A thread for the discussion of games: board, LARP, MMORPG, video, tabletop RPG, game theory etc. etc. and all attendant news, developments and ancillary subjects thereof, as well as coordinating/scheduling games either online or IRL. All are welcome to chime in, talk about their favorite games or learn about gaming of any sort.
PLEASE TO WHITEFONT SPOILERS for video games, RPG modules or anything for which foreknowledge of events might lessen one's enjoyment of whatever gaming experience.
So that's the basic overview of the game. Now we get into gameplay. On your turn, you can take up to four actions. You can move, you can treat disease, you can build a research station, you can swap cards, and you can cure (some roles will have a special action they can take).
There are three ways to move, you can move from a city to any directly connected city which counts as 1 action. You can discard a city player card to move to the discarded city or to move to any city from the discarded city. (A discarded city player card never comes back into play so there is a definite cost to moving this way). This also counts as 1 action. You can also move from a city with a research center to any other city with a research center and that this also 1 action.
Treating is pretty simple. For 1 action you can remove one disease cube. (The Medic can remove all disease cubes of a single color for 1 action). If a disease has already been cured, 1 action will remove all cubes of that disease. (The Medic can do this without spending an action -- which is awesome).
If two players are in the same city, you can also give or take one card to/from another player for 1 action. However, you can only exchange a card that matches the city both players are in (i.e. if you are both in Moscow you can only exchange the Moscow card). The Researcher can give (but not take) any city card (this makes the Researcher really valuable).
Finally, if you have enough cards of the same color you can cure a disease. A cured disease will still spread but is much easier to treat.
Here's a walkthrough of how the games works.
[link]
If you have an event card, you can play it at any time and it does not take an action. You can even play it during another player's turn.
Once you've taken your actions, you draw two more player cards. Most of the time this will be a city card, but sometimes you get an event, and sometimes you get an epidemic. If you get an epidemic, then an infection card is drawn and three disease cubes of the matching color are added to that city. Then, the infection card discard pile is shuffled and placed on TOP of the infection card stack (this is what makes epidemics so bad), then infection cards are drawn and more disease is added.
If you have more than seven cards in your hand at this point, you have to discard enough to get down to seven. (This is also true right after another player gives you a card).
To finish off the turn, infection cards are drawn (2 at first, but 3 or 4 later in the game) and disease cubes added to the drawn cities.
So if the players win by curing all four diseases, how does the game win? So many ways... If a player gets to the part of his or her turn where player cards are drawn and there are no player cards left - the game wins. If you have a place a disease cube of a particular color and no cubes are left - the game wins. If there are more than 8 outbreaks - the game wins.
It sounds more complicated than it is, and since all the players are working together everyone can help on everyone else's turn so it turns out to be a pretty easy game to play. Not always easy to win though, there is a lot of tension between trying to work towards a cure while keeping things from spiraling out of control, but you aren't on your own.
Here's the link to the official rules.
[link]
And I'm sure ND's video will be good too.
I like watching the videos on new games to get a good sense of how gameplay is supposed to work. I've been playing some games with friends over on Board Game Arena and it's been really helpful on games I don't know.
Cool, thanks guys!
I'm going to have to keep reminding myself we don't have to worry about someone revealing as a Cylon.....
I'll set up the game. I'm thinking billytea & Ryan going first, me second, and you third so you'll get to see a couple turns before going.
PANDEMIC - billytea & Ryan
[link]
Here is starting board. Things are looking a little scary in Asia. As the Researcher I might suggest that the Medic use an action to get my Beijing Card to start accumulating Red.
PANDEMIC
It's not obvious from the image, but San Francisco is connected to Tokyo and Manila, and Los Angeles is connected to Sydney.
(I like the idea of a Los Angeles to Sydney ferry service)
