Gameplay
Game setup
A game in progress
The goal of
Pandemic is for the players, in their randomly selected roles, to work cooperatively to stop the spread of four diseases
[6] and cure them before a pandemic occurs.
[7] Pandemic setup consists of a game board representing a network connecting 48 cities on the map of the earth, two decks of cards (Player cards and Infection cards), four colors of cubes (each representing a different disease), six Research Stations, and a pawn for each player. The Player cards include cards with each city name (the same as those on the board); Special Event cards, which can be played at specific times to take beneficial actions; and Epidemic cards. Infection cards consist of one card for each city on the board and a color of the disease that will start there. At the start of the game, Infection cards are randomly drawn to populate the board with infections, from 1 to 3 cubes for a number of cities. Players start at
Atlanta, the home of the
Centers for Disease Control, and are given a random role and a number of Player cards. On each turn, a player can take 4 actions, consisting of any combination of the following:
- Movement Actions, as per the following four options:
- Drive/ Ferry: between interconnected cities
- Direct Flight: to a city that the player holds that Player card of, discarding the Player card
- Charter Flight: to any city if the player is currently in one of the cities they hold the card of, discarding the Player card
- Shuttle Flight: from a city with a research lab to any city with a research lab, without discarding a city card
Other Actions, as per the following four options:
- Share Knowledge: sharing information with another player, by being in the same city as that player and either giving or receiving the Player card representing that city
- Treat Disease: treating one unit of infection from a city that the player is presently in, removing a cube from that city
- Build a Research Station: constructing a research lab in a city that the player holds the city card for (discarding that card afterwards)
- Discover a Cure: finding the cure by being in a city with a research lab and holding five Player cards of the same color. Finding a cure does not stop further infection of that disease until all cubes of that color are removed from the board ("eradicated"); from then on, drawing an Infection card of a color that is eradicated will result in no change to the board's state
On conclusion of the turn, the player draws two Player cards, reducing their hand down to seven cards by discarding Player cards and/or immediately playing Special Event cards.
[7] If either draw is an Epidemic card, the player draws a card from the bottom of the Infection deck and places three cubes on that city, puts that card into the Infection discard pile, reshuffles the discard pile, and places it back on top of the Infection deck. After the two Player cards are drawn (epidemic or otherwise), a number of Infection cards are revealed, and one cube of the indicated color is placed on each city drawn. Should a city already have three cubes and a new cube is to be added, an Outbreak occurs, and each interconnected city gains one cube of that colour. This can create a chain reaction across many cities if several already have three disease cubes on them.
The game is over if any of the following occur:
- more than seven Outbreaks occur (a loss for the players)
- there are no more cubes of the specific disease color when they are needed during Infection or Epidemic (a loss for the players)
- there are no more Player cards to be drawn (a loss for the players)
- the players discover the cure for all four diseases (a victory for the players)
To aid in winning the game, players are given roles that allow them to alter the above rules. Five roles were introduced with the core game, but additional roles were added through the game's expansion. For example, the Medic is able to treat all cubes in a city with one action or, once a cure for a disease is found, can remove cubes of that color without spending an action, while the Scientist needs only four cards of the same color to discover the cure. The players are also helped by the Special Event cards, which allow for similar one-time actions, such as direct removal of a few infection tokens or immediate construction of a research lab.
Pandemic requires the players to coordinate their efforts to win the game, specifically in gathering and sharing the necessary cards to discover cures while moving in coordination around the board and preventing Outbreaks in an efficient manner.
