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[michaeljb]

My wife and I have a couple of friends with whom we've played a lot of Pandemic+expansion. We got our copy of Pandemic Legacy shortly after release, and finished up our campaign last week. It was an absolute blast! The long-term effects gave each decision more weight, and we had a lot of fun stickering up and writing on the board and character cards.

Has anyone else here played through the campaign yet?

[DG]

My group started it this week so no spoilers anyone please. It is more fun than regular pandemic, bigger consequences.

[eHalcyon]

My group started it this week so no spoilers anyone please. It is more fun than regular pandemic, bigger consequences.

Everybody dies.

[markusin]

My group started it this week so no spoilers anyone please. It is more fun than regular pandemic, bigger consequences.

Everybody dies.

Doesn't sound all that different from regular Pandemic when you put it that way.

[ConMan]

As I type this post, I am sitting at work with an Amazon box by my desk. The box contains, among other things, the copy of Pandemic Legacy that we will be playing with our flatmates across the new year. So I am very excited.

[Kuildeous]

I played a couple of games with a friend's box. We failed March the first time, but we managed to beat it on the rebound. I wasn't there for the effects leading up to March, but it definitely made one portion of the game really difficult for us.

I love the idea, but I'm a little wary about getting Pandemic Legacy. My friend said that after you finish up the year-long campaign, you can't play it anymore. With Risk Legacy you can keep playing on the blasted board after those 15 games and I suppose keep changing the board until you run out of stickers.

But then I suppose that you're guaranteed at least 12 games of Pandemic. At $60, that means you're paying no more than $5 per game, which is still rather cheap entertainment. I'm still hesitant, but I did have fun with the two games I did play. And my Monday night RPG session lost some players, so now we have a four-person board game night. This game would be perfect for it, especially since one of those players hates Risk and refuses to play my Risk Legacy even though Legacy made it no longer Risk.

[eHalcyon]

You should be able to get it for cheaper than $60 and you can also divide the cost between all players.  It should also be more than 12 games unless your entire group is incredibly good at Pandemic.

[DG]

For many gaming groups, getting any one game on the table for 12 plays is a good achievement. People always want to buy something new and play that instead.

[qmech]

I thought $60 sounded steep for a board game.  Had a look on Amazon and it's £55 here (or £70 if you want the blue box).  I guess it's got a fair number of components and will be even more niche than a typical board game, but it's still a lot.  In fact it's about what it would cost to have it shipped from the US, so that's probably what's going on.

I'm not a fan of Pandemic, but I do like the idea of the legacy games, and could go for something like this with the right group of people.

[eHalcyon]

At Board Game Bliss, Pandemic Legacy is $52.95 CAD, which is less than $39.64 USD or $37.50 Euro.  That's not counting shipping, but there are various deals for that (free shipping in Canada with certain games, or orders totalling $200+).  Other online stores have similar prices.

[michaeljb]

I love the idea, but I'm a little wary about getting Pandemic Legacy. My friend said that after you finish up the year-long campaign, you can't play it anymore.

You could play normal Pandemic+expansions with the board, either ignoring the stickers entirely or dealing with the new movement restrictions from rioting/collapsing/fallen cities, or benefiting from starting out with multiple research stations. The campaign is definitely complete in December though.

Someone on BGG started a blog site where they go through how to keep the game replayable, i.e., not destroying or writing on any cards, not stickering anything, etc. Can't find the link now but I'll share it if I do.

FWIW I think playing with all of the Legacy elements was 100% worth it, a fun story and a great gaming experience.

edit: typos, formatting; upon re-reading I though my post looked like it might be endorsing keeping the game replayable, which isn't what I meant when I said it was worth it

[Kuildeous]

It does seem like this could possibly be replayable with some effort. Is it worth it? I don't know. The element of surprise would be gone, of course. I'm sure some events are randomized, so it's harder to plan for it, but you'd still know what's coming. For example, assuming the copy I get would have the same effects, I know what happens prior to March. I suspect that the event is not set in stone in terms of what is affected.

I may be able to talk my group into pitching $15 apiece for it. Who knows, maybe I can keep it mostly intact and bring it out for another group later. No big deal if not.

[michaeljb]

For example, assuming the copy I get would have the same effects, I know what happens prior to March. I suspect that the event is not set in stone in terms of what is affected.

End of January spoilers

C0dA is determined in January, and can be any one of the 4 diseases.

[michaeljb]

Found that blog I was talking about - http://panleghack.weebly.com/

When I saw your response, I re-read my post and realized I kind of butchered the second paragraph (was on mobile and didn't really proofread it; edited now). I fully recommend playing this game with all of the Legacy elements, at least the first time through*. It makes things easier (I think just tracking each city's panic level would be a pain) and the permanence is more impactful; a few times when we were debating about which game-end upgrades to use, after we had already applied the sticker, someone second-guessed the decision, but it was already too late!

My friends in the group were hesitant about the Legacy/one-time-through stuff at first, but in the end everyone loved it. More January spoilers: When instructed to destroy the initial Objective card - cure the 4 diseases - everyone assumed I would just put it back in the box. It was really thrilling to rip up the card and see everyone's shocked reaction :D as the campaign went on, everyone had fun opening, destroying, and stickering things.

*I say the "first time through" because I think I would enjoy getting a second box and trying to do better than our group did (won every month, but had to retry 5 of them), and I might want to solo through it more than once. I think I'll wait for Weebly's guide to be complete and see the actual time/money cost in "preserving" the game; it may not be worth the effort.

[Kuildeous]

Okay, reading that blog makes me feel that I'd rather spend $60 for a new box than try to replay the campaign.

But I would be interested in being able to play the regular game using Legacy components. That's possible, right?

[michaeljb]

Yes, it's possible. The rulebook even suggests playing standard Pandemic a few times before starting the campaign if everyone isn't familiar with it.

[Kirian]

Spoiler: Darth Vader is a Moat.

[Kuildeous]

Yes, it's possible. The rulebook even suggests playing standard Pandemic a few times before starting the campaign if everyone isn't familiar with it.

Ooh, that's cool. When I tried to sell the idea of each of us pitching in to play on Monday nights, one of my friends said that he wouldn't feel comfortable diving into a Legacy game without fully understanding the rules first. I don't buy that as a legitimate reason so I think he's just finding ways to say he don't wanna. So i'm debating on revealing this information since that would remove that excuse.

[michaeljb]

This thread will be invaluable if you pick up a copy - https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/1470601/compiled-faq-spoilers-hidden-each-month-hidden-sep

One important bit if you don't jump right into the campaign (sadly didn't make it into the rulebook):

Clarifications on Playing without legacy rules:
Funding is meant to be 5 (i.e. including 5 funded event cards) when playing games to get used to pandemic before starting the legacy experience. You win the game by curing all 4 diseases.

[Twistedarcher]

About to start this tomorrow with two players. Any recommendations on whether or not we should do 2, 3 or 4 characters?

[Drab Emordnilap]

About to start this tomorrow with two players. Any recommendations on whether or not we should do 2, 3 or 4 characters?

Personally, I like the game best with four, but if we're playing with less than four players, we use the appropriate number of characters rather than play extra characters. If you're going to be consistently playing as a pair, I could see playing two each, though.

[Kirian]

Got this for Christmas and was so excited.

Wife and I just played January with a win.  It was so much more intense and exciting than I had even expected.  At the end of the game, we were actually having difficulty deciding whether to end the game immediately, or to chance another outbreak in order to eradicate a disease.  Eradication now has a greater incentive, and it's really cool to consider the future repercussions of your actions.

(None of that should be spoilery, it's all in the rulebook.)

[Twistedarcher]

About to start this tomorrow with two players. Any recommendations on whether or not we should do 2, 3 or 4 characters?

Personally, I like the game best with four, but if we're playing with less than four players, we use the appropriate number of characters rather than play extra characters. If you're going to be consistently playing as a pair, I could see playing two each, though.

I wish I had seen this -- we ended up playing with 2. Although we still had the full experience, we were definitely limited in character selection with only two players.

We enjoyed it a lot. Was a great experience and am looking forward to season 2! We went 12-4 overall.

[shark_bait]

This game is incredible!  My wife and I are 3 for 3 through March.  We've clean swept the board every game so far with the only outbreaks coming from having the bottom card of an outbreak being drawn immediately during the infection phase.

The unknown is just so tantalizing.  The way you have to adapt to each new game is awesome!

[Seprix]

I have Pandemic, but I haven't played it yet. I got it like 6 months ago or something. It's just been collecting dust on my shelf. I guess I should play it then.

Just looked up the premise of this version. Weird. A one-shot board game. I bet you're all spoiling to play this.

[Kirian]

I have Pandemic, but I haven't played it yet. I got it like 6 months ago or something. It's just been collecting dust on my shelf. I guess I should play it then.

It's still one of the best co-op games out there, though better with its expansions.

Just looked up the premise of this version. Weird. A one-shot board game. I bet you're all spoiling to play this.

Well, it's "one-shot", but you'll play it at least 12 times, almost certainly more, before that one shot is over.  What was the last game you bought and then got to the table twelve or more times?  I have plenty of $50-$60 games that have only hit the table half a dozen times in several years, let alone several months.

[shark_bait]

6/6 through June.  End of June was a doozy.  Could have eradicated Hell's Blood (red disease) but decided to take care of San Francisco which was sitting at 3 cubes of Brackish Plague (blue) with a very high probability of being drawn.  Instead, we drew the epidemic card right at the start of a new stack.  My wife was sitting on Ho Chi Min city with 2 Cubes.  Bottom card was Hong Kong (adjacent to Ho Chi Min).  Okay, NBD.  Nope.  First card drawn..... Hong Kong.  I swear this is the most infuriating thing.  The only outbreaks we've had this entire series have been caused in this manner.  Now Ho Chi Min city (where my wife is currently residing) has 3 cubes.  Next card...... yup, Ho Chi Min city.

July tonight hopefully.  This game keeps getting better every month. 

@Kirian.... we are going to achieve 12 plays.  My wife is an epidemiologist.  She was born to win this game.

[Kirian]

@Kirian.... we are going to achieve 12 plays.  My wife is an epidemiologist.  She was born to win this game.

Good luck!  We failed our first July attempt and it was our first loss, but haven't had a chance to get back to it in the last couple weeks.

[GendoIkari]

I just started this last night.

Got it for $45 from CoolStuffInc, which is awesome when split 4 ways.

I didn't know what to expect from this; and was somewhat pessimistic about the whole "campaign" idea; because I like games that can be finished in one sitting.

But this was awesome. We got through 2 games last night; lost the first, won the second; so haven't seen February yet.

I was expecting things to only change after the first game; so I was surprised in a good way when suddenly, part of the way through the first game, everything changed. It was just very creative; and the components are great at making you want to see what's coming up.

If there's a downside, I'd say it was that it forces you to make early decisions that will affect the rest of the campaign. It seems like 1 bad choice after your first game could make the entire rest of the games much more difficult. Though of course the upside to that same thing is that it's very customizable; if you played the campaign again you could go a completely different direction.

I'm not sure about the replayability; because the surprises seem like an important part of the fun. One of our four members has played once before; so he has to try to avoid giving advice about choices based on such knowledge.

[Qvist]

If there's a downside, I'd say it was that it forces you to make early decisions that will affect the rest of the campaign. It seems like 1 bad choice after your first game could make the entire rest of the games much more difficult. Though of course the upside to that same thing is that it's very customizable; if you played the campaign again you could go a completely different direction.

I haven't experienced that at all. If you lose you get more funding, if a character dies or gets a scar, you choose a new one next game. The only thing that might make it harder is if you have a lot of outbreaks, but it's capped at 8(?), so even it gets totally wrong in one game, it can't get that terribly bad.

We decided to play it through this year, the January game in January and December game in December, I like that a lot rather than playing it in a short amount of time, you get more value. But we really need to play July, we're a bit behind.

[GendoIkari]

If there's a downside, I'd say it was that it forces you to make early decisions that will affect the rest of the campaign. It seems like 1 bad choice after your first game could make the entire rest of the games much more difficult. Though of course the upside to that same thing is that it's very customizable; if you played the campaign again you could go a completely different direction.

I haven't experienced that at all. If you lose you get more funding, if a character dies or gets a scar, you choose a new one next game. The only thing that might make it harder is if you have a lot of outbreaks, but it's capped at 8(?), so even it gets totally wrong in one game, it can't get that terribly bad.

We decided to play it through this year, the January game in January and December game in December, I like that a lot rather than playing it in a short amount of time, you get more value. But we really need to play July, we're a bit behind.

What I primarily meant was choice of upgrades; some seem clearly worse than others, so choosing a bad one early on vs choosing a good one early on seems like it would have a big impact on the difficulty level of the rest of the games.

[jonts26]

I'm not sure about the replayability; because the surprises seem like an important part of the fun. One of our four members has played once before; so he has to try to avoid giving advice about choices based on such knowledge.

Watching other players making decisions and guesses while knowing what comes next provides its own sort of smug superiority entertainment value.

[GendoIkari]

I'm not sure about the replayability; because the surprises seem like an important part of the fun. One of our four members has played once before; so he has to try to avoid giving advice about choices based on such knowledge.

Watching other players making decisions and guesses while knowing what comes next provides its own sort of smug superiority entertainment value.

[GendoIkari]

Coolstuffinc is totally spoiling Pandemic: Legacy!! Their current weekly sale is "Zombie Sale", and it includes Pandemic: Legacy. If we hadn't just played April and May last week, that would completely spoil the fact that it turns into a zombie fighting game.

[Kirian]

Coolstuffinc is totally spoiling Pandemic: Legacy!! Their current weekly sale is "Zombie Sale", and it includes Pandemic: Legacy. If we hadn't just played April and May last week, that would completely spoil the fact that it turns into a zombie fighting game.

They're not zombies!  They're Faded!  Definitely, totally not zombies at all.

[Kirian]

SEPTEMBER SPOILERS!  Spoilers are separated intentionally, read each one before the next.

(1) Have you found the Paranoid Soldier yet?  If not, STOP READING

(2) We never liked working with the military anyway.  In fact, we specifically chose not to build military bases until we needed to finish three objectives and that was often easier than quarantining.  And then we just made two of them permanent per game, instantly finishing that objective.  Well, until we found the paranoid soldier.

The character I was playing was the one who found the soldier.  She also was the disappeared character.  We made this work by suggesting she was killed by the paranoid soldier.  She was also our most-used character, and losing her lost that game for us.

(3) Have you found the Immunologist yet?  If not, STOP READING.

(4) Also, we totally called the bio-engineering even before finding him, and given our mistrust of the military, of course it was them.

[GendoIkari]

SEPTEMBER SPOILERS!  Spoilers are separated intentionally, read each one before the next.

(1) Have you found the Paranoid Soldier yet?  If not, STOP READING

(2) We never liked working with the military anyway.  In fact, we specifically chose not to build military bases until we needed to finish three objectives and that was often easier than quarantining.  And then we just made two of them permanent per game, instantly finishing that objective.  Well, until we found the paranoid soldier.

The character I was playing was the one who found the soldier.  She also was the disappeared character.  We made this work by suggesting she was killed by the paranoid soldier.  She was also our most-used character, and losing her lost that game for us.

(3) Have you found the Immunologist yet?  If not, STOP READING.

(4) Also, we totally called the bio-engineering even before finding him, and given our mistrust of the military, of course it was them.

Playing September tonight; will read later!

[GendoIkari]

SEPTEMBER SPOILERS!  Spoilers are separated intentionally, read each one before the next.

(1) Have you found the Paranoid Soldier yet?  If not, STOP READING

(2) We never liked working with the military anyway.  In fact, we specifically chose not to build military bases until we needed to finish three objectives and that was often easier than quarantining.  And then we just made two of them permanent per game, instantly finishing that objective.  Well, until we found the paranoid soldier.

The character I was playing was the one who found the soldier.  She also was the disappeared character.  We made this work by suggesting she was killed by the paranoid soldier.  She was also our most-used character, and losing her lost that game for us.

(3) Have you found the Immunologist yet?  If not, STOP READING.

(4) Also, we totally called the bio-engineering even before finding him, and given our mistrust of the military, of course it was them.

Yeah, pretty much all the same for us tonight. Except we still won September, barely. And then we got such bad draws in October that we lost on turn 6; nothing we could have done.

[Qvist]

I don't want to lose, but I'm often glad that we lose just because we can get more plays out of it. We haven't gotten Pandemic Legacy to the table a lot in the last few months, still in July unfortunately. I will read the spoiler as soon as we played September.

[GendoIkari]

Well October proceeded to destroy us yet again. But we destroyed November.

For a bit of fun irony, we named the Immunologist "Andrew Wakefield". 

[GendoIkari]

Finished last night. December was super easy for us; largely because of how we did in November. Final tally was 10 wins and 5 losses.


Final score was just a little lower than what was needed for the highest tier.

[markusin]

Would you say Pandemic: Legacy is more difficult for those that don't have previous experience with Pandemic games?

[Watno]

The skills required for Pandemic Legacy are pretty much the same as for normal Pandemic, so yes.

You can play normal Pandemic (or something very close) with the Pandemic Legacy game, if you're worried about doing well.

[Kirian]

Would you say Pandemic: Legacy is more difficult for those that don't have previous experience with Pandemic games?

Maybe?  If you already know a lot about the game, it likely will help with many of your initial choices--you'll know what upgrades will make the game easier early on, which roles are more likely to be helpful given the board setup.  But then again, there's a lot of luck in Pandemic.

In our group, we routinely win expanded Pandemic with six Epidemic cards and with Mutated or Virulent.  But sometimes you still lose before the last player has actually had a turn.

[GendoIkari]

The skills required for Pandemic Legacy are pretty much the same as for normal Pandemic, so yes.

You can play normal Pandemic (or something very close) with the Pandemic Legacy game, if you're worried about doing well.

Yes, this. In the same way that having played any game before increases your chances of winning that game. But yes, the Legacy instructions even recommend that you play a few games of normal Pandemic with the Legacy set before you start. It's extremely close to normal Pandemic, anyway. The board was slightly modified in terms of adding a couple extra connections; and I believe the characters and events are not all the same.

[markusin]

The skills required for Pandemic Legacy are pretty much the same as for normal Pandemic, so yes.

You can play normal Pandemic (or something very close) with the Pandemic Legacy game, if you're worried about doing well.

Yes, this. In the same way that having played any game before increases your chances of winning that game. But yes, the Legacy instructions even recommend that you play a few games of normal Pandemic with the Legacy set before you start. It's extremely close to normal Pandemic, anyway. The board was slightly modified in terms of adding a couple extra connections; and I believe the characters and events are not all the same.

Oh I didn't know it can support regular Pandemic. Does this only apply before you start the legacy campaign?

I figured I'd ask in case one of my friends ever decided to try this out, though that seems unlikely given how infrequently we have game nights.

Heh, I remember playing the original Pandemic at a party, where it took four of us hours to beat the game with 6 epidemic cards. Sometimes we did lose before every player got at least one turn. Sadly haven't played since though.

[GendoIkari]

The skills required for Pandemic Legacy are pretty much the same as for normal Pandemic, so yes.

You can play normal Pandemic (or something very close) with the Pandemic Legacy game, if you're worried about doing well.

Yes, this. In the same way that having played any game before increases your chances of winning that game. But yes, the Legacy instructions even recommend that you play a few games of normal Pandemic with the Legacy set before you start. It's extremely close to normal Pandemic, anyway. The board was slightly modified in terms of adding a couple extra connections; and I believe the characters and events are not all the same.

Oh I didn't know it can support regular Pandemic. Does this only apply before you start the legacy campaign?

For the most part, yes. After you begin the legacy campaign, you will be permanently altering components. Though you could still play regular Pandemic while ignoring the alterations for at least a little while.