LNH20/ACRA: NHOP # 2

[Tom Russell]

On Saturday, November 22, 2014 12:03:08 PM UTC-5, Andrew Perron wrote:
> On 11/21/2014 10:44 PM, Tom Russell wrote:
> > On Friday, November 21, 2014 9:47:02 PM UTC-5, Andrew Perron wrote:
> <snip>
> >> Interesting. (We've definitely managed to lose Island when the starting
> >> difficulty's turned up.) But that's definitely been on the To-Get list for a
> >> while. Pandemic's on there more vaguely, since we don't often get above three
> >> players available at once.
> >
> > Oh, you don't need more than 3 for Pandemic; it plays 2-4 in the base set (2-5 with the expansion, IIRC). The game is actually easier (i.e., it's actually possible to win) with *less* players because there's a limit on the total number of turns that you can take. With 2 players, each player's going to have something like 12 turns, and our win rate is about 30-40% (pretty high for a co-op!); with four, each player's going to have six or seven turns, and our win rate is two games out of forty. PANDEMIC's definitely just as much fun, and as addictive, with two players, and is well-suited for 2 or 3 players.
> 
> Ahhhhhh. Interesting... maybe it's just on there vaguely for cost reasons.

::chuckles:: Yes, I know what you mean; board games are an expensive hobby/artform. I think I actually prefer FORBIDDEN DESERT to PANDEMIC-- its shifting board mechanism is really, really neat, and takes up very little table space. So if you were just looking at getting one of those, I'd say go with DESERT since it's only like, what, $20-25? Whereas PANDEMIC runs $40 MSRP, I think. It's worth every penny, mind you, but just offering some unsolicited advice. :-)

One really clever thing about PANDEMIC is that you have two decks-- an Infection deck that puts diseases into cities, and the player deck from which you draw at the end of your turn. The latter are mostly "good" cards, and a single player needs to get five cards of a type in order to cure one of the four diseases. But there are also bad cards in that player deck-- think of them as the cards that make the Island sink faster-- and when those happen, you shuffle the *discards* of the Infection deck and put them back on top of that deck. So the diseases will crop up over and again in some of the *same* areas. "C'mon, Mumbai, I just cured you-- what are you doing?"

BTW, are you on Board Game Geek at all? It's like Facebook and Wikipedia for board games wrapped up in one. You might be able to find a group near you that can teach you Pandemic to see if it's something you want/need to purchase.

> 
> Andrew "NO .SIG MAN" "Juan" Perron, so many board games we want to play tho

I know the feeling! :-)

==Tom