James, just like Simon had a wonderful play through of the pandemic cure, your play through of this solo variant on pandemic is exceptional. Thank you so much for doing these videos.
Aww ☺️ Thank you. It is truly a delight to be able share this wonderful hobby through these videos and your appreciation is an amazing source of encouragement to keep going :)
www.zmangames.com/en/products/pandemic/ If you scroll down to 'downloads' you will find the solo variant rules, along with several other variants and resources.
The official solo rules say to eliminate the Researcher role, either bc the City/Event cards in hand are shared between all three roles being played, and/or bc it will be too easy to find cures (requiring only 4 cards). Not sure what the intent of prohibiting Researcher role is. Otherwise, good demo of solo play. 👍
Hi in the outbreak event in 31:52 seconds you put a cube in Beijing which houses the medic himself. Now the red disease is cured and as it houses the medic, beijing should not get any cubes right??? As the medic not only removes all cubes automatically of a cured disease wherever it goes without it being considered as an action and also prevents the spread pf a cured disease??
I'm always wondering what should happen if a chain outbreak happens on Santiago (coming from an outbreak in Lima). It is the only dead end in the map and feels really odd to me. I suppose the spreading stops right there, but outbreak indicator increases by one more anyway.
That is correct. As chain reaction outbreaks never double back on the origin location, it would simply end in Santiago and tick up on the outbreak tracker.
Great question. The Archive cards are drawn at random during setup at the same time as drawing 3 cards to form your starting hand. Basically as though you were drawing cards for a second player. Here are the official rules for the solo variant (just in case I made any mistakes in the video) - images.zmangames.com/filer_public/52/af/52af7da5-f336-4465-9369-1ca74f0bc250/pandemic_solo_rules.pdf
Question after you pull the epidemic card aren't you supposed to move the indicator up one? my game is is 10 years old if the rules are wrong please let me know. I'll need to update.
You are indeed supposed to do just that. Which indicator are you referring to? I just scrubbed through the video, and the Infection Rate marker was moved up after drawing each epidemic card, which is correct. The only other indicator is on the Outbreak Track and that only advances when an outbreak occurs. My apologies for the confusion.
I'm three quarters through this, and notice that you don't use the archive at all (at least not yet) Just wondering if there was a reason? You could have used them to cure red by now if you used the scientist. Edit: ah, I should have watched to the end! Still unsure why you didn't do it earlier though. Enjoyed watching this very much!
Just played my first game in solo and finished with 3 player cards left ahaha. 2 more turns and I would lose! I believe it's harder because you only have one hand to hold cards so you spend a lot of time discarding extra cards (since you can only have 7). Maybe it's just better to play solo like if it was a multiplayer game. And manage a full hand for each character instead of having just one for the 3! They probably made the solo rules to make it easier to manage hands but seriously, I think i was discarding too many cards for nothing.
Good point. That would be basically the same then as a multi player game. In this video I was specifically showing the official solo rules. I believe the intent of the solo rules as described is to simplify the admin.
Having not played all the different variants I can’t say for certain. But considering that it’s the same core system across them I imagine it should at least help somewhat. And I believe the solo system I used in this video was developed for Fall of Rome, which they then modded for base Pandemic. We have done a separate video for Iberia if you would like to see how that one plays with 2 players.
You most certainly can. That is precisely how I played Pandemic Hot Zone NA in my video for that. This solo mode was developed for Pandemic Falling Rome and they reverse engineered it for the base game.
James, just like Simon had a wonderful play through of the pandemic cure, your play through of this solo variant on pandemic is exceptional. Thank you so much for doing these videos.
Aww ☺️
Thank you.
It is truly a delight to be able share this wonderful hobby through these videos and your appreciation is an amazing source of encouragement to keep going :)
Thank you for demonstrating the new single player variant
Where can you get instructions for a solo game. I just bought the game and theres no solo variant mentioned.
www.zmangames.com/en/products/pandemic/
If you scroll down to 'downloads' you will find the solo variant rules, along with several other variants and resources.
@@ThatBoardGameShow Thanks
Thanks for the clear explanation. Even though it was a solo game it explained all the mechanics much more clearly than others I've watched.
Thank you :)
I am most pleased that it was helpful
At 16:25 you should draw *TWO* cards, then resolve any epidemics, then discard if hand size more than 7.
The official solo rules say to eliminate the Researcher role, either bc the City/Event cards in hand are shared between all three roles being played, and/or bc it will be too easy to find cures (requiring only 4 cards). Not sure what the intent of prohibiting Researcher role is. Otherwise, good demo of solo play. 👍
The researcher doesn't cure with 4 cards - that's the scientist, which is played in this game.
Hi in the outbreak event in 31:52 seconds you put a cube in Beijing which houses the medic himself. Now the red disease is cured and as it houses the medic, beijing should not get any cubes right??? As the medic not only removes all cubes automatically of a cured disease wherever it goes without it being considered as an action and also prevents the spread pf a cured disease??
Good catch!
Thank you for pointing that out, you are 100% correct.
I should not have placed a red cube in the same city as the medic. Oops.
Excellent and fun how you create the mood and story
Thank you :)
I'm always wondering what should happen if a chain outbreak happens on Santiago (coming from an outbreak in Lima). It is the only dead end in the map and feels really odd to me. I suppose the spreading stops right there, but outbreak indicator increases by one more anyway.
That is correct. As chain reaction outbreaks never double back on the origin location, it would simply end in Santiago and tick up on the outbreak tracker.
Thank you Sir
Is the archive pulled at random at the beginning of the set up? Or do you specifically pick three of the same color at set up?
Great question.
The Archive cards are drawn at random during setup at the same time as drawing 3 cards to form your starting hand.
Basically as though you were drawing cards for a second player.
Here are the official rules for the solo variant (just in case I made any mistakes in the video) - images.zmangames.com/filer_public/52/af/52af7da5-f336-4465-9369-1ca74f0bc250/pandemic_solo_rules.pdf
Question after you pull the epidemic card aren't you supposed to move the indicator up one? my game is is 10 years old if the rules are wrong please let me know. I'll need to update.
You are indeed supposed to do just that.
Which indicator are you referring to?
I just scrubbed through the video, and the Infection Rate marker was moved up after drawing each epidemic card, which is correct.
The only other indicator is on the Outbreak Track and that only advances when an outbreak occurs.
My apologies for the confusion.
I'm three quarters through this, and notice that you don't use the archive at all (at least not yet) Just wondering if there was a reason? You could have used them to cure red by now if you used the scientist. Edit: ah, I should have watched to the end! Still unsure why you didn't do it earlier though. Enjoyed watching this very much!
I probably just forgot about it…
Glad you enjoyed it in spite of my poor strategy ;)
Whenever i play i always run out of player cards, im not sure if im playing wrong or im just really unlucky.
Just played my first game in solo and finished with 3 player cards left ahaha. 2 more turns and I would lose! I believe it's harder because you only have one hand to hold cards so you spend a lot of time discarding extra cards (since you can only have 7). Maybe it's just better to play solo like if it was a multiplayer game. And manage a full hand for each character instead of having just one for the 3! They probably made the solo rules to make it easier to manage hands but seriously, I think i was discarding too many cards for nothing.
shouldn't u use separate cards for each character? here you don't have to share knowlage making it way easier.
Good point. That would be basically the same then as a multi player game. In this video I was specifically showing the official solo rules. I believe the intent of the solo rules as described is to simplify the admin.
We can play solo the basic game?
You certainly can :)
I believe the solo rules were developed for Pandemic Fall of Rome, and then they adapted them for the base game.
Is this good for all of the pandemic games?
Having not played all the different variants I can’t say for certain.
But considering that it’s the same core system across them I imagine it should at least help somewhat. And I believe the solo system I used in this video was developed for Fall of Rome, which they then modded for base Pandemic.
We have done a separate video for Iberia if you would like to see how that one plays with 2 players.
Lol almost like it was invented to encourage social distancing.
can't you just play a multiplayer game at you're own i mean its a co up game so it doesn't matter a lot?
i mean it makes the game harder
You most certainly can.
That is precisely how I played Pandemic Hot Zone NA in my video for that.
This solo mode was developed for Pandemic Falling Rome and they reverse engineered it for the base game.