[PbP] [Pandemic - ITL] - Game 21 - Game Over - Found The Specimen

Kaneski

Preda just treated washington, so we got the 3rd blue cube we need to cure it.

stever777

@Preda didn't say to place that cube in a dish but, if he wants to, he can state that now.

Preda

Than I'll state it. I'll put the Washington cube in the lower dish.
Than with my last action I'll move the 2 lower dish Cubes in the Centrifuge.

@stever777 to end turn.

Kaneski

One presumes the 2 red cubes are discarded @preda ?

Preda

No other chances if we wanted to cure blue and survive next epidemic (so we could lose later).

stever777

@Hedgethorn - Local Liaison Turn

Lab Board

Roles, current hand sizes & cards -
Hedgethorn - Local Liaison (2/7) - Chicago; Cairo
jdarksun - Dispatcher (6/7) - Milan; St. Petersburg; Washington; Tokyo; Beijing; Osaka
Phyphor - Medic (6/7) - Atlanta; Paris; San Francisco; Lima; Karachi; Delhi
Kaneski - Generalist (6/7) - New York; Lagos; Algiers; Mumbai; Istanbul; "Re-Examined Research" Special (Current player may draw any one city card from Player Discards and add it to his hand.)
Preda - Field Director (3/7) - Miami; Sao Paulo; Riyadh

LAB ACTIONS

Process a Sample
Sequence a Disease
Characterize a Disease
Test a Cure
Discover a Cure



REMINDERS
• Lab actions must be done at research stations.
• All cubes in a dish must be moved when processing a sample.
• Cubes cannot be freely returned from the lab to the supply.
• Cubes cannot be moved onto a Sequence card until it is characterized.
• Gray spots on Sequence cards must be filled with cubes matching the cure color.
• A cure cannot be tested until at least 1 cube is on its Sequence card.
• The cube removed by Test a Cure is returned to the supply.
• Different players than the one intending to Discover a Cure can characterize or test it.
• Spots of an eradicated disease’s color on a Sequence card can be filled by cubes of any color.
• Cubes of an eradicated disease in the lab can still be used to fill out spots on Sequence cards

"Infection Zone Ban" Special (Ignore all Chain Reaction outbreaks until current player's next turn.) is in effect until jdarksun's next turn.

Hedgethorn

@stever777: The Miami and Sao Paulo cards should be in Preda's hand, not mine.

We're in trouble. I can't both treat two black cubes (thus giving us what we need to set up the black cure) and sufficiently progress the blue cure so that I can test it (so jdark can cure it on his turn)...

It seems to me I have two options now, neither of which is ideal:
Optional turn #1:
1. Treat Delhi, putting a black cube in the top petri dish.
2. Treat Delhi, putting a black cube in the top petri dish.
3. Drive to Kolkata.
4. Move the blue cubes from centrifuge to growth.
5. (Free) Characterize the black cure with the Cairo card.

Then Jdark would have to move yellow/black/blue from sequencer to growth, move all the cubes to the blue sequence card, and test blue so that Phyphor could cure blue on the following turn.

Optional turn #2:
1. Drive to Kolkata.
2. Move the blue cubes from centrifuge to growth.
3. Move the yellow/black/blue cubes from sequencer to growth.
4. Move all cubes from growth to the blue sequence card.
5. (Free) Test the blue cure with the Chicago card, returning a cube from Chicago to the supply.

That allows jdark to cure blue, but short of me drawing at least one black card after my turn it seems to make victory impossible. But I guess option #2 is what we have to do?

Also, coincidentally, Phyphor can't gather red cubes for the lab board any more (the rules state that the Medic's ability to automatically remove cubes of a cured disease can't be used to send cubes to the lab board, which is bull***t).

Preda

With 2 jdark can cure in 2 action, leaving hm 2 to move phyphor where we need him or starting to collect black He also will give us another sequence card, maybe easyer to do.

Hedgethorn

1. Drive to Kolkata.
2. Move the blue cubes from centrifuge to growth.
3. Move the yellow/black/blue cubes from sequencer to growth.
4. Move all cubes from growth to the blue sequence card.
5. (Free) Test the blue cure with the Chicago card, returning a cube from Chicago to the supply.

@stever777

stever777

@Hedgethorn
You drew Shanghai & "Commercial Travel Ban" Special (Infection rate becomes 1 until the start of current player's next turn.) for your Player card draws.
Would you like to play the Special now?

Hedgethorn

Absolutely, you'd better believe I want to play Commercial Travel Ban.

stever777

@jdarksun - Dispatcher Turn

Lab Board

Roles, current hand sizes & cards -
Hedgethorn - Local Liaison (2/7) - Cairo; Shanghai
jdarksun - Dispatcher (6/7) - Milan; St. Petersburg; Washington; Tokyo; Beijing; Osaka
Phyphor - Medic (6/7) - Atlanta; Paris; San Francisco; Lima; Karachi; Delhi
Kaneski - Generalist (6/7) - New York; Lagos; Algiers; Mumbai; Istanbul; "Re-Examined Research" Special (Current player may draw any one city card from Player Discards and add it to his hand.)
Preda - Field Director (3/7) - Miami; Sao Paulo; Riyadh

LAB ACTIONS

Process a Sample
Sequence a Disease
Characterize a Disease
Test a Cure
Discover a Cure



REMINDERS
• Lab actions must be done at research stations.
• All cubes in a dish must be moved when processing a sample.
• Cubes cannot be freely returned from the lab to the supply.
• Cubes cannot be moved onto a Sequence card until it is characterized.
• Gray spots on Sequence cards must be filled with cubes matching the cure color.
• A cure cannot be tested until at least 1 cube is on its Sequence card.
• The cube removed by Test a Cure is returned to the supply.
• Different players than the one intending to Discover a Cure can characterize or test it.
• Spots of an eradicated disease’s color on a Sequence card can be filled by cubes of any color.
• Cubes of an eradicated disease in the lab can still be used to fill out spots on Sequence cards

"Commercial Travel Ban" Special (Infection rate becomes 1 until the start of current player's next turn.) is in effect until Hedgethorn's next turn.

jdarksun

OK, what's the plan here?

Preda

First of all cure blue. Than after knowing the other sequence card see what are our options.

Hedgethorn

Preda's right: use your first two actions to get to a research station and cure blue. You could get to either Atlanta or Kolkata in one move; I'm not actually sure which makes more sense.

After the next sequence card is drawn we can make more detailed plans. But you'll probably have to move either Phyphor or Kaneski near Delhi so they can get some black cubes onto the lab board. You might also have to move Preda, depending on what we need to cure black.

Edit: I think whatever plan we concoct will have to involve me curing black on my next turn. I have one black card now and I can draw another one using Reexamined Research; but I'll need to be passed a third card, perhaps from Phyphor or Kaneski in order to have three for the cure. Preda will probably have to use Riyadh to test the black cure.

Preda

I'll go kolkata, to be near the black cubes, witch we will need to cure, while Phyphor could move through Atlanta and autocure while he do the yellow ones too.

Phyphor

Yeah my turn will be
1: Fly to Atlanta
2: ???
3/4: Move to Miami/Mexico City

I could do a lab action. Aternately, move LA->Mexico->Miami->Atlanta if we don't need the extra lab action to clean up more

Hedgethorn

Blue will be cured before your turn, so treating Atlanta will be an auto-action.

Best bet for your second action might be to characterize the black disease.

Phyphor

Ha. Who's going to cure black? It's going to have to be Kanesi or me and we won't get another turn

Phyphor

Maybe I move, move, fly to karachi, move to delhi?

Ahh, but if I move to delhi we lose all of our black cubes. Fly to atlanta, warp to baghdad, move to karachi, maybe characterize for black with delhi card?

Hedgethorn

There's no way to get enough cubes on the lab board, process them, characterize, and test until at least Preda's turn. Maybe longer.

I think the most likely scenario is that I use Cairo + Reexamined Research + a card from you (Delhi) or from Kaneski (probably Mumbai) to cure black. But it's pretty much going to have to be either me or jdark curing black -- and jdark can probably only do so if he draws at least one black card after his turn.

jdarksun

1) Drive to Kolkata
2) Cure Blue

Rest of turn pending results of the Cure.

stever777

Lab Board

Hedgethorn

Kaneski needs to be near Delhi to gather black and red cubes. Moving Phyphor to Atlanta might help, so he can characterize black and clean up the yellow mess.

Preda

We need to treat 2 black, 2 red and a blue cube, putting one of each in a dish and the remaining black and red in the other. Than, 4 lab action, Characterize, test, give Hedgethorn a black card than cure. 13 actions without considering movement and cleaning yellow in between. I actually can't see a way to do it. I suggest we sequence to find a better card. That one we can't do.

Hedgethorn

How about warping Kaneski to Kolkata and then drawing one more sequence card for jdark's last two actions? Regardless of what sequence card we use, we'll need those black cubes, and Kaneski's the first one who can get them.

Hedgethorn

I think we actually have a chance to cure black using the sequence card we have now, but it won't happen until the very last action of the very last turn, and it depends upon jdark drawing a black card at the end of his turn.

(It also depends on us getting luck and not having an outbreaks kill us, but it'll help that we're only drawing one infection card for the next four turns.)

Crazy plan wrote:

Jdark:
3. Warp Kaneski to Kolkata
4. Drive Kaneski to Chennai
4b. Draw a black card (fingers crossed)

Phyphor:
1. Fly to Atlanta
2. Drive to Miami
3. Fly to Karachi
4. Drive to Delhi

Kaneski:
1. Treat Chennai, cube to top dish
2. Treat Chennai, cube to bottom dish
3. Drive to Delhi
4. Treat Delhi, cube to top dish
5. Treat Delhi, cube to bottom dish

Preda:
1. Characterize black using Riyadh
2. Treat Washington, cube to top dish
3. Top dish to sequencer
4. Bottom dish to sequencer

Hedge:
1. Sequencer to growth
2. Cubes from growth to the sequence card
2b. Test cure using Cairo (free)
3. ?
4. ?

Jdark:
1. Drive to Delhi
2. Grab Delhi from Phyphor
3. Drive to Kolkata
3b. Use Re-examined Research to grab another black
4. Cure black

I think that has a chance of working, if I'm not mistaken. Anyone have any better ideas, besides flipping a sequence card and praying for something better? (...and there are only a couple of sequence cards that are much better for us, along with 4 or 5 that are entirely useless.)

Phyphor

Well, we could cardcount - we should be able to know exactly what 11 cards are left, see what the odds of drawing black are

Hedgethorn

Quick count, which I think is accurate:
There are 11 cards left: 2 yellow, 2 blue, 2 black, 3 red, 1 epidemic, and 1 special.

Moscow and Chennai seem to be the remaining black cards, if that matters.

Yellow Cards (10/12):

Bogota
Los Angeles
Khartoum
Santiago
Mexico City
Lagos
Lima
Johannesburg
Sao Paulo
Miami

Blue Cards (10/12):

Milan
St. Petersburg
Paris
New York
Chicago
San Francisco
Madrid
Washington
London
Atlanta

Red Cards (9/12):

Taipei
Manila
Seoul
Osaka
Hong Kong
Bangkok
Tokyo
Beijing
Shanghai

Black Cards (10/12):

Tehran
Istanbul
Kolkata
Delhi
Karachi
Baghdad
Mumbai
Riyadh
Cairo
Algiers

Specials (9/10):

Mobile Hospital
Gov't Grant
Airlift
Infection Zone Ban
Rapid Vaccine Deployment
Re-examined Research
Improved Sanitation
Sequencing Breakthrough
Commercial Travel Ban

Phyphor

Okay, so there's a 35% chance of drawing at least one. I have never seen the lab deck, do we think we have a better than 1/3 chance of drawing a good black cure card?

Hedgethorn

I pulled down my copy of In the Lab to check the sequence deck. If I'm not mistaken, there are 8 sequence cards left in the deck, as follows:
- Three of them can't be used to cure black

- Two of them are just as difficult as what we have now, or more so, namely:
(a) 6 black + 1 red + 1 yellow;
(b) 2 black + 1 blue + 1 red + 4 yellow

- Three of them might be a bit better, namely:
(c) 5 black + 1 red
(d) 5 black + 1 yellow
(e) 3 black + 3 blue

Phyphor

Your sequence has a problem it in, jdark is two moves away from delhi, he would end up one move short

Phyphor

In any case, he could only treat chennai once because red is cured, so his move would be fly mumbai -> delhi -> treat -> treat -> treat, you could grab one of the reds with your two free moves but otherwise we're stuck

Hedgethorn

Phyphor wrote: »

Your sequence has a problem it in, jdark is two moves away from delhi, he would end up one move short

Change drive to "warp" -- he is the dispatcher after all.

Also, a couple special powers I hadn't been taking into account: Preda can move pawns in cities he's adjacent to, and I can give any black card I have to jdark so long as he's in a black city (on my turn). I don't know how much that helps -- I can only give Cairo to jdark if someone else has already tested the cure. Maybe if Kaneski ends up in Mumbai, I can drive there, grab Mumbai, and pass it to jdark. I haven't checked the steps to see if that'll work or not.

Hedgethorn

Aw crap. Forgot that we can only get 1 of the red cubes in any given city.

I'm pretty sure that screws us with respect to this sequence card. We need either the 5 black/1 yellow or the 5 black/1 red sequence card to win in that case; there's just no way to move to enough cities to pick up multiple cubes.

Phyphor

Yeah I don't think there is a sequence. We can't get the reds in the dishes in time

Phyphor

Ahh yes forgot jdark can warp himself. This might work

Jdark:
3. Warp Kaneski to Bangkok
4. Drive Kaneski to Jakarta
4b. Draw a black card (fingers crossed)

Phyphor:
1. Fly to Atlanta
2. Drive to Miami
3. Fly to Karachi
4. Drive to Delhi

Kaneski:
1. Treat Jakarta, cube to top dish
2. Move to Chennai
3. Treat Chennai, cube to bottom dish
4. Drive to Delhi
5. Characterize black

Preda:
1. Treat Washington, cube to top dish
2. Warp to Kolkata
3. Treat delhi, to top dish
4. Treat delhi, to bottom dish

Hedge:
1. Top dish to sequencer
2. Bottom dish to sequencer
3. Sequencer to growth
4. Cubes from growth to the sequence card
4b. Test cure using Cairo (free)

Jdark:
1. Warp to Delhi
2. Grab Delhi from Phyphor
3. Drive to Kolkata
3b. Use Re-examined Research to grab another black
4. Cure black

Phyphor

Alternately, we can hope jdark also draws the role swapping special so I can switch to something more useful. So really he only needs one of three. So it's a 50% chance he will draw something useful - worst case I can just take archivist, then fly to delhi, pick up delhi, treat, treat. This leaves preda free to move jdark and do a sequencer. You can then give cairo to jdark

Hedgethorn

One problem with your plan-- jdark isn't in Bangkok anymore. His first move this turn was to drive to the research station at Kolkata, where he cured blue.

Edit: An easy fix: jdark can warp Kaneski to Sydney (where you are), and then drive him to Jakarta. Everything else follows as you wrote it up.

Phyphor

Jdark:
3. Warp Kaneski to Sydney
4. Drive Kaneski to Jakarta

Phyphor:
1. Fly to Atlanta
2. Warp to kolkata
3. Characterize black
4. Drive to Delhi

Kaneski:
1. Treat Jakarta, cube to top dish
2. Move to Chennai
3. Treat Chennai, cube to bottom dish
4. Drive to delhi
5. Treat delhi, to top dish

Preda:
1. Treat Washington, cube to top dish
2. Warp to Kolkata
3. Treat delhi, to bottom dish
4. Bottom dish to sequencer

Hedge:
1. Give cairo to jdark
2. Top dish to sequencer
3. Sequencer to growth
4. Cubes from growth to the sequence card
4b. Test cure using Cairo (free)

Jdark:
1. Warp to Delhi
2. Grab Delhi from Phyphor
3. Drive to Kolkata
3b. Use Re-examined Research to grab another black
4. Cure black

This trades less treating for not having to have jdark draw the right card