n percent of battles result in defender wins, TT has a 3n/2 % chance of removing a token on any given players turn. Every time a player takes a turn, TT has a chance at removing tokens. The more turns in a round, the more tokens you remove.

In ths 100 player game, the threat of losing conventionally before having a turn would affect all players equally. TTs ability would still give a advantage that is stronger than it would be in a regular sized game. Other powers also thrive in large games, like Parasite. Parasite and TT have powers that give them an advantage on other players' turns, hence that advantage increases with the addition of more opponents.

Conversely, There are many powers that only give an advantage while you are a main player (Sorcerer, Filch, etc). These powers are less effective in a large game for the same reason.

crimhead said:

I had a long post typed up, but this says it better and quicker. And the Parasite example is a good one, too.

There's also another factor: the risk of losing ships. Picture a theoretical 11-player game ... T-T could go last and win with a perfect shutout without ever risking a single ship . He can't do the same in, say, a four-player game. Not only must he risk at least one ship every time he is on offense, but his own color will come up that much more often in the destiny stack, putting his defending ships at risk for a nice visit to the warp.

The first example is admittedly a bit silly — we all know that only Jack R. would ever play an 11-player game — but it does serve to illustrate the point. Unless there's some factors I'm overlooking (entirely possible), it seems clear that T-T benefits from large games.

I can't say I think Tick-Tock is overpowered but we've only had one game so far with it in. It was a 5 player game with each of us playing two powers. Been playing two powers each for to many years to try using only one power, what can I say. Tick Tock really changed the way we played, who we allied with and even had me throw a challenge just to keep Tick-tocks from removing a chit. Tick Tock got down to 3 chits before someone else got the 5th base.

It made us play a different strategy yes, but by no means was it overpowering to our game. I found it quite fun having it in the game even.

One important point with TT is the more people in the game the greater chance of someone Cosmic Zapping him.

TT seems like a power similiar to the Void. Everyone is afraid of TT so in the diplomatic meta game TT is always drawing the shortest straw.

If you have ever read the book On Killing about the combat mindset you know what I mean. It is hard for a person to kill another person unless they can demonise them. Something that makes a target evil makes them easier to kill. In WWI and WWII no one ever had a problem shooting the guy with the flame thrower. In all the comsic games I've ever played no one has ever had a problem ganging up on the Void. I image it will be the same way with the TT. Nothing to worry about when he is on Alien Welfare (less than 3 bases).

That's some analogy.

TheDukester said:

I played my first game with the new version tonight and this is exactly what happened. I played Tick-Tock and won with five bases instead of the discarded tokens. It did let me put the others in several "damned if you do, damned if you don't" scenarios. The final turn was my attack where a win gave me base 5, a successful defense gave me a victory with the last token discarded.

Can't wait to play this some more!!