- You may be looking for ships, the modern name for the colonizing playing pieces.
Tokens are markers used to keep track of the effects of powers that accumulate over time or to mark special conditions for various reasons. In early editions, players had to remember such effects or mark them with pencil and paper, and CEO, being computerized, handled these effects automatically. However, the FFG edition includes a large number and variety of cardboard tokens to use with different aliens that require keeping track of lingering effects, including a large number of generic tokens and many other tokens for specific aliens.