(For a list of games in this series, click here and scroll down.)
Pandemic holds a secure place on most lists of “gateway games,” simple but thought-provoking board games that can introduce and attract neophytes to the hobby. It does so, I think, partly because it is easy to learn and quick (45-60 minutes) to play, partly because its accelerating threat schedule and narrow victory conditions make it a very tense game, and mainly because it helps introduce newcomers to a new kind of simulation, the cooperative game. The other titles I've reviewed here so far, like Dominion and Guillotine, are competitive games, where one player wins at the end. In Pandemic, however, either all the players win or everybody dies. I'm pretty sure that “everybody,” incidentally, means everyone in the world. Why play for low stakes?
Pandemic holds a secure place on most lists of “gateway games,” simple but thought-provoking board games that can introduce and attract neophytes to the hobby. It does so, I think, partly because it is easy to learn and quick (45-60 minutes) to play, partly because its accelerating threat schedule and narrow victory conditions make it a very tense game, and mainly because it helps introduce newcomers to a new kind of simulation, the cooperative game. The other titles I've reviewed here so far, like Dominion and Guillotine, are competitive games, where one player wins at the end. In Pandemic, however, either all the players win or everybody dies. I'm pretty sure that “everybody,” incidentally, means everyone in the world. Why play for low stakes?
The game board shows a map of the world, with 48 circles
representing large cities. These are the spaces the players' pieces will
occupy, move through, or meet in during the game. They are
connected by red lines, representing rail and sea and air links, that both
players and diseases can move along. To move, players employ colored pawns,
each representing a different specialist trying to find a cure for the four
epidemic diseases ravaging the world. Each specialist has a complementary
ability letting them bend the rules in a different way: the Medic can treat diseases more
effectively, the Scientist can discover cures more efficiently, and so on.
The diseases, which are the game's antagonists, are signified by four different colors of cubes. Infected cities have 1-3 cubes
of the appropriate disease (sometimes multiple diseases), indicating the virulence
or saturation level of the illness. Nine cities start out with varying levels
of infection, and at the end of each player's turn s/he draws 2-4 infection
cards and places additional cubes in the cities they display. If a city
acquires more than three cubes of one color it has an “outbreak,”
spilling cubes to all adjacent cities and raising the game's Outbreak Indicator
by 1.
On his/her turn each player also takes four actions and
draws two player cards. These cards are the game's core play element: most
depict cities, and one can use them to travel immediately to or from the city
they depict, or to build there a research station (a prerequisite for curing diseases). A player can use five player cards of a particular color to cure that
color of disease. One of the more important cooperative strategies in Pandemic
involves transferring cards from one player to another to form sets of five,
which normally requires both players in the transfer to meet in the city depicted
on the transferred card. This, needless to say, requires careful planning.
So does determining when and where to treat diseases – that is, to remove cubes from afflicted cities. Treatment uses actions one might prefer to use accumulating and transferring cards, but it becomes necessary as individual cities, particularly adjacent cities, accumulate three cubes. Outbreaks can turn into chain reactions if one occurs in a city adjacent to another metropolis with three cubes of the same color disease. Since the game ends on the eighth outbreak, these chain-reaction eruptions can prove dangerous.
Just to make things harder, the player-card deck contains epidemic cards that saturate one city with disease cubes (possibly triggering another outbreak), then reset the infection card deck, so that previously infected cities will be the first to acquire more disease cubes. Epidemics also increase the rate at which players draw new infection cards each turn. A few of the player cards give players temporary special resources instead, but none gives advantages that tilt the game much in the players' favor.
It is very easy to lose Pandemic: if the eighth outbreak occurs, or the “timer” expires (when the players run through all 59 player cards), or when all 24 cubes of any one particular disease are on the board. There is only one way to win: by curing all four diseases. And the game dangles a huge distraction in front of the players: a disease can keep appearing even after it's cured, but if players remove all cubes of a cured disease from the board, it is eradicated and will never appear again. This is very helpful, but since time is short and eradication only affects one disease, it is almost certainly a mistake to waste player actions on it.
Part of the appeal of Pandemic is that the game starts off slowly, with only a few cities infected, but quickly increases its tension and pace, as epidemic cards reset the infection-card deck, as outbreaks occur, and as players see one of the defeat conditions approaching. The rules give players many reasons to cooperate - individuals have limited actions, each specialist has a complementary ability, the card-transfer rule gives players an added incentive to share resources - but so does their growing awareness of how fast the clock is ticking. The game's rules may seem slightly complicated at first (the rulebook explains them well), but all of Pandemic's rules work together to build that sense of tension and encourage inter-player cooperation. Some gamers complain that one player tends to tell everyone else what to do, but I've played this title with a couple of dozen people and have yet to encounter such narcissism. Perhaps the threat of global catastrophe, even in a simulation, does promote humility and cooperation. Reason enough to learn Pandemic, and to keep taking it down from the shelf on game days.
So does determining when and where to treat diseases – that is, to remove cubes from afflicted cities. Treatment uses actions one might prefer to use accumulating and transferring cards, but it becomes necessary as individual cities, particularly adjacent cities, accumulate three cubes. Outbreaks can turn into chain reactions if one occurs in a city adjacent to another metropolis with three cubes of the same color disease. Since the game ends on the eighth outbreak, these chain-reaction eruptions can prove dangerous.
Just to make things harder, the player-card deck contains epidemic cards that saturate one city with disease cubes (possibly triggering another outbreak), then reset the infection card deck, so that previously infected cities will be the first to acquire more disease cubes. Epidemics also increase the rate at which players draw new infection cards each turn. A few of the player cards give players temporary special resources instead, but none gives advantages that tilt the game much in the players' favor.
It is very easy to lose Pandemic: if the eighth outbreak occurs, or the “timer” expires (when the players run through all 59 player cards), or when all 24 cubes of any one particular disease are on the board. There is only one way to win: by curing all four diseases. And the game dangles a huge distraction in front of the players: a disease can keep appearing even after it's cured, but if players remove all cubes of a cured disease from the board, it is eradicated and will never appear again. This is very helpful, but since time is short and eradication only affects one disease, it is almost certainly a mistake to waste player actions on it.
Part of the appeal of Pandemic is that the game starts off slowly, with only a few cities infected, but quickly increases its tension and pace, as epidemic cards reset the infection-card deck, as outbreaks occur, and as players see one of the defeat conditions approaching. The rules give players many reasons to cooperate - individuals have limited actions, each specialist has a complementary ability, the card-transfer rule gives players an added incentive to share resources - but so does their growing awareness of how fast the clock is ticking. The game's rules may seem slightly complicated at first (the rulebook explains them well), but all of Pandemic's rules work together to build that sense of tension and encourage inter-player cooperation. Some gamers complain that one player tends to tell everyone else what to do, but I've played this title with a couple of dozen people and have yet to encounter such narcissism. Perhaps the threat of global catastrophe, even in a simulation, does promote humility and cooperation. Reason enough to learn Pandemic, and to keep taking it down from the shelf on game days.
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