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[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.