Cosmic Encounter vs Monopoly

The basic rules of the game are background noise. The alien powers, both individually and as they interact with each other, determine the dynamic of each game you play, and each dynamic is radically different. For example, you can try different races and alien powers each time you play, and the way to mix and match them is almost limitless. This makes every game feel different than the one before it.

It's almost impossible to win on your own. When attacking or defending, you will get the chance to ask for allies on your turn, or assist others when they are engaged. Allies can help you win the attack or defense, but they will also gain benefits if successful. It is a team-based game, although each player is out for themselves in the end.

One of the neatest parts of the game are the negotiate cards - instead of laying down an attack card you can try to negotiate. If you both play negotiate cards, you have 1 minute to come to an agreement which can include creating new colonies, trading cards, or virtually anything. If the players don't come to agreeable terms within a minute, they both suffer a hefty penalty (4 of their ships are sent to the warp).

With so many unique combinations of alien powers and the fact you can form unstable alliances with other players, there's so many ways to get creative. For example, knowing when and where to pick your battles. Perhaps two other players just had an epic battle and now they're down a few ships - it would be the perfect time to swoop in and try to colonize their planets when they're weakened. Perhaps you have a special power that will give you an edge in a certain fight against another player. By paying attention to what's going on around you at all times, skillful tacticians will find all kinds of extremely clever or amusing plays to be possible.

Illustrations on Alien Power cards are beautifully rendered and imaginative. Each one features full color, hand drawn creatures that are distinctly unique and look like something out of a sci-fi movie.

At the beginning of each game, players are given 3-4 alien powers to choose from, usually taken at random. However, if you were trying to put together a specific theme - for example, a war between certain aliens races, or a battle using only certain powers - you can manually select the set of powers available to each player. This allows you to generate personalized games that have specific story to them or heavily revolve around a particular strategy or resource.

Working with or against other players, forming unstable alliances, and negotiating with other players creates some situations which will test your real world social skills.

There are six expansions which not only add a minimum of 20 new alien races with new powers each, but they also brings unique gameplay mechanics to the table. For example, Cosmic Conflict adds space quake hazards, and Cosmic Alliance adds new rules for teams and expands the game to 7 players.

After you play one or two games, the basic mechanics become trivial to work with. Additionally, you only have to worry about learning as many alien powers as you have players in the game, so your personal knowledge and experience with the powers can grow slowly over time. Most alien powers take a minute or two to really understand, then the fun begins of finding creative or unique ways to develop strategies around them.

There are many different editions of Monopoly available including Junior and Anniversary. There is also a slew of themed Monopoly games such as Disney and Star Wars.

Monopoly is easy enough to understand the rules of and follow the gameplay for children above the age of 8.

Monopoly can be played with as little as two players and as many as six. This makes it a very versatile game as it can be played one on one or with small gatherings.