Pandemic rules: how to play and how to win

Pandemic quick rules

The goal

Pandemic is a cooperative game: you win or lose together. Four diseases spread across the world map: blue, yellow, black and red. Your team wins as soon as it has discovered all four cures, without having to wipe them off the board. You all lose at the eighth outbreak, if a color runs out of cubes, or if there aren’t enough cards left to draw.

A turn

Your turn has three steps. Take up to four actions, then draw two Player cards. Finally, infect cities: flip as many Infection cards as the Infection Rate marker shows, and place one cube on each city drawn. Then it’s the player to your left.

Moving around

Each move costs one action. Drive: go to a neighboring city connected by a line. Direct flight: discard a city’s card and go there. Charter flight: discard the card of the city you’re in and go anywhere. Shuttle flight: go from one research station to another.

The other actions

Treat Disease removes one cube from your city, or all cubes of that color if its cure is discovered. Build a Research Station costs your city’s card. Share Knowledge: with a player in the same city, give them or take from them that city’s card. Discover a Cure: at a research station, discard five City cards of the same color.

Epidemics

Epidemic cards are hidden in the Player deck. When you draw one, the Infection Rate moves up one space, the bottom card of the Infection deck gets three cubes, then you shuffle the Infection discard pile and put it on top of the deck. Cities already hit will come back very soon.

Outbreaks

A city never has more than three cubes of one color. If it would get a fourth, it’s an outbreak: the Outbreaks marker moves up one space, and each neighboring city gets a cube of that color. A neighbor that already has three cubes outbreaks in turn, in a chain, but a city outbreaks only once per card drawn.

Roles, cards, and hand

Each player has a role with a special power: the Medic, for example, removes all cubes of one color in one action. Event cards are played at any time, with no action. You never keep more than seven cards in hand: beyond that, discard or play an Event. And you can discuss your plans freely.

Beginner traps

Drawing a replacement card after an epidemic: you never do. Thinking a cure must be discovered in a city of its color: any research station works. Forgetting you can also take a card from a teammate, if you’re both in that card’s city. And watch cities with three cubes: they’re the ones that outbreak.

How to win Pandemic

No points

Pandemic has no points: the whole team wins or loses together.

Victory

As soon as all four cures are discovered, even with cubes still on the board.

Defeat

At the eighth outbreak, when you must place a cube of a color whose supply is empty, or when a player can’t draw their two Player cards.

Difficulty

The number of Epidemic cards shuffled into the Player deck: Introductory (4), Standard (5), Heroic (6). The Ludingo sheet records it, along with what ended the game.

Example ending

With 4 players on Standard, the team has discovered 3 cures and the Outbreaks marker is on 7. Mia draws Paris, which already has 3 blue cubes: it’s an outbreak, the marker goes to 7 + 1 = 8, and the game is lost, even with 3 cures out of 4.

Common mistakes

• Thinking you must eradicate the diseases: discovering all four cures is enough to win.
• Forgetting that a chain reaction moves the Outbreaks marker for every city that outbreaks.
• Drawing a replacement card after an epidemic: you never do.
• Playing to the very end of the Player deck: the game is lost as soon as you can’t draw your two cards.

How to set up Pandemic

Setup takes about 10 minutes. Starting hand size depends on the number of players, and difficulty on the number of Epidemic cards.