I don't have much experience playing with board games (except Ludo), so I was excited when our instructor announced that we were going to be playing a board game called Pandemic in class for a month. How cool is that!
Little did I know that the game would require a lot of planning, and wasn't easy to win. My teammates and I spent a good amount of time trying to understand the rules, and then barely got to play a round, which we failed badly. We kept infecting multiple cities until we ran out of player cards. But at least we got to cure two diseases (before losing miserably)!
Playing this round made me realise that the game required teamwork, collaboration and communication, just like how we are expected to work in real life.
I am not the smartest strategist, but to win this game, I do know that the first thing we'd need to do is to reread the rules, and understand them properly. Our main objective would be to cure all four diseases. In order to do this, I'll have to brainstorm with my peers before starting the game. We need to discuss what roles would be more important than others (and why). For example, a scientist has an advantage of being able to cure a disease with only four City cards, whereas a Quarantine Specialist would prevent outbreaks in the city she is in, and all the cities connected to her. Lots of choices!
We should build at least one research station in each continent for easy travel. The Quarantine Specialist can hang around in cities that has the highest number of other cities connected to it, to protect them all. The Medic will play a crucial role, since he can remove all the disease cubes in a city in one action. We can discuss or advise each other before taking an action, to make each move more productive. We'll also need to constantly identify who has the highest number of City cards of a particular colour, so that we can share knowledge, and cure diseases one by one.
Overall, this game felt a bit like the movies Contagion and Deranged (of course, a lot less dramatic though), and I realise that pandemics are a lot more complex to deal with in real life, but I feel that the game gives us a teeny-tiny glimpse.
I am not the smartest strategist, but to win this game, I do know that the first thing we'd need to do is to reread the rules, and understand them properly. Our main objective would be to cure all four diseases. In order to do this, I'll have to brainstorm with my peers before starting the game. We need to discuss what roles would be more important than others (and why). For example, a scientist has an advantage of being able to cure a disease with only four City cards, whereas a Quarantine Specialist would prevent outbreaks in the city she is in, and all the cities connected to her. Lots of choices!
We should build at least one research station in each continent for easy travel. The Quarantine Specialist can hang around in cities that has the highest number of other cities connected to it, to protect them all. The Medic will play a crucial role, since he can remove all the disease cubes in a city in one action. We can discuss or advise each other before taking an action, to make each move more productive. We'll also need to constantly identify who has the highest number of City cards of a particular colour, so that we can share knowledge, and cure diseases one by one.
Overall, this game felt a bit like the movies Contagion and Deranged (of course, a lot less dramatic though), and I realise that pandemics are a lot more complex to deal with in real life, but I feel that the game gives us a teeny-tiny glimpse.
No comments:
Post a Comment