Cosmos

This rare 1978 title is a game of space combat played out on a huge map featuring a stylized solar system and a massive web of connecting stars within a grid of squares. Eight of the nine planets are used as bases for between two and eight players. Each player has five ships, with the objective of either eliminating an opponent's five ships or getting one of his ships onto an opponent's planet.

Ships can either fire or move in a turn but not both. Range is measured not by star links but by number of squares counted orthogonally. Combat results are Hit or Miss, with the chance of a Hit increasing as range decreases. There are nine Firing Cards of 10 cards, with the number of the deck equal to the range and to the number of Miss cards it contains. Some of the result cards also trigger events through Space Conditions cards.

The movement and combat systems interact. When a ship succeeds in hitting and eliminating another ship, it gets promoted, by a degree that varies with the difference in ranks between the two. A ship's level does not affect combat, but does determine how many stars it can move in a turn. Ship rank ranges from 1 to 12.