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ghoti_mhic_uaitFor some stupid reason I tend not to talk about presents on here - fear of sounding like I'm boasting maybe? Or worry that I leave someone out? SO I didn't mention the super awesome presents I've been given recently. Like the molecular gastronomy kit, or the tattoo voucher (photos when I get it done), or the leaf-shaped peridot necklace (not usually a stone I like, but it's perfect for the setting), or the pBuzz (cross between a vuvuzela and a swanee whistle) or the Nessie ladles. I did mention Top Dogs, which is a game so perfectly matched to Judith's strengths that it's a joy to lose to her.
Speaking of a game matched to strengths, we now have Pandemic Legacy. It's like Pandemic - cure diseases, save the world - but it comes with a plethora of secret boxes and evil advent calendars (er, I mean dossiers) and stickers, and as you win or lose your way through in-game months the state of the world shifts and the rules change. Colin & Rachel have a theory that the skills needed for both parenting and cooking are the same skills as for Pandemic - get everyone where they need to be with everything they need at the right time, and if you don't quite manage it, improvise a replacement. That could be. I'm not always good at that, but we nrmally manage to muddle through anyway. We're also really good at compromise and cooperation, which is definitely needed.
We just played April - there are 12 months, each of which you play once, if you win you move to the next 'month', if you lose, you play the month once more before moving on. It seems like the sort of game that's good to talk about while everything's fresh, but also, everything's secret, so I'm putting it behind a spoiler cut.
We've so far won every game - a quick google suggests that most groups have lost at least ne game, more likely two or three by this point, but of course we're not unique. Colin and I played the first three games by ourselves, and OSOs joined us for the fourth. The fourth game felt about as difficult as the first three games to me, maybe a little easier? Jack's and my roles interacted really well which certainly helped, and it's good to have a little more help. I think generally it's meant to get harder as it goes on, but it's difficult to tell. Anyway, I didn't have the 'oh no we're all going to die' moment like I did in the second and third games.
Anyway, on with the specifics while I still remember them.
January started out more or less the same as vanilla Pandemic. We played as medic and scientist. We wiped out, then cured and automatically eradicated blue really early, so it felt like we were doing really well, but two epidemics in and we suddenly were told that black was uncurable, (which illness it is depends on the game, but for us it was black), and the winning condition was to cure the other three diseases. Which we then did pretty swiftly.
At the end of the game you also get to choose upgrades, good effects for the board. We added a new starting research station at Chennai and a mod to blue so it can be cured anywhere.
February introduced quarantine - black can't be cured or treated (that's new), but it can be contained. There was a new role, Quarantine Specialist, and new feature, relationships, where two named characters can interact in special wasys. So we played as Medic and Quarantine Specialist, and rivals, which makes passing cards back and forth super easy. This time we wiped out yellow before curing, which got us a long way there, but we spent a lot of time containing outbreaks. No riots started (I'll get to riots later) and we cured red and blue OK and I think eradicated blue again.
Game upgrades: we made it so yellow can be cured anywhere, and it doesn't take an action.
March introduced military. March also introduced new objectives. You still have to cure 3 diseases, but you also must either eradicate one disease or put a military base in every region of the board. We played as operations expert (can add new buildings and fly from buildings really easily) and quarantine specialist.
It's a bit fuzzy in my mind, possibly because we played February and March back-to-back, but I do know we eradicated red and cured 3, maybe even eradicated yellow too before and I think we had one or two military bases but I don't remember.
We won though, and game upgrades were making it so red doesn't need you to be in a research station to cure and it doesn't take an action.
April we played with quad, and it was a bit easier. No worry about having to discard cards (because you start with 2 not 4). We played as quarantines specialist, researcher, scientist and operations expert. This was the first game where we had rioting - every time a city has an outbreak, a counter increments, and when it's at 2 or 3, there is rioting, which means that any research station there is destroyed and you can't fly into or out of it. You can build a military base there, though, so Colin did, before taking a secret teleporter machine to clear up blue, after curing all three iseases. Once again, we eradicated a disease rather than placing all the military bases, but we got closer - I suspect May may require us to fulfil more objectives so it's good to be close. However, after our second epidemic, the untreatable, incurable disease became a ZOMBIE OUTBREAK. We managed reasonably well wrt zombies, keeping them contained to one city, but for future games, there are no more black cubes but only zombies. This time we eradicated blue to win, so now blue also doesn't need an action to cure. We also placed a starting military base, figuring that we might need it for later. We're tempted to do character upgrades next time, but we'll see what turns up.
Speaking of a game matched to strengths, we now have Pandemic Legacy. It's like Pandemic - cure diseases, save the world - but it comes with a plethora of secret boxes and evil advent calendars (er, I mean dossiers) and stickers, and as you win or lose your way through in-game months the state of the world shifts and the rules change. Colin & Rachel have a theory that the skills needed for both parenting and cooking are the same skills as for Pandemic - get everyone where they need to be with everything they need at the right time, and if you don't quite manage it, improvise a replacement. That could be. I'm not always good at that, but we nrmally manage to muddle through anyway. We're also really good at compromise and cooperation, which is definitely needed.
We just played April - there are 12 months, each of which you play once, if you win you move to the next 'month', if you lose, you play the month once more before moving on. It seems like the sort of game that's good to talk about while everything's fresh, but also, everything's secret, so I'm putting it behind a spoiler cut.
We've so far won every game - a quick google suggests that most groups have lost at least ne game, more likely two or three by this point, but of course we're not unique. Colin and I played the first three games by ourselves, and OSOs joined us for the fourth. The fourth game felt about as difficult as the first three games to me, maybe a little easier? Jack's and my roles interacted really well which certainly helped, and it's good to have a little more help. I think generally it's meant to get harder as it goes on, but it's difficult to tell. Anyway, I didn't have the 'oh no we're all going to die' moment like I did in the second and third games.
Anyway, on with the specifics while I still remember them.
January started out more or less the same as vanilla Pandemic. We played as medic and scientist. We wiped out, then cured and automatically eradicated blue really early, so it felt like we were doing really well, but two epidemics in and we suddenly were told that black was uncurable, (which illness it is depends on the game, but for us it was black), and the winning condition was to cure the other three diseases. Which we then did pretty swiftly.
At the end of the game you also get to choose upgrades, good effects for the board. We added a new starting research station at Chennai and a mod to blue so it can be cured anywhere.
February introduced quarantine - black can't be cured or treated (that's new), but it can be contained. There was a new role, Quarantine Specialist, and new feature, relationships, where two named characters can interact in special wasys. So we played as Medic and Quarantine Specialist, and rivals, which makes passing cards back and forth super easy. This time we wiped out yellow before curing, which got us a long way there, but we spent a lot of time containing outbreaks. No riots started (I'll get to riots later) and we cured red and blue OK and I think eradicated blue again.
Game upgrades: we made it so yellow can be cured anywhere, and it doesn't take an action.
March introduced military. March also introduced new objectives. You still have to cure 3 diseases, but you also must either eradicate one disease or put a military base in every region of the board. We played as operations expert (can add new buildings and fly from buildings really easily) and quarantine specialist.
It's a bit fuzzy in my mind, possibly because we played February and March back-to-back, but I do know we eradicated red and cured 3, maybe even eradicated yellow too before and I think we had one or two military bases but I don't remember.
We won though, and game upgrades were making it so red doesn't need you to be in a research station to cure and it doesn't take an action.
April we played with quad, and it was a bit easier. No worry about having to discard cards (because you start with 2 not 4). We played as quarantines specialist, researcher, scientist and operations expert. This was the first game where we had rioting - every time a city has an outbreak, a counter increments, and when it's at 2 or 3, there is rioting, which means that any research station there is destroyed and you can't fly into or out of it. You can build a military base there, though, so Colin did, before taking a secret teleporter machine to clear up blue, after curing all three iseases. Once again, we eradicated a disease rather than placing all the military bases, but we got closer - I suspect May may require us to fulfil more objectives so it's good to be close. However, after our second epidemic, the untreatable, incurable disease became a ZOMBIE OUTBREAK. We managed reasonably well wrt zombies, keeping them contained to one city, but for future games, there are no more black cubes but only zombies. This time we eradicated blue to win, so now blue also doesn't need an action to cure. We also placed a starting military base, figuring that we might need it for later. We're tempted to do character upgrades next time, but we'll see what turns up.
no subject
Date: 2017-01-09 10:27 pm (UTC)I definitely thought 'oh no we're going to die' when we had several cities with three cubes near the end, but I also think I hadn't quite twigged to how close we were to curing red and yellow at that point. I still think an epidemic one turn earlier might have been a bit painful, though. I definitely agree that we were really good at making collaborative plans; maybe all the desperate logistics of running quad when we have geography and outside partners is paying off.
Have I seen the peridot necklace? It sounds cool!
no subject
Date: 2017-01-09 11:22 pm (UTC)I was wearing the peridot on Christmas day, but it's possible you didn't mention. It is very cool, very vernal.