- We're treating diseases and researching cures!
That's right, it's Pandemic from Z-Man Games!
(upbeat music)
This contagious co-op pits two to four
disaster specialists against the dangerous
diseases spreading across the globe.
Using their wits and action cards,
players travel the earth, hoping to stamp out
the infections before the population is overwhelmed.
Quick note, we're playing with the 10th Anniversary Edition
of the game, which may look a little different
from your standard set.
Don't sweat it, though, the game's the same,
just some of the pieces are a little bit fancier.
Set up begins with the game board placed center.
Create a supply for the diseased cubes, separated by color,
and the six research stations nearby.
Place the outbreaks marker on the zero space
at the outbreaks track and put the four cure markers
under the matching cure indicators.
Next, shuffle the infection cards
and reveal the top three.
Place three disease cubes of the matching color
on each of the indicated cities.
Then, repeat this process with three more cards,
but only two cubes per city, and finally once more
with only one cube per city.
Place the infection deck on the indicated space
and the revealed cards in the discard pile.
Put the infection rate marker on the leftmost space
of the infection track.
Shuffle the role cards and deal
one face-up for each player,
this is your specialization for the game.
Take the matching color pawn for that specialization
and place everyone on Atlanta, the home of the CDC.
Each player also gets a handy reference card.
Next, remove the six epidemic cards and set them aside,
then shuffle the remaining player cards and deal cards
to each person depending on the number
of players as indicated here.
Got it?
Cool.
Finally, prepare the player deck by creating a number
of face-down piles equal to the desired difficulty
of the game.
For an intro game, do four, standard five,
and if you're really brave and you think you can handle
the Pandemic, try six for a heroic game.
Once you've chosen, shuffle one epidemic card into each pile
and then stack these piles to form the player deck.
And you're ready to play!
Gameplay occurs in turns, during which each player takes
a series of actions and then play passes to the left.
During a turn, the active player proceeds
through three phases.
Take actions, draw cards, infect cities.
In the take actions step, the player will perform up
to four actions.
They may take any combination of available actions,
provided they have the cards in hand to do so.
Actions include movement actions,
for instance in the Drive/Ferry action,
the active player may move their pawn
to a city connected by a line from their current city.
Or they may take a direct flight by discarding a city card
and move to the city named on that card.
Or they may charter a flight anywhere in the world
by discarding a card that matches their current city.
Or they may shuttle flight by moving from the city with
a research station to another city with
a research station.
Players may travel around the board,
combining these actions as needed.
Other actions include Build a Research Station by discarding
the city card that matches their current location
and placing a research station in that city.
A maximum of six research stations can be on
the board at one time.
If you try to build a seventh, you die.
No, just kidding, take a research station
from the board and relocate it.
Treat disease by removing one disease cube from
the city they are in.
If a disease has been cured because someone researched it,
cover the disease with the cure marker,
then all cubes of that color in that location can be removed
by this single action.
If the last cube of any color is removed from the board,
that disease is eradicated and players may now flip
the cure marker to its canceled side.
No more cubes of that color can
be placed on the board.
Share Knowledge is an action that can
be performed two different ways.
Give a city card of the current city to another player
in that city or take a matching card from that player.
If a player ever has more than seven cards in hand,
they must immediately discard or play an event card.
Event cards, by the way, are one-time use cards
that can be played at any time on anyone's turn.
There are a total of five in the game.
The last action, Discover a Cure, is the big one.
The active player may discard five city cards
of the same color from their hand to cure the disease
of that color, moving the cure marker over the indicator.
This is the main goal of the game.
Once the players cure all four diseases, they win.
After taking their four actions, play proceeds
to the Draw Cards step.
The active player draws two cards from the player deck.
Remember, if they ever have more than seven cards,
they have to discard down.
Throughout the game, those pesky epidemic cards
will occasionally show up.
When they do, the following steps occur.
Increase the infection rate marker by one,
infect a city by drawing the bottom card from
the infection deck and placing three cubes on that city,
discard that card.
Intensify the epidemic by shuffling the cards
in the infection discard pile separately
and then place them on top of the infection deck.
Epidemics are bad news, dude.
After the draw step is complete,
next up is the Infect Cities step.
The player reveals a number of infection cards equal
to the current infection rate.
They then place one cube matching its color onto that city,
unless the disease has been eradicated,
then you may ignore the infection.
When infecting cities, if a location already has three cubes
of that color, no further cubes are placed.
Instead, an outbreak occurs, which means a disease cube
of that color must be placed on every city connected
by a line to that location.
This can even cause a chain reaction
where multiple cities can cause multiple outbreaks.
So be mindful of the disease count in each local.
After infecting cities, play passes to the left.
Throughout the game, the players can use
the special actions on their role cards,
play event cards to alter the board,
and travel around the globe curing folks.
However, there's three big ways to lose Pandemic.
If the outbreak marker reaches the last space
of the outbreaks track, the players lose.
If players are ever unable to place a disease cube because
the supply is empty, the players lose,
and if a player cannot draw two player cards
in their draw step because the deck is empty,
the players lose.
But if all four diseases have been cured,
the players prevail.
They do not need to eradicate the diseases, just cure them.
And that's Pandemic, I'm Becca Scott,
and I'm willing to get my mitts on
the legacy version of this game.
You hear me, Z-Man?
You can watch me and my friends play this game
and other amazing games on Game the Game,
right here on Geek and Sundry, we'll see you there!
(upbeat music)