I passed 100 different new-to-me games played this year… which is something that happened last year, too. But I have actually been keeping more detailed stats for 2015, so I know it just happened earlier in October.
There were no new-to-me games this week, unless you count the Roll for the Galaxy expansion:
Netrunner - Still playing on most Thursdays, but it’s definitely slowed down.
Minerva - Another play, on someone else’s copy no less! In my observation, people tend to undervalue purple tiles, undervalue passing early, and overvalue military... but I expect my own misconceptions to be proven wrong in the very next game I play.
Canal Mania - My disconnected network floundered in the face of others who could move goods for 6 points at a time.
Roll for the Galaxy - Adding in the new Ambition expansion, which I like. More starting tiles with interesting abilities: good. If you like the goals from Race for the Galaxy, you’ll probably find the objectives a reasonable substitute in Roll for the Galaxy. If you don’t… the new tiles are good on their own (I’ve only used the objectives in one out of my three plays so far).
Dominion - Even with a ridiculous engine, my hubris was my downfall; buying an action card when I could have bought a duchy resulted in a tie.
Outpost - This continues to work well with two players. Dan pointed out that it was very close game… but close games don’t have close scores in Outpost (I lost 85 to 62).
Played three games in Pandemic Legacy. Lost the first two but won the third.
I've never been a huge fan of Pandemic, but the legacy aspects make this game so much better than the original. I don't want to give away any spoilers, but there's almost a story going on as the game progresses which really adds to the different choices you have to make. Combine that with some light RPG elements to the characters makes this game superior to "vanilla" Pandemic in every way possible.
I honestly can't wait for my group to get back together and play the next game.
I guess I should first start out by saying that I don't think quarterbacking is a game problem. I think it's a player problem. By that I mean that quarterbacking only occurs if (1) one player thinks that he or she knows better than the other players and gets frustrated when they don't listen to him or her or (2) if the players aren't all on the same level in terms of skill, strategy, etc. Both of these problems can be solved by either not playing with a player like in (1) or not playing with weaker players like in (2).
That said, I don't think quarterbacking is/will be as bad in Pandemic Legacy because there are different goals you can try to achieve, all of which are worth pursuing, so there is no one right way to spend your turn. For example, without giving away too many spoilers...
*****STOP HERE IF YOU DON'T WANT ANY SPOILERS AT ALL*****
In the game, if you eradicate a disease (cure it and then remove all the cubes of that color from the board), when choosing an upgrade, regardless of if you've won or lost that specific game, you can choose to give that disease a positive mutation. There are different positive mutations, that increase in level. The first level is that you no longer have to cure that disease in a research station. You can cure it anywhere on the board. This is a HUGE benefit considering that a player might not be near a research station, research stations can now be destroyed, and other things happening.
As a result, in my playgroup, as we were nearing the end of game 2, we had a very serious discussion as to whether we should try to win that current game immediately, or try to eradicate one of the diseases for a permanent positive mutation. It becomes a strategic decision. Do you try for the short-term victory and not try to eradicate the disease or do you risk losing the game but eradicating the disease so, from that game on, that disease will have a positive mutation.
Our group thought we had the diseases relatively under control and instead of trying to maximize our efforts in winning that specific game, we tried to eradicate one of the diseases we had already cured. We were able to eradicate it, but we ended up losing the game. Eradicating the disease gave us a positive mutation which will help us in all future games. Losing the game had negative ramifications on the campaign. At this point, none of the players in my group know if it was worth it or not, but we did go on to win game 3.
So, to answer your original question, because different players might have different priorities (winning that game, eradicating a disease for a positive mutation, building a research station for future games, etc), there is no longer an optimal turn because different players might have different goals, all of them legitimately worth pursuing. The nature of the campaign adds another level to each game, especially since each game builds off each other.
Quarterbacking is a game problem. Hanabi elegantly and magnificently solved that problem. That's why it deservedly won the Spiel Des Jahres. Because it was unable to solve that problem, Pandemic sits in the garbage pile next to Munchkin. If Pandemic: Legacy still has all the flaws of Pandemic, then fuck it.
Quarterbacking is not a game problem. It is not a flaw or an imbalance inherent in the game. Pandemic, regardless of what you think of the game, is not like A Few Acres of Snow, which is legitimately broken. It is not like Twilight Imperium Third edition before any of the expansions, where there was clearly an optimal move to be made. It is not like Munchkin where you always attack the person in the lead.
Quarterbacking only occurs in groups where either one player thinks that he or she is superior to the other players (which may even be true) or when the players are not all of the same skill level. Quarterbacking is not an inherent flaw in the game that will occur in all situations. It will only occur based on the player make-up.
Even if it is a game problem, which I disagree, as I went on to explain in my previous post, Pandemic Legacy mitigates this by giving the players multiple short and long term goals to pursue, all of them worthwhile. As a result, there is no longer an optimal turn because players can have legitimate difference of opinion as to what they should do.
That's the Halifax Hammer thing, where the British have a legitimately superior and unbeatable strategy that the French cannot possibly counter?
I mean, in all fairness, history did go to the Brits, so I suppose that's appropriate.
Too bad for the game, though. I thought it was fairly elegant and interesting, but knowing that there is One True Way that one side can simply win sorta spoils it.
You see, Pandemic, and other garbage games of it's ilk, are not co-op at all. They are solitaire games. Sit around with your friends playing Microsoft Solitaire together, and that's Pandemic.
The only thing that makes Pandemic co-op is the suggestion that each player not tell the others what cards they have in their hand. But the rules as written do not keep this information to remain hidden. The rules could easily have said,
"Under no circumstances should any player even hint to another player as to the contents of their hand, or suggest what another player should do on their turn."
But they don't say that. They explicitly permit you to communicate and give each other hints with vague language. You may as well all play with an open hand. And now the game is solitaire.
Even if, as you suggest, all players are equally skilled, the game is still fucked. There's no need for more than one person to play. What is the purpose if Rym and I both see the optimal move of us cooperating? I'm just wasting my time. It's not a game. It's a puzzle. If someone wants to solve it, they can. They don't need anyone else.
One way of solving this problem and making a game truly co-op is to use the method applied by Space Alert and X-COM. They would be solitaire games, but for their real-time speed factor. No one person can do all of those jobs that quickly. You need to work together to make it happen.
Hanabi has the best method of solving it. It makes the information economy a game mechanic in itself, such that you absolutely depend upon all players performing well to get a good result.
Without changing the game of Pandemic extensively, the only way to make it co-op is to isolate all the players such that they can not communicate with each other whatsoever beyond seeing which moves the other players make on their turns. If you do that, then the game is still solitaire! Other players you can't communicate with are effectively no different than computerized AI players, and now you are playing solitaire again.
Pandemic is trash. I wipe my butt with it's cardboard.
For Pandemic: Legacy to make Pandemic worth playing it has to directly address this fundamental game flaw. Personally, I would have just done the real-time thing. Give each player a unique role and make them work FAST.
It's a little ridiculous, but the Halifax Hammer did steer me away from A Few Acres of Snow (which I was otherwise interested in). I have no problem with start player advantage or similar issues in other games, but a degenerate strategy for one half of an asymmetric two player game... I like to read strategy discussion online after one or two plays, so I'd run into it very quickly.
Scott: Pandemic Legacy explicitly calls for players to play with their hands open. You would hate it.
I personally don't have a problem with everyone putting their heads together to solve the board puzzle in Pandemic; it feels (faintly) like pair programming - an activity I enjoy, and most people I know dislike with a passion.
Scott: Pandemic Legacy explicitly calls for players to play with their hands open. You would hate it.
I personally don't have a problem with everyone putting their heads together to solve the board puzzle in Pandemic; it feels (faintly) like pair programming - an activity I enjoy, and most people I know dislike with a passion.
Even if, as you suggest, all players are equally skilled, the game is still fucked. There's no need for more than one person to play. What is the purpose if Rym and I both see the optimal move of us cooperating? I'm just wasting my time. It's not a game. It's a puzzle. If someone wants to solve it, they can. They don't need anyone else.
I don't mean for this to be an ad hominem attack on you Scott, but the sheer arrogance of this statement is just staggering.
You're assuming that you and Rym can always see the optimal move no matter what, in any and all situations. If that was the case, you'd have a 100% win record playing Pandemic. Because there are elements of randomness in the game, that's not possible. An optimal move one turn could turn out to have been sub-optimal based on the changing game-state.
Additionally, you completely disregard the possibility that rather than just thinking alone trying to solve a problem, some people may enjoy the collaborative aspect of trying to solve it together. You wrongly assume that just because you don't like something, or think a certain way, that all other people don't like it or also think the same way you do.
As I keep saying, Quarterbacking can be a problem in Pandemic but it's not an inherent problem with the game itself, it's a problem with specific players, namely you.
You're assuming that you and Rym can always see the optimal move no matter what, in any and all situations. If that was the case, you'd have a 100% win record playing Pandemic. Because there are elements of randomness in the game, that's not possible.
That's immaterial. There are odds to the random elements, and you can take them into account. A move that is only known to be sub-optimal after further information is revealed has no bearing on "perfect" play unless that information could have been discovered or derived ahead of the decision.
If the decision ended up being "A is 60% likely to be the best choice, but B has a better payout if we're right", THEN there's an interesting debate to be had among the players on how much risk to assume.
But determining what those odds are? Just reveal your hands. That part is stupid.
Additionally, you completely disregard the possibility that rather than just thinking alone trying to solve a problem, some people may enjoy the collaborative aspect of trying to solve it together.
They are free to enjoy that. For some people, Pandemic is a fine puzzle to solve together. But in that case, the soft rules around hand knowledge is bullshit. Just play with entirely open hands. If open hands were the rule in regular Pandemic, I'd have almost no beef with the game.
As I keep saying, Quarterbacking can be a problem in Pandemic but it's not an inherent problem with the game itself, it's a problem with specific players, namely you.
If someone ever attempts to make a clearly bad move, I would correct them and point out the better move.
Now, they have two options.
1. Stupidly do the bad move anyway, harming the team and/or losing the game.
2. Change their move to what I suggested
At what point did they have any meaningful input into the game?
Even if, as you suggest, all players are equally skilled, the game is still fucked. There's no need for more than one person to play. What is the purpose if Rym and I both see the optimal move of us cooperating? I'm just wasting my time. It's not a game. It's a puzzle. If someone wants to solve it, they can. They don't need anyone else.
I don't mean for this to be an ad hominem attack on you Scott, but the sheer arrogance of this statement is just staggering.
You're assuming that you and Rym can always see the optimal move no matter what, in any and all situations. If that was the case, you'd have a 100% win record playing Pandemic. Because there are elements of randomness in the game, that's not possible. An optimal move one turn could turn out to have been sub-optimal based on the changing game-state.
Additionally, you completely disregard the possibility that rather than just thinking alone trying to solve a problem, some people may enjoy the collaborative aspect of trying to solve it together. You wrongly assume that just because you don't like something, or think a certain way, that all other people don't like it or also think the same way you do.
As I keep saying, Quarterbacking can be a problem in Pandemic but it's not an inherent problem with the game itself, it's a problem with specific players, namely you.
It is an ad hominem. Scott is talking about how the mechanics of the game make it unsatisfying to play as a cooperative game. You are talking about how it can be a fun cooperative experience and if people don't agree then they are arrogant. People have fun all the time with unsatisfying things. My friends and I play the DC deck building game sometimes on our game nights and afterwards we turn around and play the cooperative expansion. It isn't interesting. I know we are probably going to "win" before the game even starts but it is already out and some of the other people want a little levity in between games so I go along because we decided that the winner of the current game gets to choose the next game. Also I can shoot the shit with my friends then more than with a game that I have to pay attention to play and get some food and beer. One person could be playing the game and win. Cooperation only might make the game go faster so we can move on to something else. Under no circumstances would I recommend that people go out and buy it because it isn't that fun to play.
I have never played Pandemic but it sounds dull and because there are other, more fun games out there I will save my money and buy something I will enjoy more.
Even if, as you suggest, all players are equally skilled, the game is still fucked. There's no need for more than one person to play. What is the purpose if Rym and I both see the optimal move of us cooperating? I'm just wasting my time. It's not a game. It's a puzzle. If someone wants to solve it, they can. They don't need anyone else.
I don't mean for this to be an ad hominem attack on you Scott, but the sheer arrogance of this statement is just staggering.
You're assuming that you and Rym can always see the optimal move no matter what, in any and all situations. If that was the case, you'd have a 100% win record playing Pandemic. Because there are elements of randomness in the game, that's not possible. An optimal move one turn could turn out to have been sub-optimal based on the changing game-state.
Additionally, you completely disregard the possibility that rather than just thinking alone trying to solve a problem, some people may enjoy the collaborative aspect of trying to solve it together. You wrongly assume that just because you don't like something, or think a certain way, that all other people don't like it or also think the same way you do.
As I keep saying, Quarterbacking can be a problem in Pandemic but it's not an inherent problem with the game itself, it's a problem with specific players, namely you.
It is an ad hominem. Scott is talking about how the mechanics of the game make it unsatisfying to play as a cooperative game. You are talking about how it can be a fun cooperative experience and if people don't agree then they are arrogant. People have fun all the time with unsatisfying things. My friends and I play the DC deck building game sometimes on our game nights and afterwards we turn around and play the cooperative expansion. It isn't interesting. I know we are probably going to "win" before the game even starts but it is already out and some of the other people want a little levity in between games so I go along because we decided that the winner of the current game gets to choose the next game. Also I can shoot the shit with my friends then more than with a game that I have to pay attention to play and get some food and beer. One person could be playing the game and win. Cooperation only might make the game go faster so we can move on to something else. Under no circumstances would I recommend that people go out and buy it because it isn't that fun to play.
I have never played Pandemic but it sounds dull and because there are other, more fun games out there I will save my money and buy something I will enjoy more.
I'm not saying that people who disagree with me are arrogant, I'm saying that Scott is conflating his dislike of the mechanics of Pandemic with the game itself being bad. Those are two very different things. His arrogance is assuming that just because he doesn't like something, then the game itself is flawed.
Like I wrote previously, A Few Acres of Snow is a flawed game. Even the designer admits that the game is broken. There is a strategy that is unstoppable. It literally cannot be beaten. Pandemic is a game with certain mechanics. Some people may not enjoy those mechanics, some people do. That doesn't make the game inherently flawed. It means that different people have different tastes in games and Scott doesn't like this type of game. That's not a problem with the game per se, it's Scott's preference.
You're assuming that you and Rym can always see the optimal move no matter what, in any and all situations. If that was the case, you'd have a 100% win record playing Pandemic. Because there are elements of randomness in the game, that's not possible.
That's immaterial. There are odds to the random elements, and you can take them into account. A move that is only known to be sub-optimal after further information is revealed has no bearing on "perfect" play unless that information could have been discovered or derived ahead of the decision.
If the decision ended up being "A is 60% likely to be the best choice, but B has a better payout if we're right", THEN there's an interesting debate to be had among the players on how much risk to assume.
But determining what those odds are? Just reveal your hands. That part is stupid.
As I wrote above, this is exactly what Pandemic Legacy does. By providing the players with multiple goals, and because the consequences of failure are not always known, there is no optimal move anymore.
Additionally, you completely disregard the possibility that rather than just thinking alone trying to solve a problem, some people may enjoy the collaborative aspect of trying to solve it together.
They are free to enjoy that. For some people, Pandemic is a fine puzzle to solve together. But in that case, the soft rules around hand knowledge is bullshit. Just play with entirely open hands. If open hands were the rule in regular Pandemic, I'd have almost no beef with the game.
Thank you! You just unintentionally made my point. To some players, Pandemic is a fine puzzle game. To others, like you and Scott, the Quarterbacking issue makes the game unenjoyable. As I keep saying, that doesn't mean that the problem is inherent in the game, it means that the problem is with particular players.
As I keep saying, Quarterbacking can be a problem in Pandemic but it's not an inherent problem with the game itself, it's a problem with specific players, namely you.
If someone ever attempts to make a clearly bad move, I would correct them and point out the better move.
Now, they have two options.
1. Stupidly do the bad move anyway, harming the team and/or losing the game.
2. Change their move to what I suggested
At what point did they have any meaningful input into the game?
1. You're assuming that when one player tells another player that the proposed move is bad, the first player is always correct. This is not always the case.
2. You're assuming that contributing meaningful input into the game is the goal. Again, like you yourself wrote above, some people may enjoy the collaborative aspect of puzzle solving. To them, having a discussion as to why a certain move is bad or not is part of the appeal of Pandemic.
Scott: Pandemic Legacy explicitly calls for players to play with their hands open. You would hate it.
I personally don't have a problem with everyone putting their heads together to solve the board puzzle in Pandemic; it feels (faintly) like pair programming - an activity I enjoy, and most people I know dislike with a passion.
2. You're assuming that contributing meaningful input into the game is the goal. Again, like you yourself wrote above, some people may enjoy the collaborative aspect of puzzle solving. To them, having a discussion as to why a certain move is bad or not is part of the appeal of Pandemic.
The game is pretty simple. I've never seen anyone play it with any collaboration outside of a "first time" teaching game. There's one good answer, or else an entirely arbitrary decision, most turns. It's usually super obvious. People only make the wrong move if they (aren't telling everyone else everything in their hands) or are dumb.
The game is bad at being an actually cooperative, collaborative game. There aren't mechanics around making decisions or working together. That stuff is all bolted on to the side.
I never really got into Pandemic. Rym and Scott are right about it as viewed in a certain sense as awkward cooperative solitaire. That said, I don't mind the notion of playing Pandemic Legacy. I played Risk Legacy. It was very fun. It did have a competitive element. Still, some amount of the "fun" from Risk Legacy had more to do with the storytelling shared experience aspect of the game. I can totally see that working for Pandemic.
"In our game we turned the yellow virus into a humanity saving super immune booster... but our red virus became a hybrid airborn super ebola aids and made the game impossible to win until we built a lab in southeast Afghanistan." Or something.
It's a puzzle that plays out differently based on the decisions the group makes, with a significant hidden information element. That's more like playing a certain kind of role-playing game than a board game, I guess.
For the seasoned board gamer there's a lot to find familiar here. You have the auctions and territory control of Power Grid. The stock battles of Panamax. The technology/personality race of The New Science. It's almost a "4th dimensional knife fight with money" Since there are many levels you can compete on: Technology, Propaganda, Industry, and Stocks.
The game is six turns divided into 3 phases. The later the phase the more pronounced the swings. What costs $1,000 in the first phase costs $3,000 in the last phase.
The object is to have the most valuable stock portfolio at the end of the game. You start with 4 shares in your company, with a starting stock price of 12. (the stock price also doubles as the "score track" you see in most games)
Buying stock drives that price up by two points, but selling the stock can drive the price down by as much as six points. The main method of driving your stock price up is by building projects in cities. You can buy and sell stock in other companies (players) but you cannot buy and sell the same stock with one action. (I can buy stocks A and C, and then sell stocks B and D with one action, but if I wanted to buy and sell A it would take two different actions.)
The stock function forces you to really pay attention to what other players are doing. I noticed one player was in a position to build a lot of level 4 plants that I couldn't build. So I bought 2 shares of his stock. He built the plants and my investment went up by $24,000. Later on, I sold the stock to put more distance between his stock price and my own. Then I just keep cycling other peoples stocks, funneling the money into my own projects driving my own stock price up. It helped that one of the luminaries I won in the auction gave me a large bonuses to trading stocks.
The last phase is largely king making, although your ability to Kingmake depends largely on the amount of stocks you own in other people's companies compared to yours. If your stock can't be traded, other people can't drive the price down. I won with owning 8 shares of my stock and 2 of another player's stock. My stock price was ended up being the highest at end game, because there was less of it in play.
Does the kingmaking come from stock price shenanigans, or other factors? I suppose as long as stocks still pay dividends after the last time players can play games with the stock market, it should keep the market from going crazy at the end.
Keep in mind I haven't played the game or read the rules, I only saw it being played.
Comments
There were no new-to-me games this week, unless you count the Roll for the Galaxy expansion:
Netrunner - Still playing on most Thursdays, but it’s definitely slowed down.
Minerva - Another play, on someone else’s copy no less! In my observation, people tend to undervalue purple tiles, undervalue passing early, and overvalue military... but I expect my own misconceptions to be proven wrong in the very next game I play.
Canal Mania - My disconnected network floundered in the face of others who could move goods for 6 points at a time.
Roll for the Galaxy - Adding in the new Ambition expansion, which I like. More starting tiles with interesting abilities: good. If you like the goals from Race for the Galaxy, you’ll probably find the objectives a reasonable substitute in Roll for the Galaxy. If you don’t… the new tiles are good on their own (I’ve only used the objectives in one out of my three plays so far).
Dominion - Even with a ridiculous engine, my hubris was my downfall; buying an action card when I could have bought a duchy resulted in a tie.
Outpost - This continues to work well with two players. Dan pointed out that it was very close game… but close games don’t have close scores in Outpost (I lost 85 to 62).
I've never been a huge fan of Pandemic, but the legacy aspects make this game so much better than the original. I don't want to give away any spoilers, but there's almost a story going on as the game progresses which really adds to the different choices you have to make. Combine that with some light RPG elements to the characters makes this game superior to "vanilla" Pandemic in every way possible.
I honestly can't wait for my group to get back together and play the next game.
I guess I should first start out by saying that I don't think quarterbacking is a game problem. I think it's a player problem. By that I mean that quarterbacking only occurs if (1) one player thinks that he or she knows better than the other players and gets frustrated when they don't listen to him or her or (2) if the players aren't all on the same level in terms of skill, strategy, etc. Both of these problems can be solved by either not playing with a player like in (1) or not playing with weaker players like in (2).
That said, I don't think quarterbacking is/will be as bad in Pandemic Legacy because there are different goals you can try to achieve, all of which are worth pursuing, so there is no one right way to spend your turn. For example, without giving away too many spoilers...
*****STOP HERE IF YOU DON'T WANT ANY SPOILERS AT ALL*****
In the game, if you eradicate a disease (cure it and then remove all the cubes of that color from the board), when choosing an upgrade, regardless of if you've won or lost that specific game, you can choose to give that disease a positive mutation. There are different positive mutations, that increase in level. The first level is that you no longer have to cure that disease in a research station. You can cure it anywhere on the board. This is a HUGE benefit considering that a player might not be near a research station, research stations can now be destroyed, and other things happening.
As a result, in my playgroup, as we were nearing the end of game 2, we had a very serious discussion as to whether we should try to win that current game immediately, or try to eradicate one of the diseases for a permanent positive mutation. It becomes a strategic decision. Do you try for the short-term victory and not try to eradicate the disease or do you risk losing the game but eradicating the disease so, from that game on, that disease will have a positive mutation.
Our group thought we had the diseases relatively under control and instead of trying to maximize our efforts in winning that specific game, we tried to eradicate one of the diseases we had already cured. We were able to eradicate it, but we ended up losing the game. Eradicating the disease gave us a positive mutation which will help us in all future games. Losing the game had negative ramifications on the campaign. At this point, none of the players in my group know if it was worth it or not, but we did go on to win game 3.
So, to answer your original question, because different players might have different priorities (winning that game, eradicating a disease for a positive mutation, building a research station for future games, etc), there is no longer an optimal turn because different players might have different goals, all of them legitimately worth pursuing. The nature of the campaign adds another level to each game, especially since each game builds off each other.
Quarterbacking only occurs in groups where either one player thinks that he or she is superior to the other players (which may even be true) or when the players are not all of the same skill level. Quarterbacking is not an inherent flaw in the game that will occur in all situations. It will only occur based on the player make-up.
Even if it is a game problem, which I disagree, as I went on to explain in my previous post, Pandemic Legacy mitigates this by giving the players multiple short and long term goals to pursue, all of them worthwhile. As a result, there is no longer an optimal turn because players can have legitimate difference of opinion as to what they should do.
I mean, in all fairness, history did go to the Brits, so I suppose that's appropriate.
Too bad for the game, though. I thought it was fairly elegant and interesting, but knowing that there is One True Way that one side can simply win sorta spoils it.
/tangent
You see, Pandemic, and other garbage games of it's ilk, are not co-op at all. They are solitaire games. Sit around with your friends playing Microsoft Solitaire together, and that's Pandemic.
The only thing that makes Pandemic co-op is the suggestion that each player not tell the others what cards they have in their hand. But the rules as written do not keep this information to remain hidden. The rules could easily have said,
"Under no circumstances should any player even hint to another player as to the contents of their hand, or suggest what another player should do on their turn."
But they don't say that. They explicitly permit you to communicate and give each other hints with vague language. You may as well all play with an open hand. And now the game is solitaire.
Even if, as you suggest, all players are equally skilled, the game is still fucked. There's no need for more than one person to play. What is the purpose if Rym and I both see the optimal move of us cooperating? I'm just wasting my time. It's not a game. It's a puzzle. If someone wants to solve it, they can. They don't need anyone else.
One way of solving this problem and making a game truly co-op is to use the method applied by Space Alert and X-COM. They would be solitaire games, but for their real-time speed factor. No one person can do all of those jobs that quickly. You need to work together to make it happen.
Hanabi has the best method of solving it. It makes the information economy a game mechanic in itself, such that you absolutely depend upon all players performing well to get a good result.
Without changing the game of Pandemic extensively, the only way to make it co-op is to isolate all the players such that they can not communicate with each other whatsoever beyond seeing which moves the other players make on their turns. If you do that, then the game is still solitaire! Other players you can't communicate with are effectively no different than computerized AI players, and now you are playing solitaire again.
Pandemic is trash. I wipe my butt with it's cardboard.
For Pandemic: Legacy to make Pandemic worth playing it has to directly address this fundamental game flaw. Personally, I would have just done the real-time thing. Give each player a unique role and make them work FAST.
I personally don't have a problem with everyone putting their heads together to solve the board puzzle in Pandemic; it feels (faintly) like pair programming - an activity I enjoy, and most people I know dislike with a passion.
You're assuming that you and Rym can always see the optimal move no matter what, in any and all situations. If that was the case, you'd have a 100% win record playing Pandemic. Because there are elements of randomness in the game, that's not possible. An optimal move one turn could turn out to have been sub-optimal based on the changing game-state.
Additionally, you completely disregard the possibility that rather than just thinking alone trying to solve a problem, some people may enjoy the collaborative aspect of trying to solve it together. You wrongly assume that just because you don't like something, or think a certain way, that all other people don't like it or also think the same way you do.
As I keep saying, Quarterbacking can be a problem in Pandemic but it's not an inherent problem with the game itself, it's a problem with specific players, namely you.
If the decision ended up being "A is 60% likely to be the best choice, but B has a better payout if we're right", THEN there's an interesting debate to be had among the players on how much risk to assume.
But determining what those odds are? Just reveal your hands. That part is stupid.
They are free to enjoy that. For some people, Pandemic is a fine puzzle to solve together. But in that case, the soft rules around hand knowledge is bullshit. Just play with entirely open hands. If open hands were the rule in regular Pandemic, I'd have almost no beef with the game. If someone ever attempts to make a clearly bad move, I would correct them and point out the better move.
Now, they have two options.
1. Stupidly do the bad move anyway, harming the team and/or losing the game.
2. Change their move to what I suggested
At what point did they have any meaningful input into the game?
I have never played Pandemic but it sounds dull and because there are other, more fun games out there I will save my money and buy something I will enjoy more.
Like I wrote previously, A Few Acres of Snow is a flawed game. Even the designer admits that the game is broken. There is a strategy that is unstoppable. It literally cannot be beaten. Pandemic is a game with certain mechanics. Some people may not enjoy those mechanics, some people do. That doesn't make the game inherently flawed. It means that different people have different tastes in games and Scott doesn't like this type of game. That's not a problem with the game per se, it's Scott's preference.
Thank you! You just unintentionally made my point. To some players, Pandemic is a fine puzzle game. To others, like you and Scott, the Quarterbacking issue makes the game unenjoyable. As I keep saying, that doesn't mean that the problem is inherent in the game, it means that the problem is with particular players. 1. You're assuming that when one player tells another player that the proposed move is bad, the first player is always correct. This is not always the case.
2. You're assuming that contributing meaningful input into the game is the goal. Again, like you yourself wrote above, some people may enjoy the collaborative aspect of puzzle solving. To them, having a discussion as to why a certain move is bad or not is part of the appeal of Pandemic.
The game is bad at being an actually cooperative, collaborative game. There aren't mechanics around making decisions or working together. That stuff is all bolted on to the side.
"In our game we turned the yellow virus into a humanity saving super immune booster... but our red virus became a hybrid airborn super ebola aids and made the game impossible to win until we built a lab in southeast Afghanistan." Or something.
It's a puzzle that plays out differently based on the decisions the group makes, with a significant hidden information element. That's more like playing a certain kind of role-playing game than a board game, I guess.
For the seasoned board gamer there's a lot to find familiar here. You have the auctions and territory control of Power Grid. The stock battles of Panamax. The technology/personality race of The New Science. It's almost a "4th dimensional knife fight with money" Since there are many levels you can compete on: Technology, Propaganda, Industry, and Stocks.
The game is six turns divided into 3 phases. The later the phase the more pronounced the swings. What costs $1,000 in the first phase costs $3,000 in the last phase.
The object is to have the most valuable stock portfolio at the end of the game. You start with 4 shares in your company, with a starting stock price of 12. (the stock price also doubles as the "score track" you see in most games)
Buying stock drives that price up by two points, but selling the stock can drive the price down by as much as six points. The main method of driving your stock price up is by building projects in cities. You can buy and sell stock in other companies (players) but you cannot buy and sell the same stock with one action. (I can buy stocks A and C, and then sell stocks B and D with one action, but if I wanted to buy and sell A it would take two different actions.)
The stock function forces you to really pay attention to what other players are doing. I noticed one player was in a position to build a lot of level 4 plants that I couldn't build. So I bought 2 shares of his stock. He built the plants and my investment went up by $24,000. Later on, I sold the stock to put more distance between his stock price and my own. Then I just keep cycling other peoples stocks, funneling the money into my own projects driving my own stock price up. It helped that one of the luminaries I won in the auction gave me a large bonuses to trading stocks.
The last phase is largely king making, although your ability to Kingmake depends largely on the amount of stocks you own in other people's companies compared to yours. If your stock can't be traded, other people can't drive the price down. I won with owning 8 shares of my stock and 2 of another player's stock. My stock price was ended up being the highest at end game, because there was less of it in play.
Keep in mind I haven't played the game or read the rules, I only saw it being played.