Pandemic - Board Game Analysis 2

This week me and my group played another board game and here is the analysis of that game.

The game we chose was Pandemic. It’s played by 2-4 players. The goal of the game is to fight diseases and find cures for them. When all cures are found you win the game. This is done together with the other players where you help each other fighting outbreaks around the world. You play on earth and can move around to different cities in the world. The cities in the world are colored in four different colors. Each color also has a disease with that same color. Before the game start some disease cubes are randomly placed on the board on locations on the infection cards that are drawn before start.

How it’s played

The characters

Each player randomly gets one type of character card describing your special abilities at the start of the game. Those are the scientist, medic, researcher, dispatcher and operational expert. You can see their special abilities in the pictures. So a player can’t choose the role he or she is most comfortable with. This makes the game fair in the way that all get the same chance to play a certain role.

One turn

It’s a turn based game and you have four actions per turn. You can choose to use your actions how you wish. You can move in different ways, fight disease in an area, build a research station, discover a cure or share your knowledge (share cards with other players). How you can play these actions depend on the cards you hold and also your special abilities.

After you have done your actions you draw two player cards which can contain three types of cards, a city card with a color connected to that city, a special event card that basically is a special power card that can be used one time and the epidemic card.

If there are no player cards left in the pile the game is lost.

Then you draw a number of infection cards (depending on the infection rate) The cards show a city and a color and you place one new disease of that color in that city for each card.

If there not enough cubes left to place on the board the players lose the game.

 

City card

The city card has a color and a city name of it. By using this card a player can fly to that location using an action point or the card can be saved for creating a cure for the disease of cards color later on. You can also give these cards to other players. 

Special event card

The special event card can be used any time even if it isn’t your turn and they are all different. With one you can create a research station anywhere in the world, another let you fly a player to any city in the world and so on. 

Epidemic card

If you get the epidemic card some special things happen. First the infection rate is moved one step which might result in the players having to draw more infection cards every round. You then draw a card from the bottom of the infection card pile and place three disease cubes in that city and you then reshuffle all the played infection cards and place them on top of the infection card pile. This will make it so the played infection cards will soon be played again resulting in disease cubes popping up in same cities once more.  This together will easily lead to outbreaks. 

Outbreaks

Outbreaks occur when a disease cube needs to be added to a city and the total amount of cubes in that city exceeds three. Then the disease spread to all adjacent cities with one cube in each of those cities. If one of those cities also exceeds three you get a chain reaction of outbreaks. That’s bad and can make you lose the game quickly because if you get more than seven outbreaks totally in a play through everyone loses the game.

Cures

You can create a cure if you got five cards of the same color and you are in a city with a research station. (The scientist only needs four cards) That disease can after it's been cured be removed by the medic without using action points. When all cubes of that color is removed from the map that disease will never be able to come back and is cured forever.

To win the game you have to create the cure for all four diseases. All disease cubes don't have to be removed though.

The Core system

The core system of this game is moving around the board and removing disease cubes. New disease cubes are placed on the board depending on the epidemic cards and the infection cards. Your job is to treat the infected areas as soon as possible to prevent outbreaks at the same time you need to find a way to create a cure for that disease.

To find a cure you need to constantly have a dialog and work together with the other players. You need to share cards of the right color by being in the same location or maybe build a research station close to a scientist so he can create a cure there. And as a dispatcher you can move around other players so they can meet up in the right place and so on. All the actions a player can do in a turn is shown on the pictures below.

The Good

The balance of the game is amazing. It’s really nerve wrecking. We played a bunch of times and we only won one time but we almost won all other times. Most of the times we were basically only one turn from winning the game. We all found the game entertaining and well balanced. If the game would have been too easy I believe we would only play once or twice and then get tired of it but because it’s so difficult it makes you want to play again and again. You want to beat the game.

When we all learned how to combine our strengths the game got easier and alot more options and strategies were available to us. 

The Bad

This is a tough one. I like the game as it is. I think that the game is very well balanced and I like the core mechanics and how the players need to interact with each other. If I need to think of something that is bad I would say that the player cards are a bit boring. There is not much that happens when you take two player cards except for the epidemic card. I think as an improvement to the game they could add some spice by adding some more random events and story to the player cards or maybe just some more special event cards.  

Interesting system

For me the most interesting system is the randomness of the player characters and the ability to find a cure together. The different attributes of the characters and the way the players constantly need to keep talking strategies to each other to be able to find a cure in time makes this game really interesting. You also need to constantly adapt to the situation. Do I choose to remove some disease in the city where I am or do I help my fellow player the scientist by meeting up with him and sharing knowledge so he can find a cure so the medic in his turn can cure an area from disease. The game is a nice social gaming experience. The cooperative game play is really a breath of fresh air compared to most other games out there where you compete to win against the other players.

To be able to beat this game you need to really learn how to use the strengths of your characters and work together and I believe this is what makes this game so interesting. After playing a few times we saw solutions to certain problems in other ways then just individually moving to a place and removing the disease in that city. The dispatcher for example is really powerful when you learn how to use him in the correct way. He can move other players around the world so they can meet and share cards and so they come up with a cure just in time before the game ends.

Target Group

On the box it says 10 years and up and I believe that’s quite fitting. For young players this can be an educational experience and also at this age I believe the children can start to understand the cooperative parts of the game. I believe that this game aim for a broad group of players at all ages. This is not the game for the competitive person but more so for people who are more of a socializer that likes helping others instead of always winning.

Summary

The game is quite easy to learn and setup. You learn to play it instantly but it takes time to master. It’s when you realize that the more you work together the better the results will be and the higher the chances are for you all to win. Adding so the characters can’t be chosen but are drawn to give some randomness makes you rethink your role in the team. Some players who might have played one role know how to play that good. When they are given another role they then need to rethink when playing. This adds replayability to the game, this and the difficulty level. When you win the game you can increase the difficulty by adding more epidemic cards into the player card pile. This game is nerve wrecking and you feel you are about to win when you suddenly get a chain reaction of outbreaks just messing up your plan and making you all lose the game just before you were about to win. A game takes about 45 minutes to play and I would recomend this game to people who want to try something different.

Small World - Analysis

Last week we were assigned to play and analyze a board game of our choice in the course, Advanced game design. My group chose Small world and here is my personal analysis of the game.

The game

Small world is a turn based strategy game where your goal is to collect coins by conquering and holding areas of a map. You get coins depending on a number of different things like how many provinces you hold and you can also get bonus coins depending on your racial and special power abilities. The player with the most amounts of coins after a set number of turns win the game. The game can be played by 2-5 players and depending on the number of players the board that the game is played on is different and so is the number of turns.

Choosing a race combo

You start out with five coins. At the start of the first turn you can choose or buy a race you want to play. With the race there is also a special power card connected. The races you can chose from are random and so are the special power cards. From the deck with the races and power cards only the top five are placed on the table. (see picture below)

The first is free to pick. The second race cost one coin and the third two coins and so on. All the placed coins by previous players will become yours if you choose a race card with money on it. This is probably developed in such a way so if you are not allowed to go first you can choose a race with all the coins from previous players giving you some bonus for your start. And it’s not a bad bonus since the game is about getting the highest amount of coins before the end of the game.

Conquering

Now you have your race and are ready to go. Depending on the race and power card combo you’ve chosen you get a number of tokens that you can place on the map to conquer new areas. If you look at the picture below you see these big numbers in the lower corners of each card. this represent the number of tokens you are allowed to start with. So if I would choose Fortified Amazons I would get 6 tokens for being Amazon and then 3 more tokens for the special power card Fortified. And being Amazon also grants me 4 extra tokens that I can use when I'm conquering but that have to be removed from the board when my turn is up.

An empty province costs two tokens to conquer. An occupied province cost the original two tokens + one extra token for each unit occupying that space. When you have used all your tokens and conquered as much as you can, you can redeploy your tokens on the conquered provinces to increase the defence in certain positions. You then count your score and receive your coins depending on the number of provinces and special abilities you have. In this case my race won't give me extra coins but I have the ability to build a fortress each turn and that increase the defence in that area by one but also gives that province one extra coin per turn. So I would naturally do that. When I'm done the turn moves on to the next player. When the last player is done the game moves on to the next round.

Here on the picture to the left you see tokens of skeletons on the board. conquering this province would need two for the basic cost and then four extra tokens, one for each skeleton. At the end of the turn if you not have enough tokens to conquer a province you can chose to gamble with the special dice that comes with this game. The dice have three empty sides and when rolled you can get 1-3 extra tokens for that attack only.

Using your race to your advantage

If you want to win this game it’s quite important to play your race correctly. For example if you have Fortified Humans you get a bonus to holding farmlands so you should conquer as many farmland provinces as you can and try to fortify yourself there. Building forts and holding farmlands gives you extra coins.

On the other hand, if you have the Pillaging Ratmen your tactics should be to conquer as much as you can as fast as possible because you don’t have any other special abilities with your race other than the big numbers of tokens and the power card bonus for pillaging which gives a bonus to conquering .The next step would be turning your race into decline.

Turning your race into decline

In the start of each round you can choose to keep conquering and collecting coins or you can turn your race into decline. When you turn your race into decline you flip over your race card, special power card and all placed tokens on the board.

You can no longer use this race to conquer new provinces but you still get one coin for each province your declined race holds at the end of your turn. Then the next round you get to choose or buy a new race to play and you will get coins from both the declined race and the active race. The ability to turn your race into decline is really one of the things that make this game special. Comparing this to a normal game of Risk (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Risk_(game) ) where if you lose the last troops you control you will be out of the game. Well here you get a fresh new race and can begin conquering all over again.

Here is where the strategy of this game comes in. Timing the turn you go into decline can be crucial for your success in winning this game. If you overextend and ignore going into decline you will soon have your forces spread thin and you will be an easy target by other players and will quickly lose income. Also turning into decline at the right moment to be able to choose a new race with a powerful power card combo before your opponents is able to do the same is a game changer. You can go from losing the game to almost winning the game in a few turns.

The Good - Randomness

As I’ve just mentioned the ability to go into decline is really a great thing about this game. Another good thing about this game is the randomness of the races and how you get to pick a race. Each game is different because you and your opponents will have different race and power card combinations to choose from and you will have to apply different strategies each time you play this game all because of the different race combos available. Combining this with the decline system is what gives this game a unique feel with great replay value.

The Bad - Overpowered combinations

The only downside of this game that I can think of is that it sometimes lead to some combinations of race and power cards to come up that are really overpowered and with some luck one player can manage to get one powerful combo after another leading him to victory leaving a feeling of unfairness.

For example one round we played I had just finished conquering around seven provinces when another player picked a new race and steamrolled all over my province and conquered it all in one turn.

Also sometimes the rules weren't exactly clear on how some abilities was supposed to work so we had to fill in with what we felt worked best. It was only minor things and nothing game breaking.

Who this game is for

It says on the box that the game is for ages eight and up which is very broad. I believe this game is aimed towards people who enjoy strategy games but don’t have a lot of time to play too deep and complex games. This game is easy to learn and you can just pick it up and play but when you play it a few times you soon realize that there are some strategy involved here that can tip the scale in your favor. 

I myself am a strategy fan and it was a long time since I played a board game and I really liked this game. The game itself took around one and a half hour to play and it felt like an okay length for a game. This game could easily be played by a family with the father of the family having the interests in these kinds of games or by a group of friends meeting an evening to hang out.

So I believe the biggest target group is male in his 20- 40s with interests in strategy type of games. The secondary target will be friends and family of that individual.

Summary

At first glance this game looks complex but it’s quite easy to learn. It’s very easy to play with the hardest thing being to remember to count your score after each turn. It has some unique features like the system of going into decline and picking a new race to play which makes it a game where all players can play to the finish without being eliminated like in a Risk game. 

The way that this game also combines the randomness of the races together with the decline system really makes this game shine by forcing the player to always adapt to the game and planning your strategy well and then if a new racial combo appear, you have to rethink your whole strategy for the next round because everything changed. Overall I think this is a good game with light strategy elements to it.