Pandemic: How It Plays, Who It's For, and Where to Start

The number of Epidemic cards sets the difficulty: use 4 for an Introductory game, 5 for Standard, and 6 for Heroic. Any unused Epidemic cards are removed from the game. The rulebook recommends 4 Epidemic cards for your first game and moving to 6 after mastering the Standard game.

After setup, the players look at the City cards in their hands, and the player holding the city with the highest population takes the first turn. Play then passes to the left after each player finishes infecting cities.

During setup you flip 3 Infection cards and put 3 cubes of the matching color on each of those cities, flip 3 more cards and put 2 cubes on each, then flip 3 final cards and put 1 cube on each. That places 18 disease cubes total across 9 cities, and those 9 cards go face up on the Infection Discard Pile.

All pawns start in Atlanta. During setup, each player is dealt a face-up Role card, and the matching colored pawns for those roles are placed in Atlanta. Role cards and pawns not dealt to anyone are removed from the game.

Yes, one research station is placed in Atlanta during setup, since Atlanta is home to the CDC. The other research stations stay in a supply next to the board along with the disease cubes until players build them.

The game contains 7 Role cards, 59 Player cards (48 City cards, 6 Epidemic cards, 5 Event cards), 96 disease cubes in 4 colors, 4 cure markers, 4 reference cards, a board, an infection rate marker, an outbreaks marker, and 6 research stations. It also includes 48 Infection cards and 7 pawns.

Each turn has three parts in order: do 4 actions, draw 2 Player cards (resolving any Epidemics and discarding down to 7), then infect cities. Once you finish infecting cities, the player on your left takes their turn.

Event cards can be played at any time, even during another player's turn, and playing one does not count as an action. Certain Events even specify interrupt timing, such as between the Infect and Intensify steps of an Epidemic.

Treating normally removes 1 cube of one color from the city you are in per action. If that disease color has been cured, a single Treat Disease action removes all cubes of that color from the city instead. Note that if a city has cubes of several cured diseases, you must still Treat Disease once for each cured color.

Both players must be in the same city, and the card being shared must match that city. You can either give the matching City card to the other player or take it from them, and both players must agree. You cannot share a card for a city you are not currently in.

You can still build a research station. If all 6 supplied research stations are on the board, you take a research station from anywhere on the board and place it in your city. You still must discard the City card matching the city you are in to build there.

Your hand limit is 7 cards, and you discard down after drawing your 2 Player cards each turn. If a Share Knowledge action pushes you over 7 cards, you must immediately discard a card or play an Event card to get back within the limit.

Nothing is placed. When cities of an eradicated disease come up during infections or epidemics, no new disease cubes are placed there. This is the practical payoff of eradication, even though it isn't required to win.

Nothing special happens. Removing the last cube of a disease that is not cured has no effect — the disease is not eradicated, the marker isn't flipped, and the game simply continues. Only removing the last cube of a cured disease triggers eradication.

The players lose immediately. If you ever need to place disease cubes of a color and not enough are left in the supply, the disease has spread too much and the game ends in a loss for the whole team.

The players lose immediately. The outbreaks marker tracks every outbreak during the game, and if 8 outbreaks occur, a worldwide panic happens and the game ends in defeat for everyone.

Yes. A white line that runs off one edge of the board wraps around to the opposite edge and connects to a city there, and you can Drive/Ferry along it. The rulebook's example is that Sydney and Los Angeles are connected this way.

Pandemic has three difficulty levels set by the number of Epidemic cards used: 4 for Introductory, 5 for Standard, and 6 for Heroic. Any Epidemic cards not being used are removed from the game entirely.

After dealing initial hands, the remaining player cards are split into face-down piles that are as equal in size as possible, with one pile per Epidemic card in use. One Epidemic card is then shuffled face down into each pile. This spreads the Epidemics roughly evenly through the deck rather than letting them cluster together.

After shuffling an Epidemic into each pile, the piles are stacked with the smaller piles on the bottom to form the Player Deck. Because the piles are only as equal as you can make them, placing smaller ones deeper keeps the deck's overall size consistent and the Epidemic spacing predictable.

The game is played with exactly 6 research stations in the supply. If your copy came with more than 6, the extras are simply set aside during setup and not used.