Team Cosmic Variant

In this variant, players form teams of two and attempt to conquer the Cosmos together. This variant does not require any additional components, but it should not be played with fewer than five players.

Note: It is possible to play the team cosmic variant with an odd number of players; one player does not have a partner.

Setup
Set up the Cosmic Encounter® game as normal, performing the following additional steps during Step 3.

3a. Take one destiny card of each player color and shuffle them.

3b. To form teams, deal out these destiny cards faceup into piles, two cards per pile (with one card remaining if there is an odd number of players). Each pile represents a team of two players who will attempt to win the game together. In a game with an odd number of players, one player (known as the “odd player”) does not have a partner and plays to win by him- or herself.

3c. After forming teams, partners sit across from each other at the table in order to spread out their turns as evenly as possible. If there is an odd player in the game, place an unused planet across the table from him or her.

3d. Take the destiny cards used to determine teams and shuffle them into the rest of the destiny deck.

Note: During Step 4 of setup, players cannot discuss with their partners which alien they are choosing to play.

Gameplay
This variant uses all of the standard rules and victory conditions, with the following exceptions:
 * A player cannot have an encounter against his or her partner. During the destiny phase, if a player draws a destiny card with his or her partner’s color, the player may either attack a foreign colony in his or her partner’s home system (as though the player drew his or her own color) or draw again.
 * The main players in each encounter always automatically invite their partners as allies. In an encounter against his or her partner, a player cannot ally against his or her partner. However, in an encounter against other players, partners can each ally with different sides.
 * If a player somehow gains a colony in his or her partner’s system, it counts as a home colony for that player, not a foreign colony.
 * In order to win the game, each player on a team must either gain enough foreign colonies to win or complete an alternate victory condition. The game does not end until both players of a team have completed a victory condition. If multiple teams win at the same time, it is a shared win.
 * Each time a player gains a foreign colony, he or she may give his or her partner the foreign colony instead. The player returns his or her ships to his or her other colonies and allows his or her partner to place an equal number of ships on the planet instead. A player can have more than five colonies.
 * Players cannot show other players their cards (even their partners), but they may talk openly about their strategy and cards so that all players can hear – including mentioning specific cards in their hand.
 * Since the odd player does not have a partner, the odd player only needs to complete a victory condition by him or herself to win. Also, the odd player receives twice as many turns as any other player. When the turn order arrives at the unused planet across from the odd player, he or she receives a full extra turn. Afterwards, turn order continues from the unused planet.