The dream team reunited for what may be our final pre-Legacy bout of Pandemic. Seven epidemics, with the virulent strain included, proved surmountable. Cities were devastated by the black virus. It was looking bleak in those parts. Ten cubes remained in the supply, and there were multiple locations with three cubes, all near each other. Fortunately, though, we had our Quarantine Specialist camp out in Karachi, which bordered many of the problem cities. Adding to our fortune was that she held the Karachi player card, which the Dispatcher needed to effect black cure. Eastern Asia wasn’t faring much better. With red we were also at about ten cubes, though four cubes had been flung from the supply due to a virulent strain epidemic card. South America and Africa had begun to look bleak. Sao Paola and Lagos were about to outbreak into each other, cascading yellow cubes throughout the lands. Blue, we managed to eradicate early. We still had a good number of cards in the player deck – probably about eighteen or so once we turned in the five black cards needed to implement our final cure. The round of turns before that we saved yellow by using the re-examined research event to grab the fifth card needed, and the round of actions before we had turned in six red cards to cure the virulent strain, which due to an epidemic had required additional research.
We closed with only having had three outbreaks, a sizable player deck remaining, and a good number of cubes for each supply. Notably, we had even had two turns where we used only three of the four actions, and one player discarded the Special Orders event card; given that we had the Dispatcher and Operations Expert, we were able to move each other around well enough without needing the event, so it made more sense to keep player cards that could be shared/suited then to retain this event.
It was a wonderful game, full of dialogue and tension. That we managed several turns before the first epidemic struck drove our success. We were able to get situated on the board early in the game, and then we did not need to worry as much about all of the initial cities getting hammered early in the game. Chicago was one of our initial 3-cubed cities yet never came up again, at least not before we eradicated blue several rounds down the line. Another benefit was that many of the problem cities were near each other, thus making it easy to treat flare ups as well as make use of the Quarantine Specialist. I think a good number of things went in our favor, including one or two cities pulled for the “infect cards” step of the Epidemic card (where you put three cubes on a fresh infection city card) were blue cities, following that disease’s eradication. Though, I do think that some well-played moves created a situation where luck could favor us. As in life, sometimes you make your fortune.