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January Pandemic
Jan. 27th, 2011 08:46 pmJanuary 5: 5 Epidemics with Virulent Strain, Containment Specialist, Operations Expert, Dispatcher, and Field Operative.
The first round looked like it would be a disastrous game: we drew an Epidemic after the first turn that declared the black disease to be the virulent strain, set up two black hot spots next to each other, and gave us the penalty that black outbreaks counted double. Quick action let us reduce a chain reaction in black to a single outbreak, but that left us unable to avert a red outbreak in Seoul. So by the time every player had had a turn, we had already had three outbreaks, and things were looking grim.
But we managed to get things under control, and finished the game with only one more outbreak.
January 12: 5 Epidemics with the Mutation Challenge.
Where the previous game had started hard and turned easy, this game started easy and turned hard. Our early cures were pretty straightforward, and we managed to eradicate a disease or two. But we had a lot of trouble getting together the cures for the fourth disease and the mutation disease, and won the game with only two turns to spare.
January 19: 5 Epidemics with the Mutation Challenge. Medic, Generalist (turned to Operations Expert with an early New Assignment), Dispatcher, and another I can't recall.
This game was much the same as January 12, but even more so. We managed to eradicate three of the four diseases, but then had to really scramble to assemble the last cures, and we won the game with only two turns to spare. ("How embarrassed are we going to be if we eradicate three diseases and still lose?")
This left me feeling that our mutation-handling strategy was not quite right.
January 26: So we tried 5 Epidemics with the Mutation Challenge again. Operations Expert (changed to Epidemiologist in midgame), Researcher, Medic, Scientist.
This time, we were very aggressive towards the purple disease. The first purple cube appeared in Buenos Aires, for which the Researcher had the corresponding card. So the Medic moved to end his turn in Buenos Aires, and the Scientist took the Buenos Aires card from the Researcher and cured the purple disease (using the yellow cards that he'd been saving towards a yellow cure), for an instant purple eradication.
This essentially reduced the game to a five-Epidemic normal game with a few yellow cards taken out of play. We won pretty easily. But this doesn't prove that this is the right strategy; with a set of roles this strong, anything should be easy.
The first round looked like it would be a disastrous game: we drew an Epidemic after the first turn that declared the black disease to be the virulent strain, set up two black hot spots next to each other, and gave us the penalty that black outbreaks counted double. Quick action let us reduce a chain reaction in black to a single outbreak, but that left us unable to avert a red outbreak in Seoul. So by the time every player had had a turn, we had already had three outbreaks, and things were looking grim.
But we managed to get things under control, and finished the game with only one more outbreak.
January 12: 5 Epidemics with the Mutation Challenge.
Where the previous game had started hard and turned easy, this game started easy and turned hard. Our early cures were pretty straightforward, and we managed to eradicate a disease or two. But we had a lot of trouble getting together the cures for the fourth disease and the mutation disease, and won the game with only two turns to spare.
January 19: 5 Epidemics with the Mutation Challenge. Medic, Generalist (turned to Operations Expert with an early New Assignment), Dispatcher, and another I can't recall.
This game was much the same as January 12, but even more so. We managed to eradicate three of the four diseases, but then had to really scramble to assemble the last cures, and we won the game with only two turns to spare. ("How embarrassed are we going to be if we eradicate three diseases and still lose?")
This left me feeling that our mutation-handling strategy was not quite right.
January 26: So we tried 5 Epidemics with the Mutation Challenge again. Operations Expert (changed to Epidemiologist in midgame), Researcher, Medic, Scientist.
This time, we were very aggressive towards the purple disease. The first purple cube appeared in Buenos Aires, for which the Researcher had the corresponding card. So the Medic moved to end his turn in Buenos Aires, and the Scientist took the Buenos Aires card from the Researcher and cured the purple disease (using the yellow cards that he'd been saving towards a yellow cure), for an instant purple eradication.
This essentially reduced the game to a five-Epidemic normal game with a few yellow cards taken out of play. We won pretty easily. But this doesn't prove that this is the right strategy; with a set of roles this strong, anything should be easy.
