The Game

Z-Man’s Pandemic is a board game for 1 – 4 players and is good for people ages 14 & up.  The game takes approximately 45 – 60 mins to play.  It is a fully cooperative board game set in the present day world.  Players take on roles as members of the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), each using their specialities to try to cure 4 diseases spreading across the globe.

If you are interested in understanding how Pandemic works in detail, you’re in the right place.  If you are interested in our opinion, check out our Pandemic Review.

Game Components

The Pandemic game board is a map of the world with various cities marked on it.  The cities are connected with lines the players can travel along.  The game board also has places for the player cards (48 City Cards – 12 each in Blue, Black, Red and Yellow, 10 One time Event cards) and the infection cards (48 Infection cards, one per city on the board).  You also have:

• 6 Role cards
• 4 Colors of disease cubes
• 1 Infection marker
• 1 Outbreak Marker
• 4 colored Pawns
• 6 Research Stations
• 4 cure markers – One per disease

Game Play

Pandemic’s Gameplay is broken into turns that repeat until either the game is won or lost.  On a player’s turn, they may take up to 4 actions.  Then they take two Player cards from the deck, and reveal a number of infection cards spreading disease to new cities.  

The goal of the game is to cure each of the 4 diseases before there has been one of the following

1. 8 Outbreaks
2. Any color cube can not be placed on the board, because the team has run out of them
3. Any Player can not take Player cards because there are none left.

Setup

During game setup for Pandemic it is really important to follow the steps in order, if you don’t you will have to undo what you have done and start over.  

Firstly, layout the board and shuffle the Infection cards and place them in the Infection Deck area at the top of the board.  Next, shuffle the City Cards with the Event cards and deal cards to each player.  The number of cards per player is determined by the number of Players

• 2 Players = 4 cards
• 3 Players = 3 cards
• 4 Players = 2 Cards

Then the players take the Player Cards and split them into 4 to 6 piles and place an Epidemic Card on top of each pile.  The number of piles is based on how difficult the players want to make the game.  4 Epidemics for an easy game and up to 6 for a difficult game.

Then shuffle each pile of Player cards and place them face down onto of each other in the Player Deck area.

Then place the Infection Marker on the first space under the Infection Cards and the Outbreak Marker at 0 on the Outbreak meter on the left side of the board.  Then place one Research Station in Atlanta.  Now, place the four disease vials face down on their corresponding color at the bottom of the board.

Now it’s time to infect some cities. To do this, you start by turning over the top three cards in the infection deck. Place 3 cubes of the color of the city into that city. Then turn over the next 3 cards in the infection deck. Place 2 cubes of the color of the city into that city. Finally, turn over the next 3 cards and place 1 cube in each of those cities.

Lastly, Shuffle the role cards and without looking have each player select a role. These will be the players roles for the game and each has a special ability unique to them.  There are variations you can play here, selecting specific roles or a choose 2 pick one option, that’s up to you.

Rounds

A round of Pandemic is broken up into 3 steps per player’s turn, First is the Action step where a player can take up to 4 actions, second is to draw Player Cards, and finally to Infect Cities.

Action Step

In the Action step, a player can take at up to 4 actions, if they don’t want to take them all for some reason, they do not have to. There are 8 possible actions a player can take:

• Drive/Ferry – The action allows the player to move to any connected city.
• Direct Flight – The action allows a player to discard a city card and fly to that city.
• Charter Flight – The action allows a player if they are in a city in which they hold a city card in their hand, they can discard it and fly to any city on the board.
• Shuttle Flight – The action allows a player if they are at a city with a research station, they can fly to any other research station on the board.
• Build a Research Station – The action allows a player to discard a city card from their hand of the city they are currently in to build a research station in that city.
• Share Knowledge – The action allows a player to either give or take a city card from another player provided both players are in the city that is shown on the card.
• Treat Disease – The action allows a player in a city with a disease cube to remove one of those cubes, reducing the level of infection in the city.
• Cure Disease – The action allows a player who has 5 city cards of the same color who is also at a research station, to cure that disease. 
• After a player takes their 4 actions, the game moves to the Player Cards step.

Player Cards Step

During this step a player must take two cards from the player deck and add them to their hand. If their hand has more than 7 cards, they must discard down to 7 cards. Also, if the player picks up an Epidemic card, the game shifts to Epidemic mode (described below).

Infect Cities Step

The last step is to infect cities, here a player turns over a number of cards as indicated by the Infection meter and adds one cube of each city’s color to that city. After this, the next player takes a turning clockwise order.

Events, Curing and Eradicating Disease

Event Cards

In amongst the Player cards there are 10 Event cards that are one time actions that any player can play at any time during the game. These cards offer the players a one time benefit and each is unique but will help the players succeed in their mission.

Curing Disease

This is on of the most important actions a player can take in the game, since the whole objective is to cure 4 diseases. Once a player has collected 5 cards of the same color and is at a research station they can perform this action. Once a disease is cured, the treat action then eliminates all of the disease cubes in a city.

Eradicating disease

If the players are able to cure a disease and also clear all cubes of that disease off of the board, the disease is considered eradicated. In this case, the players flip over the disease vial to the other side to signify this. If a city with that disease color comes out during the infection or during an Epidemic, it is ignored and no cubes are placed on the board.

Epidemics and Outbreaks

Epidemic Cards

If a player, during the player card phase pulls an Epidemic card, the player first advances the infection meter one space to the right. Then they pull the bottom card from the Infection deck.  Then they infect that city with 3 cubes of its color.  Then they add the card to the discard pile and shuffle all cards on the discard pile (including the one just pulled) and then place the entire discard pile back on top of Infection deck. This means that everything that was previously infected, can now get reinfected.

Outbreaks

If a city has 3 cubes of one color and in the Infection Step that city is about to get it’s 4th, it does not get the 4th cube.  Instead, the Outbreak marker is advanced by 1 and each city connected to that city gets one additional cube.  If there are connected cities with 3 cubes already, you have a chain reaction outbreak and you advance the outbreak meter one further and infect every city but the original city connected to the new city.

Game End

Pandemic ends in a win, if the players are able to Cure all 4 diseases. You do not need to eradicate the diseases to win. The game ends in a loss, if the outbreak marker reaches 8 outbreaks; if the players run out of any disease cube color and can not infect a city; or if a player can not take two cards from the player deck because there are none left.

If you liked our overview of Pandemic, don’t forget to check out our Review and you can pick up a copy in our Shop.