Loooooong time Mayfair Cosmic player, just played my first game of FFG Cosmic. To my dismay I think this is going to be as good as Mayfair's unless I want to play with 10 players or really want moons. I was hoping to be a "get offa my lawn, you young whippersnappers!" type about it.

Anyway. Two questions came up in our first game. (1) The only reference in the rules that I can find to the actual winning condition is in the "Game Overview" paragraph at the beginning. I didn't really notice when I was reading because I knew the game so well, but I was surprised that there was nothing about it in the Resolution section of the rulebook. When is the check for game winning? Is it immediate upon gaining the 5th base, the end of the phase it occurs during, or the end of the Resolution phase?

(2) Reincarnator Flare, Wild. "After another player besides the Reincarnator loses an encounter or makes a deal, you may give this flare to that player to force him or her to discard his or her current power and draw a new one." When does that actually happen? Between Reveal and Resolution? At the beginning of Resolution? If you Reincarnate Zombie after he loses, do his ships go to the warp because he lost Zombie before actually moving the tokens to the warp? (Also, does the wording "another player besides the Reincarnator" means you can't give it to yourself? We assumed so, figuring that it would read "any player besides the Reincarnator", but a comma separation would have helped read that.)

Thanks!

Some people say a game is won immediately once the cads are flipped up (Reveal), while others like it to be won once the ships physically land on the planet (Resolution). Still over players will try to do anything possible to stop the win until the entire turn is over. I know that CE Online checks for wins in the Resolution phase (since Zombie's power activates and Clone's doesn't), but you can probably tell people whatever and they'll go with it.

As for Wild Reincarnator, I wouldn't mind it being played at any time during the Resolution. You'd want to play it a bit earlier to stop Clone from using his power to keep that 30, but other than cases like that I'd say any time before the next turn. (And yes, you must pick someone else other than you (or R) to get a new power, considering how you must give them the flare to do so.)

Good question. It would also apply to the timing of the Reincarnator power itself (if Reincarnator is currently the Zombie, for example). The Mayfair edition clarified this by specifying that the reincarnation is only used between challenges, but FFG does not have that text. I don't know the answer.

Re/ the flare, I had this issue come up recently with the Clone and Attack 40. If I remember correctly, the opponent played Emotion Control and tanked the deal in order to play the Flare. We ended up using the standard timing rule. Clone got to keep his 40 before he reincarnated, because he was the attacker.

Personally, I would prefer a cleaner rule. I don't like it when a card's (or alien's) effect depends on who is attacking. For that matter, the timing rule can lead to more questions than it answers. What does "simultaneously" really mean? If the defender slaps down the Reincarnator flare, and then one second later the Clone grabs his discard, it's not really simultaneous. But then, what is?

Regarding when the game is won: I think as long as anybody still has a way to stop it, they get a chance to try. I don't like the "win on reveal" rule. It would not allow Emotion Control to function as a stopper, which just seems wrong.

When the ships touch the planet is when you adjust the colony count on the warp. There is no "check for win" phase, so you win immediately after the resolution phase.

As for Reincarnator flare, it says After the player "loses the encounter." You can't "lose" until after the encounter is resolved, so this should be played after resolution. Effects that occur after resolution should be considered to occur simultaneously and go by the timing conflict resolution rules in the rulebook (offense first, defense second, players clockwise from offense).

Bah! Once again, the forum eats a post. Should have known not to use two quotes in the same message. Fortunately, I outsmarted it this time, and kept a copy.

Anyway....

QUOTE>>> When the ships touch the planet is when you adjust the colony count on the warp.

I don't like that. The timing of when somebody moves a game piece should NOT dictate when an encounter is won or lost.

If I'm the Zombie losing my third home base, can I remove my losing ships one at a time in order to retain my power until the last one leaves?

QUOTE>>>As for Reincarnator flare, it says After the player "loses the encounter." You can't "lose" until after the encounter is resolved, so this should be played after resolution. Effects that occur after resolution should be considered to occur simultaneously and go by the timing conflict resolution rules in the rulebook (offense first, defense second, players clockwise from offense).

Strict reading of the rules would suggest this is not true, though. I'm probably reading them too "strictly".

The Resolution stage (page 11) begins with "Once the outcome of the encounter has been determined...." It then goes on to use past tense phrases like "If the Offense won" and "If the Defense won".

Therefore, it appears that you do indeed win or lose BEFORE resolution (during the Reveal stage, in other words). The resolution stage is basically just housekeeping (moving the pieces).

Discarding is then specifically mentioned as something that occurs AFTER resolution (also on page 11, as well as on the Clone's alien card). But that doesn't make much sense, since all the discard aliens operate during the resolution stage, according to the timing bar.

I don't know. I understand your solution, and as I said, it's the way we played it. But the rules are muddy on this issue. Winning or losing is apparently determined before resolution, while discarding is determined after resolution. It seems impossible for these actions to be "simultaneous" even under a loose definition of that word. So, I'm not sure the timing rule applies.

As for the first quote, sorry but if a ship lands on your planet, you've lost and that player has gained a colony. If he doesn't have a ship on the planet, he doesn't have the colony. That seems pretty logical. And as for the hypothetical Zombie situation, there is nothing in the rules that indicates you remove ships individually. You lose them all at once. If a player picks them off one by one, using his power until the last one is gone, he is trying WAY too hard to manipulate the game's rules.

As for the second quote... you lost me in technicalities.

If you are resolving an encounter, you are settling the outcome. Past tense or present tense, "resolution" means the same thing. There's no phase after "resolution" listed in the game, so anything that happens at the end of the encounter occurs during resolution phase, and events that occur within the same phase should generally be considered to occur simultaneously for the sake of not creating these timing quandaries. So although it might not be perfect language, "after" and "during" resolution are pretty much the same time because there isn't any phase after that. I use the two interchangeably because as you pointed out, so do the rules.

Two handy rules I use for settling weird timings:
1) Everything in Cosmic happens during one of the phases. Nothing happens outside of the phases.
2) Everything that happens during one phase happens simultaneously.

With these rules in mind, the Timing Conflict Resolution rules can settle any timing conflict without need to worry about tenses, pronoun references, dangling modifiers, misspellings, and comma splices. Maybe that is oversimplifying Cosmic, but I'd rather that than deeply analyzing every word of every card and every page of the rules.

Adam said:

Agreed with you for the most part, but remember there are procedural steps to some of the phases (Alliance especially) that can have an effect on timing if they're not carried out in order. Many groups I played with this weekend @ AGF tended to muddle the order of invitation/acceptance during the Alliance phase. Yes, you're pretty **** sure you want to join the offense, but someone else may get to decide before you, and someone else may get to decide after you. It can change people's decision if they know how you're going to act, and to what degree.

Also, most alien powers, Flares, and Artifacts indicate (in addition to the highlighted phase) a specific sub-phase step that the power precedes or follows. Take for instance the following powers that trigger in the Alliance phase:

Mutant goes off before allies are invited .

Parasite goes off when it would be its turn to accept an invitation (i.e. starting to the left of the offense and going clockwise).

Wild Observer Flare goes off after alliances are formed.

Right now, I think the most unclear (and by that I mean only marginally unclear) aspect of the sub-phase structure is in Resolution. If you follow the order in the rulebook, this is (more or less) how things go (with relevant alien powers included in brackets, whey they trigger off of standard rules and not other powers):

NOTE: It is assumed that 1,2,3 or 4 happen in the same simultaneous moment, since only one of them can occur as a result of an encounter.

1. If Offense Wins:

• Offensive ships land on the planet and award/reinforce colonies. [barbarian]
• Defensive ships go to warp. (Activated Citadels are discarded.) [Vacuum, Zombie, Cudgel, Void, Observer]
• If the battle was Attack VS Negotiate, Compensation is claimed. [Hacker] [Macron^]
• [Healer*].
• Other ships and bystanders return to colonies if necessary.

2. If Defense Wins:

• Offensive ships go to warp. [spiff, Vacuum, Zombie, Cudgel, Void, Observer]
• Defensive allies return to colonies.
• Defensive allies claim Rewards. [^] [Remora]
• If the battle was Attack VS Negotiate, Compensation is claimed. [Hacker] [Macron^]
• [Healer*].
• Other ships and bystanders return to colonies if necessary.
• [Tick-Tock].

3. If Successful Deal:

• Deal is carried out. [Quash would send this to step 4.]
• Ships remaining in the encounter are returned to colonies (allies would have gone home back in the Reveal phase).
• [Tick-Tock].

4. If Failed Deal:

• Main players lose 3 ships to the warp. [Vacuum, Zombie]
• [Healer*].
• Ships remaining in the encounter are returned to colonies.

5. Following the above:

• [Warrior^^].
• Cards played in the encounter are discarded. [Filch, Clone, Fido, Vulch]
• [Grudge^^^].
• Check if offense is eligible for second encounter. [Machine]
• I would only assume that [Reincarnator] happens here, assuming step 1,2,or 4 applied appropriately.

*Healer does specify that the ships do go to the warp first before being returned, thereby allowing Compensation and Vacuum's power to occur.

^ Here, Macron would specify that they get 2 cards per ship, but the power isn't Zappable here - only the committment of ships is.

^^ Here, Warrior would earn experience points, but that aspect is not Zappable - only the use of XP is.

^^^ Here, those with Grudge tokens would suffer losses, but that aspect is not Zappable - only the issuance of Grudge tokens is.

Questions this small effort brought up in my mind:

• Does Remora trigger off other alien powers that possess the ability to retrieve ships from warp (Healer)?

The above also helps to show why Zombie shouldn't receive Compensation, or a host of other timing questions. A more thorough Timing sequence would be worth its own Sticky post. I just may do that later. (Can you tell I'm a software developer? ) And it's not meant to add to the headache of a game where Phases are meant to be simple and elegant, but ensure that in a game where chaos reigns, there is an arbiter that is keeping things/people from getting too zealous about bending rules to suit their purpose, and ruining others' fun. I rather like the visual concept of some old Precursor with a bearded mandible, a throne, a powdered wig, tentacles, and a humongous plasma-powered gavel that oversees the entire affair.

I'm a stickler for alliance timings like you said because they are clearly outlined in the rules. But your resolution timings, especially under item 5, aren't explicitly stated anywhere. There's no reason Warrior, Grudge, and Clone can't occur simultaneously, nor is there reason to give one precedence over the other. Their effects have nothing to do with each other. Unless the card clearly states some sort of "sub-phase," it is simple enough to consider effects simultaneous and resolve the occasional conflict with the conflict resolution method rather than resorting to some monstrous exception-ridden chronology of events with nearly as much text in the footnotes as the main text. If your group can memorize all this and play by it, that's great, but that's a hugely unnecessary complication for me.

Oh, I wasn't intending to use it as a time schedule or something we read off of like a reference card every encounter . It would be more of a reminder to individual powers when they should state their intentions, and when they should wait, etc. You glance at it once, and put it away, and only bring it out when people can't decide whose power should happen first (and if they appear to be simultaneous, you proceed like the rulebook says: offense, defense, then to the offense's left going clockwise.)

As for step 5, I agree, it really could be all put on one line and made atomic/simultaneous. My only remaining question about that is Reincarnator - if he were to draw any of the powers who can do things in step 5, would you want him to be able to use their powers immediately, or wait until the next encounter? Would a reincarnated Filch steal his opponent's encounter card (the one that likely caused him to reincarnate)? Would a reincarnate Clone still be able to reclaim his own? Would a reincarnated Vulch still have access to played/discarded Artifacts? Would a reincarnated Machine, who had just lost their encounter, be able to continue?

I would say so. Otherwise, some powers would be pointless to reincarnate as, such as Vacuum (though I know he can lose ships in other ways). If you are Filch when you lose the encounter, you lose the power before you get to use it. But if you become Filch after you lose the encounter, you gain the power right when you need to use it. I know this is slipper slope for an argument, but that's how the online version of Reincarnator works, and it works for me. I think it is important to Reincarnator that he precede his incarnation's power, so if both occur during Resolution, Reincarnator activates first, then the other power. That said, this is all based on how the online game works (which I don't like to rely on much because I know there are differences, like Clone Vs. Filch) and a gut feeling of mine. Meta powers muddy things up a bit more than usual.

Back to the timing table, as a reference for settling disputes only, not an awful idea, but I think almost every timing dispute can and should be settled by the timing conflict resolution rules to prevent the errata / FAQ from becoming too unwieldy. Those rules are there for a reason and have worked to my satisfaction many a time. Timing conflicts such as Reincarnator Vs. his incarnate power would be useful to have on reference because it obviously doesn't fall under the jurisdiction of the conflict resolution model, being that Rei and Filch are the same player in this circumstance.

Plus, the blind draw of a Machine after losing an encounter for your fifth colony adds in the kind of unpredictability that Reincarnator was made for. The spirit of the power is for no one to be able to predict what he'll be able to do next, I feel.

>>>As for the first quote, sorry but if a ship lands on your planet, you've lost and that player has gained a colony. If he doesn't have a ship on the planet, he doesn't have the colony. That seems pretty logical.

I believe the rule is that the Zombie has already lost , before the opponent's ships reach his planet. Otherwise, why do his ships go the warp?

>>>there is nothing in the rules that indicates you remove ships individually.

I'll grant you that, but there is also nothing in the rules that says when an encounter is won or lost.

>>>As for the second quote... you lost me in technicalities.
[snip]
without need to worry about tenses, pronoun references, dangling modifiers, misspellings, and comma splices.

I know you're being tongue-in-cheek with the second part, but to me, none of the things you list are technicalities.

Words have meaning. I have trouble with any interpretation of rules that fails to acknowledge this. Punctuation and grammar also have meaning, to a lesser extent.

>>>Past tense or present tense, "resolution" means the same thing.

No offense, I'm not trying to start an argument, but this is simply not true.

Before resolution, during resolution, and after resolution are three completely different things. This is the whole point of having timing rules , or any rules for that matter. You can't just say a word means something other than what it means.

>>>Two handy rules I use for settling weird timings:
1) Everything in Cosmic happens during one of the phases. Nothing happens outside of the phases.
2) Everything that happens during one phase happens simultaneously.

This would only work if the rules were actually written with these guidelines in mind.

>>>Maybe that is oversimplifying Cosmic, but I'd rather that than deeply analyzing every word of every card and every page of the rules.

"Rules Lawyering" is an occupational hazard for me, I guess. I actually enjoy discussing this type of thing. I think it's better to discuss it outside of a game. If we were currently in a game, I would just kind of go with the flow, rather than bog things down.

Plus, since we are discussing timing rules , I don't think looking at words like "after" counts as deep analysis. This would seem to be the most important word, given the context of the discussion.

I'll just try to reply by memory because this forum is a pain in the back.

I would think the word "Resolution" is quite clearly the phase when the encounter is won or lost. That is what "resolution" means. But you don't actually get the colony until the ships hit the planet, so the game is won once those ships hit the planet. The discussion has really become complicated in this thread, tossing in all sorts of different hypotheticals and generalizations, so I'm going to assume we're talking about the original scenario: When is the game won or lost? My answer: When the ships land on the 5th planet.

As for the technicality of the word "after" (and yes, I certainly was just joking about that list of grammatical stuff, not at all implying you were being that over zealous about technicalities at all! ). But since you said yourself that you were probably reading it too "strictly" and that none of the aliens operate before or after resolution but are just marked as "resolution," I read that as just a technical inaccuracy in the rules. "Resolution" by definition should be when you determine who wins or loses the encounter. If we want to try to fit this in with the past tense, we could say that the determination of victor is the condition of the beginning of Resolution phase, with the effects of Resolution (your "housekeeping") being the meat of the phase, so to speak. It's my belief that if things happened between phases, those timings would have become phases for the timing strip on aliens and cards, so I consider any argument for mini-phases between main phases as too technical for me. Maybe technical's not the right word, but then again, I'd be out of place in Cosmic if I said precisely what I meant without any ambiguities.

If we want to put words like "after" on a pedestal and read them literally, good luck reading the "After Resolving the Encounter" section that is part of the "Resolution" phase, haha. How can something that happens during Resolution also happen after? That is a headache waiting to happen!

(Again, just joking with you, I honestly don't care how others play the game and, like you, enjoy a little rules debate if it is Outside the game, not During... that can be a mess.)

>>> I'm going to assume we're talking about the original scenario: When is the game won or lost? My answer: When the ships land on the 5th planet.

Yes, I have over-complicated it by bringing in Zombie questions, etc. To me, the main question is "when is an encounter won or lost". This will automatically resolve the question of when the game is won or lost. It also ties directly in to the other OP question, since the Reincarnator flare triggers when an encounter is lost.

>>>I read that as just a technical inaccuracy in the rules.

I can buy that, I guess. I wish the rules were a little more precise, but I'll live. Mark Twain once said "The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug."

>>>If we want to put words like "after" on a pedestal and read them literally, good luck reading the "After Resolving the Encounter" section that is part of the "Resolution" phase, haha. How can something that happens during Resolution also happen after? That is a headache waiting to happen!

Yes! This is what brought out my comment in the first place. The Clone's power is listed as occurring during Resolution (per the timing strip), but the text of the power (a whole three inches away) says that it happens after the encounter is resolved. After = during? Lightning bug! Boom!

Thanks for all the replies. It's a complicated question, which is why the Queue power from Mayfair was so powerful sometimes.

So it looks to me that: the Reincarnator Flare hits the Zombie before he has used his power, because he hasn't lost ships to the warp yet at the moment that the encounter is lost.

However, at the end of that game, Spiff won by using his power when he lost by 13. As we were cleaning up the game I realized that I was stupid and could have played the Reincarnator flare on him, but now I think that his power and the flare's both trigger in response to the encounter being lost, and as such the timing conflict resolution would have come up, and he being offensive player would have gone first anyway.

As for game win timing, immediately upon landing on the base works. In Mayfair we had house ruled the lack of specifics there to be that the game ends between turns, but people get a chance to play between turns stuff to prevent the win. This is mostly because we liked our games as complicated as we could possibly make them. However, since we're (perhaps thankfully) missing things like the Crystal flare and the Schizoid flare, I'm not sure it makes that much of a difference in this version!