Hello. I love what you've done with CE, and I truely appretiate the FAQ and support. I would recommend an entire subthread for these questions (like the Talisman forum). this would make it easier for us to avoid posting duplicate questions, and easier for you not to miss them. But that's your call of course.

Q - Delta Scanner lets you take a card from the discard pile. Does this mean the Cosmic Card discard pile, or any discard pile? Is the card chosen public knowledge?

Q - Are the discard (including the destiny cards) piles public?

Q - The Precursor Seed says "while this tech is in play you may use the extra alien power..." does this mean that if you draw an alien with a mandatory power you can treat that power as optional?

Q - Whewn the defense needs a new hand during planning, may they wait for thr offense to chose a card before discarding and drwaing, or are the cards selected simultaneously?

When playing Hate, and you need a new hand on offense, do you get the new hand, then have to hate, or do you lose the opportunity to hate?

If someone uses a flare that is affected by ship count (such as Wild/Super Virus), do Macron's ships count as 4 for its purposes?

Can the Tech Scrambler be played at any time someone's using a Tech, or only when the Tech is first completed? Does it have to be when the Tech is used (analogous to a Tech Zap)?

Does Macron have to use its power (to bring one ship) before it plays its Super? Or does the playing of the Super allow Macron to not use its power at that time? (It will still be used in Reveal, of course.)

Here's a big one I came across while updating my Timing Table:

Does Void eradicate ships that Observer is trying to protect?

(I presume yes, considering how Oberserver works the same as Zombie.)

When a player involved in a deal makes an offer of cards which do not name exact face values, but instead are in comparison to other cards in that player's hand, is such an offer binding inasmuch as the player giving the cards must comply?

More simply put, if I agree to give the other main player "my 3 lowest Attack cards" without naming the values, am I bound to give him exactly those cards, or may I give him any 3 Attack cards in my hand?

My thought/opinion is that the "valid" parts of a deal (colonies and cards) are enforceable from the moment it is agreed upon, and the giving player is bound to comply, even though there is no mechanism to prove he is being honest.

If the Loser declares an upset do ties now go to the offense as opposed to the defense?

Does the Morph card copy the opponent's card before any other effects, or does it, for example, copy the value of the Tripler's card after it's been altered by his power (as his power states that it changes the value of the card)?

numerounoarnold said:

1. It's easier to think of it like this: 1) The values are equal, so it's a tie. 2) The defender wins on ties. 3) The defender wins, and therefore loses when Upset is in effect.

2. The Morph becomes a copy of the card's printed face value for all intents and purposes the moment it is exposed/revealed. It is a static effect that does not duplicate any effects that other powers/Flares may have on the card it is copying. To use your example, if I play a Morph and my opponent (the Tripler) plays an Attack 10, the morph immediately turns into an Attack 10. Then Tripler's power makes his card worth 30. If the shoe is on the other foot, and YOU are the Tripler, and you play a Morph, you apply your power to whatever the Morph becomes.

In a way, the Morph does not have a definite face value until the original face value of the opponent's card is determined, but upon that happening, no other game effect should pre-empt it. This effect is atomic; there is no way to interrupt it, happens all at once, and then does not carry over into any other game mechanic. It's tight like that.

Some additional examples of playing the Morph:

vs Chosen: Takes the form of Chosen's originally played card, not what he may eventually swap/combine it with.

as Chosen: Morph says "takes form of opponent's encounter card when revealed." This is one for the next FAQ - does it copy the opponent's card when it is turned up during the Divine Intervention draw (which could result in it being added to Chosen's played Attack card), or if/when it actually becomes Chosen's selected encounter card?

Pacifist: If Pacifist or his opponent plays a Negotiate, the Morph becomes a Negotiate as well, and Pacifist can't use his power.

as Reserve: "when revealed" implies that it only applies itself as an encounter card; you cannot play a Morph as a Reinforcement if your opponent's encounter card is an Attack 6 or less.

as Calculator: if Equalize is declared and opponent plays an Attack card, then Calculator's effect shouldn't occur because there is no "higher" card.

as Fodder: since both cards are identical after Morph copies, there's no gap of Attack values that Fodder can play in.

as Hate: Plague defines Morph as a distinct card type from Attack and Negotiate, so playing Morph as your "hate card" is a guaranteed 3-ship penalty for all other players.

Mirror: Morph copies the opponent's card, and both cards have their digits reversed, effectively doing nothing to change the result by default.

Citadel: Morph only becomes an Attack Card when it's used against an Attack card in an encounter, so you can't use it as a citadel.

Gambler: Although a very tricksy bluff to sell, you can say, "My card is the Morph". Although the FAQ should answer this question: Say I'm defending, my opponent and I have equal ship counts, and he has played an Attack 10 (a common card with multiple copies in the deck, so not hard for me, as Gambler, to sell that my card could also be an Attack 10, tying the totals and therefore winning). If I say, "My card is an Attack 10", the attacker challenges me, and I reveal my Morph, does it become an Attack 10 before or after the point at which Gambler is determined to have lied or not?

I welcome debate on these unofficial interpretations.

Hello Cosmic Fellow.

While playing yesterday with the Gambler Flare ( I was the Trader against the Gambler) I called a spread of 20 and then decided to change my mind with a spread of 10 instead (before the change of phase) my card was still face down...

As you can imagine my opponent snapped at me saying that I could not change my mind. I think that as long as I'm within a phase I can change my mind within that phase. Who is right?

In the same idea if I commit a 2 ships on the cone (Launch phase) and decide that I put too much or too little I think I can change the number of ships... but if we passed at asking for allies (change of phase I cannot have a change of heart).

Thanks in advance.

Steves Exantus

I would agree that generally, if nothing's happened since you made your decision, you can change it. But you should probably see if there are any rule sticklers at the table first.

Questions

1.) The new Locust alien brings up a question I have wondered about for a while, but it always seemed very unlikely to ever come up in an actual game with only the planet-destroying tech: If you have orders to go to a foreign system where all the remaining planets have already been colonized by you, what do you do? Move ships around and lose your opportunity to gain a colony, treat it as if you had drawn your own order color (including the opportunity to attack 3rd party colonies in the system?), count it as a successful encounter?

2.) Also, if you are the Hacker and chose to collect compensation from a player who is receiving defensive rewards resulting from the same conflict, do you collect before or after they pick up the reward?

3.) Is it an option whether or not you take a ship from the warp during the regroup phase if you have ships there? The Warpish and Masochist players would often prefer not to. If it is optional, who decides when can the Masochist wild flare gets to be used?

Thanks a bunch.

Hugesinker said:

The standard timing rule is that things resolve for the Attacker, then the Defender, then allies. So if there is a question as to what order to do things in, I'd fall back on that. Which means Hacker (As attacker or defender) would go before anybody drew any reward cards.

Hugesinker said:

You do not have a choice. The rules say the offense's ship is drawn from the warp, it never says it may be drawn or offense may choose or anything like that.

Thanks Jhamin, that is pretty clear. Do you happen to have any insight into the first question I asked as well?

Well, up until now it wasn't possible to have to go back to a system where you already had a colony on every planet. Even if the Omega Missile destroyed a system, you would have won by the time you got a ship on every planet there.

With the expansion adding Leviathan to the game (and who knows what else) it now becomes possible to only have 3 planets in a system. Hopefully, this is addressed in the Cosmic Incursion rules when they come out. If not, it becomes a real FAQ question for Kevin Wilson.

So for right now, it can't happen. Once the Expansion hits, it can. We will just have to wait to see if it is addressed.

Jhamin said:

Don't you mean Locust?

Slip of the tongue. I mean Locust.

Jhamin said:

Dangit.. I thought you had some new inside-info.

Looking back over the rules as they are, it seems as though you would be forced to have an encounter with the owner of the system (probably against zero ships), and if you win with an attack card, you simply re-enforce a colony that you already occupy, and this would count as a successful encounter. Of course, you can re-enforce existing colonies by much simpler methods than this, so it would amount to a waste of time especially as a second encounter.

I have a couple questions concerning the second power gained through Coldsleep Ship (I think that's what it's called).

The tech card states that you keep your new power face up, yet the instruction booklet that comes with CE says that when a player loses control of his or her power, he turns their power face down. Does this mean that the new alien power cannot be lost due to losing control of too many home colonies?

Also, the new power does not get changed when the person with two powers has the wild Reincarnator flare used on them, correct?

After a review of FAQ 1.0, I believe it contains three errors that I hope can be addressed in the next edition:

Filch

• Q: Can Filch take Gambler's unrevealed card, and if so, can he notify the table whether the truth was told?
• A: Filch may take it, but he may not show it to the other players. He may make whatever claims about the Gambler’s truthfulness he likes, of course.

Actually, Filch cannot take Gambler's card in this instance:

Filch says "after encounter cards are discarded ... retrieve your opponent’s card from the discard pile "

Gambler says "If your opponent does not challenge your claim ... place your encounter card facedown on the bottom of the deck instead of discarding it ."

Thus, Filch should have no access to Gambler’s unchallenged, unrevealed, and undiscarded encounter card.

Void

• Q: If you fail to deal with Void, are your ships eradicated?
• A: Yes

Void says "As a main player, when you win an encounter , use this power to remove the losing side’s ships from the game rather than sending them to the warp."

If you are failing to deal with Void, Void is also failing to deal with you and thus cannot be winning the encounter.

General Questions

• Q: Is there a difference between winning an encounter and having a successful encounter?
• A: No.

This may have been just an unfortunate oversimplification, but as stated it represents a significant change to the way Cosmic Encounter has been played since 1977. If every successful encounter is a "win" this creates interpretation issues with Void, Loser, Barbarian, and Genius (to name a few) who specify only a "win" rather than "win or make a deal". Since the first edition of Cosmic Encounter, many aliens have said "if you win or make a deal" — but not all of them were written this inclusively. Some triggered only on winning, while others triggered only on making a deal, and with good reason.

Here are the original relationships between these terms that governed play for the first 32 years of Cosmic (from 1977 until the 2009 FAQ):

Winning is one kind of successful encounter .
Making a deal is another (different) kind of successful encounter .
If your first encounter is successful (one way or the other), you may have a second one.

Eon's rulebook says generally, in the Introduction to Play, "If you complete a successful challenge, you may attempt one more challenge". It then expands upon this more specifically under Play Details: "If on your first challenge you either win an attack or make a deal, you may make a second challenge". So clearly "successful challenge" is the umbrella condition that allows you to continue your turn, and there are two different ways to achieve that as evidenced by the either-or language.

A simple illustration here would be that an apple is indeed a fruit, but a fruit is not necessarily an apple. There are also oranges. Sometimes any fruit will do, but other times only an apple is appropriate.

If the FAQ entry in question was simply trying to confirm that there is indeed a relationship between winning and having a successful encounter , perhaps the following suggestion may be of some use?

Q: Is there a difference between winning an encounter and having a successful encounter?

A: Yes. A win is one kind of successful encounter, but a deal is a different kind of successful encounter. Either kind will allow you a second encounter on your turn, but the two are not always interchangeable. Many cards and alien sheets say something like "if you win or make a deal", but others refer to just one outcome or the other. Something that works only when you "win" does not work when you make a deal — even though you have achieved a successful encounter, it is still not a "win" (there is no winner and no loser, just two sides who made a successful deal).

____________________

(If any of these rulings were intended to overrule the text on the cards, I recommend moving them to the errata section and rewriting them to make it clear that they are exceptions to the card text.)

When playing as Macron, is the Prometheus ship worth 4, 3 or 12 ships? The Macron card says each ship is four and the Prometheus tech says it's worth 3. Which one is correct in this situation? Is each of the three ships Prometheus is usually worth now worth four instead?

JAB991 said:

So far my only Incursion question is: what happens when two morphs are played against eachother?

Also, does anyone know when the FAQ will get its next update?

JAB991 said:

In the base game rulebook, it states that if two Morphs ever get played against each other, it's considered a double-loss.

Here are a few Incursion questions that have been asked around (and some have been answered), just consolidated here to be put into the FAQ:

• Does Leviathan bring a planet/worldship in addition to the normal 1-4 launched ships?
• If Leviathan's power is removed after he uses it (say by Plant), what happens to the planet/worldship? Does it still count for +20 since the power doesn't have to be used for such, or does it not count because Leviathan's power was stolen completely?
• Can a player willingly introduce an effect that makes it impossible to obey a Seeker's previously answered question? For example: Can Loser call an upset if he's told Seeker he'll play an N? Can Philantrophist give away the card he said he was going to play?
• If someone played a card in Planning, does it return to his hand if Chronos uses its power? What about cards that changed hands since that time?
• What happens when Merchant's hired ships are captured (say by Fungus)? Do they become part of the capturing player's hand, do they return to Merchant's, or are they discarded?
• If Wild Fungus is taken as compensation or the like, what happens to already-captured ships? (The card specifies it must be "discarded" to free said ships, as opposed to the more expected "lost".)
• Can Healer heal ships that just got released by Fungus ships having just entered the warp? (Asked since Healer has been ruled to act on ships that just entered the warp, not ships that are just about to get there.)
• Can Wild Mind be used on the Rewards Deck? What about Fido/Wild Fido, or any other effect that states "the deck"? Does an effect have to specify "rewards"?
• Do Rifts blow up if Trader trades hands with someone? What about Philantrophist giving people Rifts?

And a few more:

• What happens when Magician meets Deuce? One ruling is that Magician's power fails because Deuce has only two encounter cards (normally, it fails when the opponent only has one), is this correct?
• If you play a Kicker on a Crooked Negotiate, is the Crooked Negotiate's extra 1 calculated before or after the Kicker? (Applies to both compensation and ships lost by player and opponent for failed deal.) In math terms, is it (N x K) + 1 or (N + 1) x K?

Toomai said:

I think I can safely say that Magician's power goes first as it is used BEFORE cards are selected. Deuce lays down his only 2 cards, Magician takes one, and Deuce has "played" the other. Now Deuce uses his power AFTER cards are played but not revealed. He is allowed to draw a new hand as defense because his power is Mandatory, so he gets a new hand and plays a 2nd card. If he was offense, Magician would eat him alive because he would not be able to draw a new hand as offense in mid-encounter, but him power demands he plays a second card.

That is the only question... AS OFFENSE , does he just not use his power because he can't legally gain a new hand, is he considered to have played an Attack 00 for the second card, or is there something else?

As for the Kicker, it multiplies the whole thing according to the Kicker card, it says "amount of compensation and/or opponent's ships lost due to a failed deal if any". In order to find the amount, you first follow the rules of the Negotiate card. Compensation would be (N + 1) * K, and deals are 4 * K in opponent's lost ships. This means if you play a x3 kicker, and the deal fails, you lose 2 ships and you opponent loses (the game) 12 ships, pretty nasty.