I really love playing Cosmic Encounter. This game, by some status of people, would call this legendary. Fantasy Flight made a really good choice to get the game and to reissue it again. With new players being exposed to it, like me, experience a whole new game than a classic one. Cosmic Encounter and it's current expansion by FF expand the game to it's fullest potential. So much can be played with it, but so much more can be added! Do you think FF still has a agreement with Future Pastimes to extend the game even more with a second expansion? I see alot of die-hard people love Cosmic, and do alot with the game itself, such as self-made variants, aleins, mods, and now some of the tech and reward cards. For a big game like this should not be avoided! I would beleive if there was a new expansion, possibly there would be just tons of aleins, so both the core game and incursion would add up to more than 100 aliens! I don't know if FF still thinks about Cosmic now, with incursion that came out this year is pretty recent, the idea of a second is possible.

I have heard that we will hear something soon.

I've heard the same, and I can't wait. Been checking FFG everyday now for news.

Kobold Curry Chef said:

Best news I've heard in a long time!

I live in constant fear that FFG will abandon this game. Of course even if they do we still have a fantastic product. But a couple more expansions would make FFG's indisputably the best version of Cosmic ever ! Comparisons aside, more expansions are just plain better - especially with the design quality we've come to expect from Fantasy Flight.

My thanks to the team!

How do you guys think they could make this game any better without breaking it? Obviouisly more Aliens, but what else?

Cosmic is difficult to "break." It's a very versatile system. Just see redamedia.com/warp for more information.

But even beyond all the crazy stuff fans have dreamed up, we know hazards are coming someday; moons and lucre can be added from the old games, too; and who knows what else FFG may have developed.

I'd personally prefer they focus on more and more aliens, as I very much enjoy the complexity level the game is at right now with tech and rewards. Hazards would be a nice touch, but I can't think of anything more that wouldn't just require too much extra to teach new players and potentially overwhelm them. The aliens are what make the game.

Official multi-alien rules would be nice though.

Adam said:

Some people love lucre not so much for itself, but for the new lucre related alien powers it enables. If you mostly wnat new aliens, lucre would be a good mechanic to add. Me I'm keen for moons and lucre both - along with related alien powers and special destiny cards.

As far as new players go, I don't use tech or reward cards when for introductory games. Actually sometimes I have 'cause I couldn't resist, but it's easy enough forgoing optional rules to better facilitate learning.

There's still so much missing from earlier editions of the game.

I'll assume for the moment that future expansions continue to be the same size as Incursion. (I wonder about that a "big box" expansion is certainly possible, though I have no inside information). You'd need one expansion for Lucre + 20 Aliens + 7th player. Another for Moons + 20 Aliens + 8th player. That would probably take care of the remaining Eon/Mayfair aliens that we haven't seen yet, minus the ones that are just unredeemable or whatever. However, there's still the promised "Hazards" deck, as well as such previously published oddities as the Praw, variant planetary systems, several interesting Artifacts, 2-player rules, 7+ player rules...

And that's leaving little or no room for FFG to add *new* things.

So there's plenty of room for expansion. The question is whether or not they'll sell enough for FFG to publish them.

Looks like the wait for news on the 2nd expansion is over...

www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_news.asp

Jhamin said:

Yes! Yes! YES!!!! I been jumping all with hype when I first saw this on the front page! I must be dreaming!!

20 Aliens! An Extra 7th Player! The New Hazard Deck! So much to be offered!! I didn't think this was possible until now i see it with my own eyes! The future of the cosmos is growing!

Those black ships and planets sure look swanky.

Anyone know what the third alien shown is? The one behind Empath I'd guess is Filth. I saw someone mention Lunatic in the comments, but I don't know why. The only alien named Lunatic I've heard of doesn't match that partial text, though The Warp seems to be down so I can't check on it to be sure.

Adam said:

You might want to read the text instead of staring at the pretty pictures then.

...oh.

About that...

Err, nevermind.

Anyway, the question still remains, anyone got an ID on that third alien in the picture?

Also, the Claw sounds pretty awesome.

Thank god this is coming out. NOW we can finally start talking about what should be in Expansion 3.

How about alternate destiny cards with hazard icons visible to the naked eye?

Adam said:

This could be important. I have never noticed the Hazard icon when playing CE. I have to look for it specifically to notice it...

The Warp said:

such excitement has been aroused, I dunno now if FF will think about the 3rd for some time (i'm scared, this expansion might be it!). but with the limit of 90 aliens, kinda makes you think why there isn't about 100. also, what about such past cosmic aliens and variants? I believe FF talked about a 2 player variant some time ago in the FAQ or the manual, they might have an ideal on that.

I'd be shocked if Expansion #3 wasn't all about Lucre and Team Cosmic, with components for an 8th player.

I am going to LOVE having 90 aliens in my FFG set, but I will also be quite ready to have 110.

I think the 8th player color (oh how I'd love a metallic color like silver, or some kind of crazy marble color)and 20 aliens (mostly new!) will be a great way to start, but as for cards... I'm thinking it will be time to minimize the Cosmic Quake by growing the encounter deck by about 12 or so more cards.

I'd also love a few new Techs and Rewards. I can appreciate the model of making the expansions stand alone, but at the same time I'd like to think Big Picture and have the expansions complementing each other.

Color #8 is probably going to be white, wouldn't you say?

Assuming for a minute that a 55-card printing sheet is standard for such things, how about this for Expansion #3 (Cosmic Avarice, for Lucre):

20 Flares

12 Cosmic cards

15 Tech cards

8 Rewards cards

Lucre doesn't require any cards, just a bunch of tokens...

Are we having too much fun getting ahead of ourselves? Nah.

I love Tech, but you're going to see more Rewards cards per game than Tech, so it would seem more logical to have more Rewards cards than Tech in a theoretical Big Picture expansion.

I've gotten really close to a Quake multiple times, and actually got one once, and I unfortunately don't have all that many FFG Cosmic games under my belt. More cards would certainly be nice, especially with 7 players now.

The Warp said:

That's easily solved in a Lucre based expansion. Include a new elite deck in the Lucre set which can only be accessed by paying Lucre. But, this new deck can match the reward deck backs and be combined with the reward deck for those of us using both expansions. Then we get new reward cards in a stand alone expansion, it's win/win.

I expect grey and white will be the next colours. I'd be surprised to see pink or brown.

Joe K. said:

There also is a hint in the rules about the possibility of a destiny card directing the offense to attack another players foreign colony. And the original box includes enough Grudge tokens to support nine players. Let's just keep our fingers crossed!

A Lucre deck is a really neat idea. However, it forces you to play with Lucre, and just because a group wants to play with 8+ players doesn't mean they want to play with Lucre. I think more cards for the current decks are still called for, but I would certainly welcome a Lucre deck, too.

I don't think there should be a special "Lucre deck", but it would seem that just allowing Lucre to buy cards from the normal Reward Deck would accomplish the goal of making Lucre a little sexier. Whatever it ends up costing to buy a card, perhaps you can just choose which deck to draw it from, should the Reward Deck happen to be in the game.

But to me, the single most important aspect of Lucre to get right is to make absolutely sure that the Lucre powers don't suck . That's the worst thing about Lucre. The second-worst thing about Lucre is that there might end up being a menu of prices that has to be memorized or looked up (yuck).