Cosmic Encounter - PBP: Deep Space Water

Let it be known that if you invite me on your next conquest, assuming it's not me, that I have a plan for victory that involves you.

Sounds good to me, like I said earlier I've basically been going for a diplomatic victory all game anyway.

We launch four ships towards Yin-Yang A, three from Reactor A and one from Laser E.

boy it sure would have been nice if the last few cards werent blue. then i could piggyback onto the next offense for a joint win. that, or they dont invite me and they get screwed by tokens. OH WELL.

Have no fear, there are two cards left in the deck, and the last card is not drawn, but instead, the deck will reshuffle, so you have 50% chance getting to back piggies.

HYPERSPACE GATE
Offense: 4
Defense: Yin-yangA(1)

The lasers BLIND the poor single Yin-yang ship, and they set aside a card.
Invitation phase!

i'll invite everyone with the concession that i don't think i will win this encounter regardless. unless cb is up for negotiation, that is.

Laser invites first.
If you do things out of order you can queue them in your QT as i said earlier.

For now I'll queue Yin-yang inviting all though.

We will invite the Reactors to join us.

Order of acceptance:

1. Reactor (any side)
2. Tourist (defense)
3. Voyager (defense)

Sup I'm joining the Lasers act surprised. Two from B, one from D, and one from E.

Tourists are good back here.

I'm super not keen on the thought of a super Laser but Gatr if you don't think you can win this then I don't see how I can help here.

No ships, sorry.

If you negotiate you stand a chance of stealing his Laser Flare or Quash after the fact though.

HYPERSPACE GATE
Offense: 4 + 4
Defense: Yin-yangA(1)
Time for cardchery

Laser plays an Attack20!
Yin-yang plays a Negotiate!

Anyone wants to interject?

On reflection and as much as I'd rather have kept trying to fish theirs out of their hand, I'm glad the Reactor still presumably has my flare and also has that whirligig flare because apparently they can't use theirs to win while holding it.

Just uh, we have to be careful with taking cards out of that hand now.

The lasers release Ionic Gas, cancelling Compensation from taking place, and boots out the ships of the Yin-yangs.

Reactor and Laser gains a colony.

Reactor's power activates, and gives the Laser Flare to the Laser.
The set aside card returns to the Yin-yang.

Current game state:

Granolaman, the Voyager
Hand: 0
Foreign colony count: 4
A: 4
B: 2,1

D: 1
VoyagerE:

Gatr, the Yin-yang
Hand: 9
Foreign colony count: 4
A: 4,4
B: 1
C: 1,1
D: 1,1
E: 2

Coldblooded, the Laser
Hand: 8
Foreign colony count: 4
A: 2
B: 2
C: 2
D: 2,1
E: 1,1

Robust Laser, the Reactor
Hand: 6
Foreign colony count: 3
A: 4,1
B: 1,1
C: 2,1,1,1
D: 4
E: 4

Cards on the reactor sheet:
None!

Jacquerel, the Tourist
Hand: 15
Foreign colony count: 3
A: 1
B: 1
C: 1
D: 11,1
E: 1


Cruise Liner: Green system; 2

HYPERSPACE GATE

THE WARP:
7,9,4,4,10
C: 3

Cosmic Deck: 0 cards
Cosmic Discard: 47 cards

SpoilerShow

Negotiate
20
Ionic Gas
30
08
Negotiate
Negotiate
Force Fields
Card Zap
Mobius tubes
Angler flare
Card Zap
08,
06,
10,
Negotiate
Engineer Flare
10,
Cosmic Zap
Reinforcement+2,
Reinforcement+3,
14,
Reinforcement+5,
11,
Host flare
04
Negotiate
Negotiate
Negotiate
Negotiate
Negotiate
Reinforcement+2
Reinforcement+3
06
14
04
01
40
Negotiate
00
05
23
10
12
13
Aristocrat Flare

Destiny Deck: 3 cards
Destiny Discard: 15 card

SpoilerShow

Blue(hazard)
Red
Orange(hazard)
Red(hazard)
Orange
Special(fewest ship in warp)
Green(hazard)
Wild
Green
Special(most foreign)
Purple(hazard)
Purple
Green
Orange
Blue
Special(Most cards)
Red
Purple

Encounter 16, will the Laser take it?

The Lasers celebrate their heroic and historic victory over a single defenseless ship. It's just like that ending scene in Return of the Jedi except with more ewoks and ghosts for some reason.

Anyway yeah we'll regroup a ship to Laser E and cross our fingers for a wild card this time.

And the crowd goes wild!

Well... Card goes wild...

Select who the defense will be, you will encounter them in their home system.
After which, the cruise liner can move.

Okay so I asked PL and apparently the Reactor can still joint win with everybody else if they use their superflare on the same turn that somebody else reaches 5 colonies, so.........

Sorry Jac, but it looks like you're the odd one out here. As for everyone else I'd recommend joining me this turn, even if you can only spare a single ship, because I'm pretty sure that I can win this one with or without outside help.

We send four ships to go open a new spa on Tourist A, three from the Yin-Yang colony and one from Laser D.

I am morally opposed to a lazy superalliance victory. I will not join your coalition.

Jac, I suggest using the Wild Voyager to hide your favorite card before CB can Laser it.

Launching is queued for now, cruiser still has to move first, and possible steal cards.

Before I do that, what happens if I set a card aside with the voyager flare but then that flare is lasered for the encounter?

It would count as losing the flare, so the visiting card would vanish

Cripes there is no practical use for that flare

What can you say, Voyager technology is really hard to replicate by non-voyagers, it is probably DNA locked.

I guess it works if you want to hide your Ultimate Card when the Mind wants to read your hand, or to allow the Tourist to look at it

Those both sound like clever niche uses of a Wild Flare and not intended regular use.

I'm putting together a rules-lawyery rant below that I'll probably send to the cosmic forum but nobody here needs to read since we should probably play with Rules As Written.

SpoilerShow

The Wild Voyager as written is functionally useless and should probably be revised to sending the card back to the player's hand if lost (just like the Voyager power). It's currently listed in the "Set Aside" section of the rules megapost under the heading "Protect [cards] from being taken or discarded" alongside the Wild Miser and Wild Cryo. For reference here are the powers the Wild Voyager is supposed to be comparable to:

Wild Miser:
When you draw a new hand or another player takes compensation from you, you may place this card and two others facedown in front of you until afterwards. If compensation is being taken from you, the facedown cards may not be taken. If drawing a new hand, you receive a full hand in addition to the facedown cards.

Wild Cryo:
When you draw a new hand, you may first set aside any or all of your non-encounter cards (including this flare). Then, draw a new hand of eight cards before adding the cards you set aside back into your new hand.

Both Flares offer guaranteed protection barring a Zap, allow multiple protected cards, and even protect the Flare itself from leaving your hand. Now obviously the Wild Voyager differs as it's intended to protect only one card at a time, but in return you can send and retrieve that card at any time.

Now, speaking of intent versus effect let's review how the Wild Voyager as Written performs when used to protect cards from being discarded or taken:

Protect cards from being Discarded:
The Wild Voyager absolutely fails at this task as written. Any card visiting the Warp suffers an increased chance of being discarded by dint of still being vulnerable to the Wild Voyager being discarded. As your hand is now smaller with a card in the warp, the Flare stands a higher probability to being chosen than if you just leave the chosen card in your hand. This is exacerbated by effects that would temporarily remove the Flare from your hand which would also cause the chosen card to be discarded. The Wild Voyager should never be used to protect cards from being discarded as written.

Protect cards from being Taken:
Technically works in the most spiteful of interpretations. Rather than stop your opponent from stealing your card, the Wild Voyager as written will simply discard your card in a very "If I can't have it, no one can" fashion. Again the chances of it being discarded using the Flare are actually increased compared to the chance it's taken without the Flare. Spite moves are not exclusive to the Wild Voyager either, you can play powerful cards in all sorts of meaningless situations to deprive card thieves, the Flare merely gives you an additional chance to do so.

Compared to the Wild Miser and Wild Cryo, the Wild Voyager as written is grossly incapable of protecting your cards. The power gap is massive both to its similar cards as well as to most Wild Flares in the game. Most, if not all other Wilds are designed to confer regular benefit to its user, with a side of additional fringe benefit from clever use of the card. The Wild Voyager provides no regular or practical use to its owner and can only very rarely be useful in information plays (like against the Mind or with the Wild Tourist) way outside of its intended use.

The text of card should be rewritten to return the hidden card to its owner's hand upon loss of the Flare or else reworked entirely to better serve the power's intent. Anything less just leaves a useless and even actively harmful card in your hand.