Board Game Analysis II – Pandemic

Pandemic is a cooperative board game for two to four players. The players work together as a team to try and find all cures and prevent the outbreaks of four deadly diseases. Each player is give one of the five roles of the diasease control team, which each have their own unique ability.

The Game
There is three different types of Event cards. Firstly, there are the cards that depict the cities of the map. These can be used to either discarding five of these cards with the same color to discover a cure of that color, move from a city to another or to build research stations. The second type of cards is the special event cards. These event cards have special actions, like for example the air lift card that lets you move any player’s pawn to any city on the map. The special event card can be played at any time and does not cost any action points.

The final type of event cards is the Epidemic cards. When an Epidemic card is drawn, an epidemic occurs. When this happens, the Infection Rate’s indicator is moved up one step on the Infection Rate’s track. The Infection Rate indicates how many infection cards the players are supposed to draw on the end of their turn. What also happens during an epidemic is that the bottom card from the Infection Cards’ pile is drawn, and three cubes are put in the city pictured on the card. Lastly, the Infection Cards’ discard pile is shuffled and placed on top of the Infection Cards’ draw pile.

Infection cards have cities and the cities’ colors pictured on them, and are used to infect cities with disease. When an infection card is picked at the end of a player’s turn, a cube will be placed in the depictured city. However, if there are already three cubes in the city (of the same color of the cube that is being added), an Outbreak occurs. When a city Outbreaks, one cube is added to each adjacent city, and the Outbreaks Indicator’s marker is moved up. This can cause chain reactions, because if an adjacent city also has three cubes of that color, more outbreaks occur and so there is a chain reaction.

When setting up the game, the player’s pawns are placed together with a research station in Atlanta on the map. Cards are also drawn from the Infection cards’ pile, three cubes are placed in the three first cities picked, two cubes in the second three and one cube in the final three cities. Depending on how many players are playing, they are given a different amount of Event cards to start off with. If there are four players playing they are each given 2 cards, three players get 3 cards each and two players get 4 cards each. If a player is accidently given an Epidemic card, she will simply return the card to the Event cards’ pile.

The amount of Epidemic cards in the Event cards’ deck depends on what level of difficulty the players want to play. The Introductory game has 4 epidemic cards, the Normal Game 5 and the Heroic game has 6. Another thing that differentiates the difficulties from each other is the sharing of card information. When playing on the Normal or Heroic difficulties, the players may talk about what cards they have but are not allowed to show each other their hands of cards. However, when playing on the Introductory difficulty the players may choose to show their hands or not.

There are three orders of every player’s turn. The player’s has four actions for each turn. There are multiple things you can do with your actions. You can either move your pawn by either moving it to an adjacent city, use event cards to move either to or from the pictured city or move from a city with a research station to another city with a research station. You are also able to build research stations if you use a card corresponding to the city you are currently in, give another player cards if both of your pawns are in the same city pictured on the card (one action per card), discover cures by discarding five cards of the same color to cure the disease of that color and also treat diseases by removing cubes from different cities (one action per cube). You are also able to pass.

When the player has used her four actions, she shall draw two cards from the Event card’s pile to her hand. No player may have more than 7 cards in her hand at one time. If a player finds herself holding onto more than seven cards, she may choose what cards to discard so that she only has seven cards left. If an Epidemic card is drawn, the epidemic is played before the next order.

Lastly, the player must take on the role of the Infector by picking an amount of cards, according to the current Infection Rate, from the Infection Draw Pile. One cube is added to the pictured cities on the cards, using the same color on the cubes as the pictured city. If the city already has three cubes, an outbreak occurs.

There are several defeat conditions. If there is no more cubes left outside the board and one has to be added, the game ends. The marker on the Outbreak Indicator’s track may not reach the 8^th and last place, and then the game will end as well. And lastly, if there are not enough cards left in the Event Cards’ pile for the player to draw, the game ends.

To win, however, the players must discover the Cures for all four diseases. When the fourth cure is discovered, the game ends immediately. To discover a Cure, a player must discard 5 cards of the same color when standing in a city with a Research Station. If a cure has been discovered and all cubes of this color have been defeated and removed from the board, that disease is eradicated and will no longer be added to the map even if an infection card of its color is drawn.

Each player is given her own special role card. The five roles available are:

The Dispatcher is able to move any other player’s pawn on her own turn, using her own action points. She can also move pawns to other cities where another pawn is standing.

The Operations Expert may build research stations in the city where she is currently standing for one action.

The Medic is able to remove all cubes of a single color when she treats a city for only one action, and when a cure is known the Medic may administer them for free.

The Researcher may give cards from her own hand to another player, which costs one action per card. Additionally, it does not matter which city the pawns are standing in, as long as the other player is in the same city as the Researcher.

The Scientist’s specialty is that she can discover cures for one less card than her fellow players.

The Best and Worst Sides of the Game
What I find to be the best side of the game is how balanced it can be. When we lost, we often would have won if we had one round more to play, and when we won, we were very close to losing and would have lost in the next few rounds. If the outbreak indicator was high, there was often very few cubes left, and the other way around too, and it was often based on luck if you were defeated by them or not. This made every round very intense, as you and your team had to prioritize what you should use your actions on.

However, we did have one game that went very badly. We did not even last one round, as only two out of the four players finished their turns before we were defeated. This was because of the unlucky placement of the cubes that were put on the board before you start, and the first card that was drawn from the event cards were an epidemic card, causing outbreaks by chain reactions. Then, as the infection cards’ discard pile had been shuffled and placed on top of the infection cards’ draw pile, the same cities were going to be drawn, and the second player drew a card of a city with three cubes, and so the chain reaction of outbreaks was started again. We lost because we ran out of black cubes. This might not happen very often, but we experienced it and so I find it to be one of the worst sides of the game. We were unlucky enough to get an epidemic card drawn during the first round when we already had dangerously placed cubes on the map, and we were hopelessly watching as the outbreaks occurred, and we couldn’t do anything about it.

The Most Interesting System
The most interesting system of the game I would say is the interaction between the team players and using their roles’ unique specialties to come up with winning plans. For example, the Dispatcher can use her moves to move the Medic around, making it easier to defeat disease cubes before an outbreak occurs. The Researcher discusses with the other players what color of cards they have in their hand, and so she can focus on making the cures instead of focusing on defeating infection cubes. The Operations Expert can build research stations on efficient places so that it’s easy to move from one place to another, and she can also try and always have a station near someone who has many cards of one color.

Target Group
The target group that the game recommends is from ten and up. I could see ten year olds enjoy this game, but maybe not if the team is played by solely ten year olds. This because it is sometimes difficult keeping track on all of the things that could lead to defeat and as we were often very close to winning when we lost and the other way around too, if you do not plan your actions right you could lose very early on in the game. I would have recommended this game from thirteen and up, as I think they would more likely enjoy this game and also be able to keep track on everything that’s going on in the game.

Summary
I enjoyed playing Pandemic, and what I found to be the most interesting parts of it was the cooperative sides, planning together and helping each other out. The core system of the game would be the using your actions in the best way possible, making sure not to be defeated by the infections and at the same time work on discovering the cures before you run out of event cards. Using what I found to be the most interesting system, planning and using the abilities of their given roles, makes the core system more interesting for the players, as they all have their own unique ability to focus on and they can also figure out plans using the other players’ abilities.