Pandemic the Board Game (Play-by-Forum)

[topsecret]

Pandemic: The Board Game​

Current World Status

VICTORY!

Outbreaks: Three

Blood Flood: 9 cubes remaining (Cured!)
Blue Lip Choke: 16 cubes remaining (Cured!)
Yellow Fever: 13 cubes remaining (Cured!)
The Black Death: 19 cubes remaining (Cured!)

Cards in Draw Deck: 21 [11 turns until time runs out]

Infection Discard Pile:

Spoiler :

Upcoming Cards in the Infection Draw Deck:

Spoiler :

First Batch (All of these randomly before the Second Batch)

Second Batch

Player Discard Pile

Game Outline:
Turn One (Marcher -> London)
Turn Two (Synsensa -> Kolkata)
Turn Three (Tim -> Beijing)
Epidemic One
Turn Four (G1K -> Delhi)
Turn Five (Marcher -> St. Petersburg)
Turn Six (Synsensa -> Algiers)
Turn Seven (Tim -> Shanghai)
Turn Eight (G1K -> Baghdad)
Turn Nine (Marcher -> Cairo)
Turn Ten (Synsensa -> Osaka)
Epidemic Two
Turn Eleven (Tim -> Hong Kong)
Turn Twelve (G1K -> Hong Kong)
Turn Thirteen (Marcher -> Hong Kong, Cure Black)
Turn Fourteen (Synsensa -> Lagos)
Turn Fifteen (Tim -> Hong Kong)
Epidemic Three & Turn Sixteen (G1K -> Karachi)
Turn Seventeen

Players:
1. Synsensa
2. G1K
3. Marcher Jovian
4. Timsup2nothin

Spoiler Original Post :

Greetings, everyone. I have been playing a lot of board games IRL recently, and I have been considering running a few "Play by Forum" board games here for fun. I've recruited some of my friends from the Mafia/NOTW forum, but anyone's welcome to join.

I'm considering a few games:

1. King of Tokyo
​

In King of Tokyo, you play mutant monsters, gigantic robots, and strange aliens—all of whom are destroying Tokyo and whacking each other in order to become the one and only King of Tokyo.

At the start of each turn, you roll six dice, which show the following six symbols: 1, 2, or 3 Victory Points, Energy, Heal, and Attack. Over three successive throws, choose whether to keep or discard each die in order to win victory points, gain energy, restore health, or attack other players into understanding that Tokyo is YOUR territory.

The fiercest player will occupy Tokyo, and earn extra victory points, but that player can't heal and must face all the other monsters alone!

Top this off with special cards purchased with energy that have a permanent or temporary effect, such as the growing of a second head which grants you an additional die, body armor, nova death ray, and more.

In order to win the game, one must either destroy Tokyo by accumulating 20 victory points, or be the only surviving monster once the fighting has ended.

King of Tokyo is more fun when you actually get to chuck the dice, but I think it would still be fun.

2. Pandemic​

In Pandemic, several virulent diseases have broken out simultaneously all over the world! The players are disease-fighting specialists whose mission is to treat disease hotspots while researching cures for each of four plagues before they get out of hand.

The game board depicts several major population centers on Earth. On each turn, a player can use up to four actions to travel between cities, treat infected populaces, discover a cure, or build a research station. A deck of cards provides the players with these abilities, but sprinkled throughout this deck are Epidemic! cards that accelerate and intensify the diseases' activity. A second, separate deck of cards controls the "normal" spread of the infections.

Taking a unique role within the team, players must plan their strategy to mesh with their specialists' strengths in order to conquer the diseases. For example, the Operations Expert can build research stations which are needed to find cures for the diseases and which allow for greater mobility between cities; the Scientist needs only four cards of a particular disease to cure it instead of the normal five—but the diseases are spreading quickly and time is running out. If one or more diseases spreads beyond recovery or if too much time elapses, the players all lose. If they cure the four diseases, they all win!

Pandemic is a blast - as long as you don't think it's too bothersome given real life right now. But it is cooperative and I believe it would work well for forum play.

3. Settlers of Catan​

In The Settlers of Catan, players try to be the dominant force on the island of Catan by building settlements, cities, and roads. On each turn dice are rolled to determine what resources the island produces. Players collect these resources (cards)—wood, grain, brick, sheep, or stone—to build up their civilizations to get to 10 victory points and win the game.

Setup includes randomly placing large hexagonal tiles (each showing a resource or the desert) in a honeycomb shape and surrounding them with water tiles, some of which contain ports of exchange. Number disks, which will correspond to die rolls (two 6-sided dice are used), are placed on each resource tile. Each player is given two settlements (think: houses) and roads (sticks) which are, in turn, placed on intersections and borders of the resource tiles. Players collect a hand of resource cards based on which hex tiles their last-placed house is adjacent to. A robber pawn is placed on the desert tile.

A turn consists of possibly playing a development card, rolling the dice, everyone (perhaps) collecting resource cards based on the roll and position of houses (or upgraded cities—think: hotels) unless a 7 is rolled, turning in resource cards (if possible and desired) for improvements, trading cards at a port, and trading resource cards with other players. If a 7 is rolled, the active player moves the robber to a new hex tile and steals resource cards from other players who have built structures adjacent to that tile.

Points are accumulated by building settlements and cities, having the longest road and the largest army (from some of the development cards), and gathering certain development cards that simply award victory points. When a player has gathered 10 points (some of which may be held in secret), they announce their total and claim the win.

Settlers of Catan is a classic. Never tried it by Forum, but here goes nothing!

If you would like to play, please inform me you are joining and post for your preferred game.
Orders for the game will have a 24 hour requirement, more or less. Extensions can be asked for if absolutely necessary, and as soon as orders are locked (and I can update), I'll update even if the deadline hasn't come. None of these games should be a massive time investment per day, but I honestly have no idea how long they will take.

If we can only get four players, I'll do any. If five people want to play, we should probably play Pandemic.

 

[topsecret]

Players and Card Hands:

Synsensa
You are the Operations Expert.

You have two special abilities:
1. You can do the Build Research Station action without discarding a card.
2. Once per turn, you can move anywhere by discarding a city card if you are at a research station.

Location: Osaka

Current Cards

---

Marcher Jovian
You are the Scientist.

You only need 4 cards to Discover a Cure.

Location: Hong Kong

Current Cards

---

Timsup2nothin
You are the Researcher.

You can do the Share Knowledge action and give any card without that card matching your current city. (i.e. if you are in the same city, you can pass any card to another player. Ignore the Lab Challenge text.)

Location: Hong Kong

Current Cards

---

Golden1Knight
You are the Medic.

You have two special abilites:
1. You remove all cubes of one color when treating disease, even when the disease is not cured.
2. If a disease is cured, all cubes of that color are automatically removed when you are in a city (and therefore no more cubes can be placed there while you stay there).

Location: Karachi

Current Cards

Rules

 

[Synobun]

+1 to 1 or 2

 

[Marcher Jovian]

/in

 

[Timsup2nothin]

/in

I don't need the game, right?

 

[topsecret]

/in

I don't need the game, right?

Correct.

In fact, I am just going to confirm Pandemic because it means we can post everything here as it's cooperative. It's you all vs. the game.

Spoiler Storage :

 

[topsecret]

Player Discard Pile:

Spoiler :

 

[Golden1Knight]

/in

 

[topsecret]

Alright and now I'm actually just going to set it at four, since five in Pandemic can be more difficult.

I'll get things started tomorrow or Saturday.

 

[topsecret]

Ruleset:

Premise, Victory and Defeat

Spoiler :

Premise
The world is harassed by four dangerous diseases. As an elite team of researchers, it's your job to work together to stop the diseases before they outbreak too much or time runs out.

Victory
This game is cooperative. You all win or lose together. You win when all four diseases are cured.

Defeat
There are three ways to lose:

1. Time Runs Out (No more cards when you need to draw a card, the game is over)
2. Too Many Outbreaks (If you reach eight outbreaks, the game is over)
3. Too Intense Spread (If you run out of any one color of disease cubes when you need to place one, the game is over)

Turn Structure & Concepts

Spoiler :

Turn Structure
Your turn consists of three "phases":
1. Actions
Take up to four actions, such as movement or healing disease.
2. Draw Cards
Draw two cards; these will usually help you, although you will also draw epidemics which lead to quick disease spread.

3. Infect Cities
Infect cities [2 at game start, more as the infection rate rises].

The Board
The board represents the world. Multiple cities are on the board, along with disease cubes, your player pawns, and research stations.

Cities and Disease Cubes
Cities are places where your characters can go. Disease will spread in cities. The amount of disease spread is represented by disease cubes. There are four levels:
Healthy - No cubes
Present - One cube
Spreading - Two cubes
Rampant - Three cubes

If a fourth cube is about to be put in a city, an outbreak occurs instead. The outbreak marker will raise by one (remember, eight outbreaks and game over), and cubes of that color will be placed in every adjacent city.

Example: If Atlanta receives two more cubes, then one blue cube will be placed in Washington, Miami, and Chicago because those cities are connected to Atlanta.

If a cube cannot be placed because every cube is already out, game over.

Actions

Spoiler :

As explained above, you may take 4 actions per turn. You may use them as you mix and match, as long as you can actually do them.
Their costs and effects are listed below.

Movement Actions

1. Drive/Ferry
Move from one city via the connections on the board.

2. Direct Flight
Discard a city card (every city has a unique card in the deck) to fly directly to that city from anywhere.

3. Charter Flight
Discard a city card (every city has a unique card in the deck) to fly from that city to anywhere. You must be present in the city.

4. Shuttle Flight
Move from a city with a research station to a city with a research station.

Treatment and Research Actions

1. Build a Research Station
Discard the city card of the city you are in to build a research station there.

2. Treat Disease
Remove a disease cube from your current city. If the disease is cured, remove all cubes of the cured color instead. (If multiple diseases are present, you may only treat one disease per action.)

3. Cure Disease
Discard five city cards of the same color at any research station to cure a disease, making it easier to treat. If all of that disease's cubes are removed, it is eradicated and cannot reappear. Cure all four diseases to win.

4. Share Knowledge
Give a city card that matches your current city to another player also in that city. OR take a city card that matches your current city from another player also in that city. (You must both be in a city and can only swap that card.)

Drawing Cards

Spoiler :

After you finish your four actions, you draw two player cards. Each player may only have seven cards. If they exceed the limit, they must play events if they have any or discard down to seven, even if they receive an 8th card from "Share Knowledge."

Again, if you attempt to draw a card and the deck is out, you will lose the game.

There are three main types of player cards:
1. City Cards

Every city in the game has a unique card. There are 12 of each color. They can be used for direct flights, charter flights, building research stations, and curing disease.

2. Events

Events allow you to perform special actions, but they do not cost an action. You may play events at any time, even during another player's turn, except during the middle of an epidemic. (One event allows you to break this exception, but we'll worry about that if you get that one )

3. Epidemics
Five epidemics are seeded throughout the deck. When you draw one, an epidemic will occur, instantly adding three cubes to a city. When you draw one, the following will instantly occur.

1. Increase Infection Rate
The infection rate marker moves up. The first two times it stays at 2, meaning only two cities will be infected. Then it will raise to 3, and on the last epidemic, 4.

2. Infect City
I will draw a city card off the bottom of the deck and add three cubes to that city. I'll get to the strategy implications of this later.

3. Intensify
All the infection cards in the discard pile will be shuffled (which includes the one that we just drew) and placed on top of the infection deck. This means that every time an epidemic happens, the same cities will get hit over and over, more and more cubes stacking up in the cities that have already got cubes. Fun, eh?

Infections

Spoiler :

At the end of your turn, you'll draw cards off the infection deck. You draw two at the start and more as the infection rate goes up.

Every city has one card. Nine will be in the discard pile at the beginning of the game. Remember, every time you draw an epidemic, you will shuffle any more cities you drew along with those nine back in.

When you draw a card, you add a cube to the city. If there are no more cubes of that color, you lose. If three cubes are already in a city, an outbreak occurs. Chain outbreaks can happen, but not in infinite loops. Be careful leaving three cubes in a city!

Rules Video:

 

[topsecret]

Here's an instructions video for how to play the physical board game. Needless to say, the forum will be a little different, but it's roughly the same.

If you watch that and you have no clue what's going on, hang tight. I'll type up enough rules to get you through and help anyway. We'll make it.

If you're still lost after the rules, I'll give advice when you need to make choices until you get the hang of it.

 

[topsecret]

Premise
The world is harassed by four dangerous diseases. As an elite team of researchers, it's your job to work together to stop the diseases before they outbreak too much or time runs out.

Victory
This game is cooperative. You all win or lose together. You win when all four diseases are cured.

Defeat
There are three ways to lose:

1. Time Runs Out (No more cards when you need to draw a card, the game is over)
2. Too Many Outbreaks (If you reach eight outbreaks, the game is over)
3. Too Intense Spread (If you run out of any one color of disease cubes when you need to place one, the game is over)

 

[Synobun]

I will try and watch that video today.

Damn TS, making me learn things...

 

[topsecret]

I'm learning how to host board games on a forum so it's a mutual learning process.

 

[topsecret]

The Board
The board represents the world. Multiple cities are on the board, along with disease cubes, your player pawns, and research stations.

Cities and Disease Cubes
Cities are places where your characters can go. Disease will spread in cities. The amount of disease spread is represented by disease cubes. There are four levels:
Healthy - No cubes
Present - One cube
Spreading - Two cubes
Rampant - Three cubes

If a fourth cube is about to be put in a city, an outbreak occurs instead. The outbreak marker will raise by one (remember, eight outbreaks and game over), and cubes of that color will be placed in every adjacent city.

Example: If Atlanta receives two more cubes, then one blue cube will be placed in Washington, Miami, and Chicago because those cities are connected to Atlanta.

If a cube cannot be placed because every cube is already out, game over.

That's almost it for concepts. I just have to explain turns and set up the game board. I have to work some today but I'll get to it when possible.

Once I finish posting all the rules, I'll conglomerate them into the first post. Also, feel free to ask me if you get lost once I start asking for actions.

 

[Synobun]

I watched the video. I will almost certainly get lost the first couple rounds, but I'll try to self-solve as much as possible.

 

[Synobun]

I watched the video. I will almost certainly get lost the first couple rounds, but I'll try to self-solve as much as possible.

Will you be posting screenies of a game board as you update IRL or are you doing this fully text-based? I have no preference, just curious.

 

[topsecret]

Will you be posting screenies of a game board as you update IRL or are you doing this fully text-based? I have no preference, just curious.

Pictures should be available every time unless I have to go out of town for some reason. I am debating whether to use a computerized board or a IRL setup (I have pictures of everything lol)

 

[topsecret]

Actions
As explained above, you may take 4 actions per turn. You may use them as you mix and match, as long as you can actually do them.
Their costs and effects are listed below.

Movement Actions

1. Drive/Ferry
Move from one city via the connections on the board.

2. Direct Flight
Discard a city card (every city has a unique card in the deck) to fly directly to that city from anywhere.

3. Charter Flight
Discard a city card (every city has a unique card in the deck) to fly from that city to anywhere. You must be present in the city.

4. Shuttle Flight
Move from a city with a research station to a city with a research station.

Treatment and Research Actions

1. Build a Research Station
Discard the city card of the city you are in to build a research station there.

2. Treat Disease
Remove a disease cube from your current city. If the disease is cured, remove all cubes of the cured color instead. (If multiple diseases are present, you may only treat one disease per action.)

3. Cure Disease
Discard five city cards of the same color at any research station to cure a disease, making it easier to treat. If all of that disease's cubes are removed, it is eradicated and cannot reappear. Cure all four diseases to win.

4. Share Knowledge
Give a city card that matches your current city to another player also in that city. OR take a city card that matches your current city from another player also in that city. (You must both be in a city and can only swap that card.)

Those are all the actions.

 

[Synobun]

So, the video says a player can't have more than 7 cards. Can you... discard or trade extra cards?