[Pandemic] - Game 4 - Game Over - They're just victorious little viruses

stever777

Welcome to Pandemic, Z-Man Games' game of global disease containment. In this game, players take the roles of four Center for Disease Control (CDC) operatives, racing against time to cure outbreaks.


You and your companions are highly skilled members of a disease-fighting team waging a battle against four deadly diseases. Your team will travel across the globe, stemming the tide of infection and developing the resources you'll need to discover the cures. You must work together, using your individual strengths to destroy the diseases before they overtake the world. The clock is ticking as outbreaks and epidemics accelerate the spread of the plague. Will you find the cures in time? The fate of humanity is in your hands!


Four diseases have broken out in the world and it is up to a team of specialists in various fields to find cures for these diseases before mankind is wiped out.

Players must work together, playing to their characters' strengths and planning their strategy of eradication before the diseases overwhelm the world with ever-increasing outbreaks. For example, the Operation Specialist can build research stations, which are needed to find cures for the diseases. The Scientist needs only 4 cards of a particular disease to cure it instead of the normal 5.

But the diseases are breaking out fast and time is running out: the team must try to stem the tide of infection in diseased areas while also towards cures.

A truly cooperative game where you all win or you all lose.


This will be a Play-By-Post Introductory Game of Pandemic for 4 players, participants from the discussion sign ups.

[RULES]
[Discussion and Sign-ups]

stever777

A QUICK TUTORIAL ON PANDEMIC

Pandemic is a cooperative game. You and your fellow players are members of a disease control team, working together to research cures and prevent additional outbreaks. Each of you will assume a unique role within the team, with special abilities that will improve your team’s chances if applied wisely. The object is to save humanity by discovering cures to four deadly diseases (Blue, Yellow, Black, and Red) that threaten to overtake the planet. If you and your team aren’t able to keep the diseases contained before finding the necessary cures, the planet will be overrun and the game will end in defeat for everyone.

The Board & Cards

-The Turn Phases-

Each turn, the current player must:

1. Take 4 actions
2. Draw 2 cards to add to his hand
3. Take on the role of the Infector (cards drawn & tokens placed by Host)

After the Infector has gone, the player’s turn is over and the next player begins his turn.

-Actions-

A player gets 4 actions to spend on her turn. A player may select from any of the available Basic and Special actions and spend 1 action to perform it. A given action may be performed more than once during a turn, so long as 1 action is spent for each instance. Each player’s Role will grant them special abilities that are unique to that player. Players may also pass if they have nothing else to do. Unused actions may not be saved from turn to turn.


BASIC ACTIONS

Charter Flight
Play the card corresponding to your pawn’s current location, and move to any city on the board. Discard the card to the Player Discard pile.

Shuttle Flight
If your pawn is in a city with a Research Station, move it to any other city with a Research Station. (See below for details on building Research Stations.)

Direct Flight
Play a card from your hand and move your pawn to the pictured city. Discard the card to the Player Discard pile.

Drive (or Ferry)
Move your pawn to an adjacent city. Cities are adjacent if they are connected by a red line. Red lines that go off the edge of the board “wrap around” to the opposite board edge and continue to the indicated city. (For example, Sydney and Los Angeles are considered to be adjacent)

The Dispatcher may move other player’s pawns on his turn (using any of the available Basic actions) as if they were his own pawn. He may also spend an action to move a pawn to any city that contains another pawn. He may only move other players’ pawns if they permit him to do so.
Note: For the Charter Flight action, the Dispatcher must play the card corresponding to the current location of the pawn he wishes to move.

Pass
A player may also elect to pass (and do nothing) for an action.


SPECIAL ACTIONS

Discover A Cure
Once your team has discovered all four cures, you win!
If your pawn is in a city with a Research Station, discard 5 cards of the same color to cure the corresponding disease. Place the spent cards into the Player Discard Pile.

The Scientist only needs 4 cards of a color to discover the cure of the corresponding disease when performing the Discover Cure action.

Build A Research Station
Building Research Stations helps your team move from place to place.
Research Stations are also required for discovering cures. Play the card corresponding to the city your pawn currently occupies, then place a Research Station in that city. Discard the card to the Player Discard Pile. If there aren’t any Research Stations left in the supply, select one of the Research Stations already in play and transfer it to the city your pawn occupies.

The Operations Expert does not have to play the card matching the city his pawn occupies when performing the Build A Research Station action. He simply spends an action to add a Research Station to his current city.

Treat Disease
Over the course of the game, your team can treat diseases to buy the time needed to discover cures. Remove a disease cube from the city your pawn occupies. (Each removed cube costs one action.) Place the removed cube back into the stock by the side of the board. If players have discovered a cure, instead of one cube, remove all cubes of a cured disease in your current city for one action.

Eradicating a Disease
If a cure for a given disease has been discovered and all of the disease cubes of that color have been removed from the board, flip the Cure marker for the disease to the “Sunset” side. From now on, cards of this color have no effect when drawn on the Infector’s turn. Cubes of the eradicated color will not be used again for the rest of the game.

The Medic may remove all the cubes of a single color (instead of 1) when performing the Treat Disease action. Also, if the Medic at any time finds herself in a city that contains cubes of a disease that has been cured, she may immediately remove all of those cubes. This unique ability is in effect during all players’ turns and does not cost any actions to perform.

Share Knowledge
Sometimes it’s hard for one player to get the cards necessary to discover a cure. The Share Knowledge action (while difficult to perform) can be useful in these cases. Transfer a card from one player to another. Every card transferred costs 1 action. Both your pawn and your fellow player’s pawn must be in the same city, and you may only transfer the card of the city that you are in together. (For example, if you are together in Moscow, only the Moscow card may be transferred from one player to the other.) If either player holds more than 7 cards as the result of a transfer, the excess cards must be immediately discarded to the Player Discard Pile.

The Researcher may give a fellow player any card from his hand when involved in a Share Knowledge action. He is not restricted to giving the card of the current jointly-occupied city, like other players are. This freedom only applies when the Researcher is giving a card—he always receives a card with the same restriction as other players. The Researcher can utilize this ability when involved in Share Knowledge actions on any player’s turn.

-Special Event Cards-

The Player Cards deck contains some Special Event cards. These cards may be played at any time (even on a fellow player’s turn) and do not require an action to play. When you play a Special Event card, immediately follow the instructions on the card, then discard the card into the Player Discard Pile.

-Hand Limit-

Players have a hand limit of 7 cards. If the number of cards in hand ever exceeds 7 as a result of drawing cards (or performing the Share Knowledge action), the player must immediately discard cards in excess to the Player Discard Pile. Players may choose which cards to discard. Players may play Special Event cards (including any they have just drawn) instead of discarding them, to help reduce their hand to 7.

-Sharing Information About Cards-

Players may openly discuss strategies during the game, but like the real world, the players do not immediately know everything that the other players do. To simulate this, if you are playing the Normal or Heroic Games, players may not show the contents of their hands to their fellow players during the game. Players may however, freely tell each other what cards they have. The Introductory Game has no such restriction and players may decide to play their hands openly. Because Pandemic is a test of cooperation and mettle (and not of memory), players may freely examine the contents of the Player Discard Pile and the Infection Discard Pile at any time.

-Infector Phase & Outbreaks-

Draw cards from the Infection Draw Pile equal to the current Infection Rate and add one cube to the pictured cities, using a cube of the same color as each card. Resolve the cards in the order you draw them. If, however, the pictured city is of a color that has been eradicated, do not add a cube. If a city already has 3 cubes in it of the color being added, instead of adding a cube to the city, an outbreak occurs in that color. When this happens, instead of adding a 4th cube, add a cube of the outbreaking color to each adjacent city. Each time a city outbreaks, move the Outbreaks Marker up one space on the Outbreak Indicator. If the number of outbreaks ever reaches 8 (and the Outbreaks Marker reaches the skull symbol), the game immediately ends in defeat for all players. Also, if there are not enough cubes to add to the board when infecting, the game immediately ends in defeat for all players.

Chain Reactions
If any of these new cubes would cause the total number of cubes of that color in an adjacent city to exceed 3, additional outbreaks may occur, causing a chain reaction. Note that each city may only outbreak once in each chain reaction.

DEFEAT OR VICTORY!

The game ends immediately in defeat for all players if any of the following conditions occur:
-A player needs to add disease cubes to the board and there aren’t any left of that color in the supply.
-The eighth outbreak occurs (the Outbreaks Marker reaches the skull symbol on the Outbreak Indicator).
-There are not enough cards in the Player Draw Pile when a player must draw cards.

Players collectively win the game immediately when the cures for all four diseases (Blue, Yellow, Black, and Red) have been discovered. Players do not need to administer cures to every infected city in order to win the game—victory is instant when any player discovers the fourth and final cure.

stever777

We will play with 4 players, as the rules say is the max.
It'll be a bit tougher than the previous 3 games but you can select your roles instead of RNG selecting them.
Please select your roles in this order -

@Smoove Operator
@NotoriusBEN
@Shiny New Toys
@caliber

Sterica

You know, I coulda moved your thread from the bug reports forum to here.

stever777

OH.
Didn't know that.
Not sure how I keep putting threads in that section.
:?

I'll remember that next time!

Sterica

When making a thread, check the pull-down menu to make sure it's in the right forum. Sometimes it defaults to the first forum on the boards (bug reports).

Smoove Operator

So, I've never actually played before. What's the best role for the new guy? Medic?

I'll take Medic.

NotoriusBEN

I will be the Operations Expert

Shiny New Toys

I'll be the Scientist.

caliber

And I'll be the friendly neighborhood Dispatcher

Kaplar

I'll be the Nurgle worshiper.

Shiny New Toys

Kaplar wrote: »

I'll be the Nurgle worshiper.

This was obviously my 2nd choice.

Kaplar

Outbreaks. Pandemics. Blessed be. Blessed be.

Shiny New Toys

What colour should I post in as the scientist? White may have its draw backs.

NotoriusBEN

we've used gray and bold in the past games

Shiny New Toys

Thanks

Smoove Operator

What's my medic color?

Also, was I correct that medic would be the best for a new player? Seemed to be the simplest mechanically. Go place, heal place, move on.

NotoriusBEN

darkorange for Medic (also the color of special cards)
grey for scientist
mediumorchid for dispatcher
peru for researcher
limegreen for Operations Expert

red for red cities and diseases
dodgerblue for blue cities and diseases
gold for yellow cities and diseases
black for black cities and diseases

I think it would be fun to have new players come up with new disease names. It certainly added to our fun in game 2.
Previous entries were:
The Blues
Red Rumples
Night Pox
Yellow Fevah

yea, the medic is pretty straight forward in his abilities. and when cures are found, allow the dispatcher to move you around to sweep 8 cities in a turn cycle.
for cards, i think the medic's best use of them is to fly to cities that are epidemic zones, unless it's vital for a cure being found. (tried to do so in game 2, but was literally a player turn behind the cards)

Shiny New Toys

So we dont have a researcher? Is that going to be a problem? They are useful for passing cards so we can get 5 together to cure a disease(or 4 in my case), but then all roles are useful for one reason or another.

Smoove Operator

My submissions for disease names:
The Mondays
PMS
Butt Rot
Carpal Tunnel

stever777

@Smoove Operator - Medic Turn

You all start in Atlanta, at the Research Station, (red cross icon).

3 cities received 3 disease cubes.
3 cities received 2 disease cubes.
3 cities received 1 disease cubes.
These cities are not in danger of receiving more cubes until an Epidemic card is turned over from the Player Deck.
Then, those card are shuffled and placed on top of the Infection Deck and that's when the trouble starts, as outbreaks begin to occur.
Obviously, the 3 cube cities are the most dangerous, as they could outbreak the fastest.

Please ignore the purple cubes, as we are not playing with them this game.

You can click on the board to see it enlarged to read the cities and texts.

You may want to discuss a strategy before beginning or not.
@Smoove Operator has 4 actions to play.


Starting hands -
Roles, locations, current hand sizes & cards -
Smoove Operator - Medic; Atlanta; (2) - Miami; "Resilient Population" Special (Remove card from Infection Discards permanently.)
NotoriusBEN - Operations Expert; Atlanta; (2) - Beijing; "Airlift" Special (Move Any Pawn To Any City.)
Shiny New Toys - Scientist; Atlanta; (2) - Paris; Algiers
caliber - Dispatcher; Atlanta; (2) - Santiago; "Forecast" Special (Look at top 6 Infection cards. Rearrange them as you wish.)

stever777

Example of how it's played out here.

Smoove Operator

Hmm. Damn the torpedoes, full speed to northern Europe. I guess the plan would eventually be to make it to Sydney via Kolkata, but it seems likely something else will have come up by then.

Move (4) to Essen.

caliber

Looking at our initial set of cities, none are located in truly gnarly parts of the map, so I'm tentatively optimistic. Running to Essen to work on curing people there is probably not a terrible plan. Think it's worth flying to Beijing and putting down a base somewhere in Asia BEN?

Also, I totally endorse The Mondays. This dreaded plague must be stopped!

Shiny New Toys

Would it be better to use the airlift card to go right where he wants? We dont really have anyone with numerous cards of the same color yet. I think we should clear up the initial set of cities, maybe set up some research stations to fly to/from across the globe.

caliber

Airlift could work too, but note that works for any pawn to any city; it's way, WAY more flexible than burning his Beijing to get over there. I definitely think setting up some strategically situated research stations to help us all maneuver is important to victory.

Smoove Operator

Hong Kong seems like a good place for a research station. To my untrained eye, anyhoo. Also, second the idea of using the Beijing card and not the airlift, but can't he move pretty to HK in one turn and build it next turn? Saves a card. Not sure how fast things get out of hand, but if we can take the time and not burn cards now, may be better for us later.

Shiny New Toys

Smoove Operator wrote: »

Hong Kong seems like a good place for a research station. To my untrained eye, anyhoo. Also, second the idea of using the Beijing card and not the airlift, but can't he move pretty to HK in one turn and build it next turn? Saves a card. Not sure how fast things get out of hand, but if we can take the time and not burn cards now, may be better for us later.

Thats a good idea, Hong Kong is pretty well connected.

Bahgdad also looks a good place for a station, obviously not this term but to be done soon.

caliber

Just walking over is also an option. BEN I think is more adept at this than I am so he'll weigh in on his best options I'm sure.

And yeah, we're lucky Hong Kong or Bahgdad didn't start out with 3 cubes. That's just a mean starting hand.

Shiny New Toys

BEN is the only one who can set up a Research station without having the card for that city. He can ferry/drive to Hong Kong in his 4 turns or move to Manilla in 3 turns and spend 1 turn moving either me or caliber (ignore this that the dispatcher I was getting confused.) and then build at the beginning of his next turn.

Or he could build a research station in Manilla and then we could fly there and start cleaning up some cubes.

stever777

Smoove Operator - Medic Turn

Player Card Draws -
Toronto; Epidemic!

Epidemic! Results -
1. Infection Rate moved 1 space. Rate moves to 2.
2. Bottom of Infection Deck draw. Mexico City receives 3 cubes.

Any Special Card plays before the discard shuffle or upcoming Infector Phase?

caliber

An Epidemic re-shuffled the discards onto the top of the deck right? I think I'd like to Forecast after they're shuffled if that's the case, to push back any Outbreaks as far as possible.

stever777

caliber wrote: »

An Epidemic re-shuffled the discards onto the top of the deck right? I think I'd like to Forecast after they're shuffled if that's the case, to push back any Outbreaks as far as possible.

Epidemics are in the Player Cards Deck and discarded after they take effect.
Infector Deck is what you will be Forecasting, where cities get cubes regularly from, besides the 3 hits of Epidemics, of course.

stever777

So, @caliber, you still wanna play Forecast?

Also, @Smoove Operator could remove a card from the Infector deck permanently, if he chooses.
Any of the cities that received cubes are available to remove.

caliber

If I understand correctly, then no I don't need to play. When are the discards shuffled back into the Infector Deck? After an Outbreak?

stever777

An Epidemic, from the Player Deck, puts 3 cubes on a city and the Infector discards are shuffled & placed on top of the Infector Deck, making the cities with cubes in them more likely to Outbreak, since they've already gotten cubes.
An Outbreak occurs when a city with 3 cubes gets pulled in the Infector Phase.
Forecast allows you to control when an Outbreak may occur.
Epidemics are out of the players' control.

E - Check out post 2, spoiler 1 to read an Epidemic card.

stever777

Best time to play a Forecast is after an Epidemic card.
Lets you control how the endangered cities play out.

Of course, you may want to wait.

caliber

Heh ok, then yeah I think it's time to Forecast.

stever777

Of course, @Smoove Operator could remove a card from the Infector deck permanently, if he chooses, including Mexico City.
He may want to wait also.

caliber

Up to you Smoove; I'd say let's wait for an area to get nasty before removal though.

NotoriusBEN

apologies for not chiming in earlier, been on airplanes and airports for 9hrs (it's like Im living the game! :? )
I'll move after caliber's forecast goes through. The ''good'' news is that we got a potentially decent amount of time until the next epidemic, since the epidemic cards are supposed to be shuffled 1 per fraction of the draw pile. (1 epidemic card per 1/4th of a pile, stacked on top of each other, if there are only 4 epidemic cards)
we have at least 8 to 10 city cards before the next epidemic shows up, but we gotta mitigate the current infections asap, since the infector discard pile is reshuffled and placed on top of its deck