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Board Game Entry
Information
Designed By
Art By
Published By
Year Published
2008
# of Players:
2 − 4
User Suggested # of Players
Best with 4 players
Recommended with 1, 2, 3, 4 players
(303 voters) [poll]
Playing Time
45 minutes
Mfg Suggested Ages
10 and up
User Suggested Ages
10 and up
(77 voters) [poll]
Language Dependence
Some necessary text - easily memorized or small crib sheet
(98 voters) [poll]
Category
Mechanic
Primary Name
Pandemic
Alternate Names
Pandemia
Pandémie
Pandemie
パンデミック
瘟疫危機 (瘟疫危机)
팬데믹
Expanded By Show Expansions »
Families
Website
Description Edit | History

You are specialists at the CDC/Atlanta where you watch several virulent diseases break out simultaneously all over the world. The team mission is to prevent a world-wide pandemic outbreak, treating hotspots while researching cures for each of the four plagues before they get out of hand.

Players must plan their strategy to mesh their specialist's strengths before the diseases overwhelm the world. For example, the Operations Specialist can build research stations, which are needed to find cures for the diseases. The Scientist needs only 4 cards of a particular disease to cure it instead of the normal 5. But the diseases are breaking out fast and time is running out: the team must try to stem the tide of infection in diseased areas while developing cures. If disease spreads uncontrolled, the players all lose. If they can cure all four diseases, they win.

The board shows earth with some big population centres. On each turn a player can use four actions to travel, cure, discover and build. Cards are used for this but the deck also contains Epidemics...

Expanded by:

More Information Edit | History

Awards


Online Play

Some Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Q: I have 2 of the same card but missing another card!
A: Allegedly during collation of the decks, some of the cards were duplicated or missed. You should have 1 for each city in the Infector deck (48 total) and 1 for each city in the Player deck (48 total). There should also be 6 identical Epidemic cards, 5 distinct Role Cards, 5 Distinct Special cards, and the 4 Reference cards for a total of 116 cards. If you are missing any cards, contact Z-Man games and they will replace them.

Q: Why is the start city Atlanta?
A: Atlanta is the home of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Q: Can you pass cards when it is not your turn?
A: The active player may spend one action point to give -or- take a city card. Standard passing rules still apply.

Q: Can Special Event Cards really be played at "any" time?
A: (Quoted from game designer Matt Leacock) You can play the cards at any time, however, you can't play them between an event and the representation of the event on the board. Some scenarios may help explain this:

Scenario 1:
Player #1 has a Special Event card for "Resilient Population." During the draw, an Epidemic card is drawn. Since an Epidemic card was drawn, player #1 decides to play their Special Event card to remove a city from the infection discard pile before they are reshuffled. This is legal because the card was played before the cards were reshuffled.
Scenario 2:
A player may use the Forecast card to rearrange the cards on the top of the infection deck before they're drawn - but once a card is drawn, the player can't rearrange the cards.
Scenario 3:
The Red disease has been cured. A player draws the Taipei card which results in the 8th Outbreak. Since no time elapses between the drawing of the Taipei card (resulting in the infection) and the placing of the cubes (representing the infection), the players lose the game. It's not OK to Airlift the medic over to Taipei to cure because the cubes have already been added and the game has already been lost.

Q: Can this game be played with 1 or 5 players? The rules imply I might use all 5 role cards.
A: The game was designed for 2 to 4 players. The comment in the rulebook was a carry over from when the game only had 4 Roles. It was not caught before the rulebook was published. However, you may attempt to play with 1 or 5 players and report your findings in the threads.

Q: Our first game was easy! Are we doing something wrong?
A: Probably. But the game is easier with fewer players and/or fewer Epidemics in the deck. You may also visit this thread to see if you missed something: Common mistakes.

Related Microbadges

Pandemic Fan: http://files.boardgamegeek.com/images/microbadges/pandemic.gif http://files.boardgamegeek.com/images/microbadges/pandemic2.gif http://files.boardgamegeek.com/images/microbadges/pandemicinf.jpg http://files.boardgamegeek.com/images/microbadges/pandemicst1.gif http://files.boardgamegeek.com/images/microbadges/pandemicst6.gif http://files.boardgamegeek.com/images/microbadges/pandemicst2.gif http://files.boardgamegeek.com/images/microbadges/pandemicst7.gif http://files.boardgamegeek.com/images/microbadges/pandemicst4.gif http://files.boardgamegeek.com/images/microbadges/pandemicst8.gif http://files.boardgamegeek.com/images/microbadges/pandemicst3.gif http://files.boardgamegeek.com/images/microbadges/pandemicst5.gif
Public Health Professional: http://files.boardgamegeek.com/images/microbadges/PublicHealthProfessional16x16.gif
Matt Leacock Fan: http://files.boardgamegeek.com/images/microbadges/mb_MattLeacock.gif

Contents:

  • 1 8-Page Colour Rulebook
  • 1 Folding single-side Gameboard
  • 5 Role Cards
  • 5 (wooden) Pawns (one colour for each role)
  • 6 (wooden) Research Stations
  • 96 (wooden) Disease Cubes (24 for each colour disease - black, blue, red, yellow)
  • 6 Markers
    • 1 Infection Rate Marker
    • 1 Outbreaks Marker
    • 4 Cure Markers with "Vial" and "Sunset" sides (one for each colour disease)
  • 59 Player Cards
    • 48 City Cards
    • 6 Epidemic Cards
    • 5 Special Event Cards
  • 48 Infection Cards
  • 4 Reference Cards

Images
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Files
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1 Pandemic :: Special Event cards in Portuguese [Brazil]
This file contains the translated Special Events cards to Brazilian Portguese | PT-BR.
2009-07-07
24 Threat Level Six (rules for custom expansion)
This is a PocketMod guide for the Threat Level Six expansion that is available through Artscow (http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/415257 for more info).
2009-06-16
2 Manual do Pandemic em Portugues (Brasil)
Manual ORIGINAL do Pandemic traduzido para o português (brasileiro).
2009-06-11
15 Pandemic Greek Rules
This is an exact copy of the original manual, translated to Greek. Many thanks to the user Zoula for his help in creating the pdf file.
2009-06-03
1 Pandemic Variante Italia Carte Versione 1
Pandemic Variante Italia Carte Versione 1
2009-06-01
1 Pandemic Variante Italia Mappa Versione 1
Pandemic Variante Italia Mappa Versione 1
2009-06-01
4 Dutch rules
The complete rules translated to Dutch. This rar file contains 8 gif files.
2009-05-18
10 Pandemic speelhulpje (NL)
Player aid in Dutch
2009-05-06
2 Pandemic rules in Russian / Правила игры Pandemic
Unofficial Russian translation of rulebook in PDF format.
2009-05-05
3 Pandemic - Summary of Linked Cities - v.1.0
A one-page colored Word table listing the 48 cities (by color), the number of linked cities (from most to least in each color), and the names and colors of each linked city
2009-04-26
Statistics
User Rank: 22
Num Ratings: 7357
Average Rating: 7.78
Standard Deviation: 1.22
Num Views: 395115
GeekBuddy Analysis: Analyze
Similarly Rated: View
Avg. Game Weight: 2.3 moreinfo
Fans: 306
Personal Comments: 2284
Users Owning: 7233
Users Wanting: 503
Users Trading: 70
Has Parts For Trade: 8
Want Parts In Trade: 4
Price History: View
Total Plays: 46228
Plays This Month: 467
Linked Items Relationship: Expansions for this Game
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Sort: Name | Rank | Ratings | Average | Weight | Owned | Prev. Owned | Trading | Wanting | Wishlist | Comments | Year Published
Pg. 1 of 1
Rank N/A
Num Ratings 2
Average Rating 8.50
Average Weight 1.75
Owned 21
Prev. Owned 0
For Trade 0
Wanted in Trade 211
Wishlist 961
Comments 23
Year Pub. 2009
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