Pandemic rules

Cooperative race to stop four diseases from spreading worldwide.

Players: 2–4 (co-operative)
Time: 45 min
Ages: 8+
Goal: Work together to find cures for all 4 diseases before your team runs out of time, disease cubes, or luck.

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How to play Pandemic

Setup

Board: put 1 research station in Atlanta, and sort the disease cubes by colour into 4 supply piles.
Reset markers: Outbreaks to 0, all 4 cure markers vial-side up.
Roles: give each player a reference card and deal each 1 shuffled Role card face up. Place their pawns in Atlanta and remove the unused roles and pawns from the game.
Seed the board: shuffle the Infection Deck (48 city cards only — it never contains Event or Epidemic cards), flip 9 cards in 3 batches of 3, and place 3/2/1 cubes per city in turn — 9 cities, 18 cubes total.
Stack those 9 cards face-up as the Infection Discard Pile, and set the Infection Rate marker to the first "2" space.
Start the Player Deck: shuffle the 48 City cards and the 5 Event cards together. Keep the Epidemic cards to one side for now.
Deal hands from it: 4 cards each for 2 players, 3 for 3, 2 for 4.
Add the Epidemics: split the rest into piles as equal as you can, matching your Epidemic count (4 Introductory, 5 Standard, 6 Heroic), and shuffle 1 Epidemic face down into each. Remove any unused Epidemics from the game.
Stack the piles, smaller ones on the bottom, to form the Player Deck.
First player: whoever has the highest city population on a card in hand goes first.
Hands: in an Introductory game play with hands face up; otherwise keep them private. Anyone may look through either discard pile at any time.

A turn at a glance

Take up to 4 actions, in any mix, repeating any you like.
Draw 2 Player cards together, resolving any Epidemic. Whenever you hold more than 7, discard or play Events down to 7.
Infect Cities: flip as many Infection cards as the Infection Rate, adding 1 cube to each city shown.

Your 4 actions

Move: Drive/Ferry, Direct Flight, Charter Flight or Shuttle Flight.
Build a Research Station by discarding the City card matching your city.
Treat Disease to remove a cube from your city.
Share Knowledge: give or take the City card matching your city with another player there.
Discover a Cure at a research station with 5 City cards of one colour.

Epidemic cards

Mixed into the Player Deck, one per pile made at setup.

Increase: move the Infection Rate marker forward 1 space.
Infect: draw the Infection Deck's *bottom* card and put 3 cubes of its colour on that city (none if that colour is eradicated). If it already has cubes of that colour, add just enough to make 3, then it outbreaks. Discard the card to the Infection Discard Pile.
Intensify: shuffle the Infection Discard Pile and drop it face-down on the Infection Deck. Then remove the Epidemic card from the game.

Whatever an Epidemic just infected is now on top of the deck, so it's likely to come up again soon.

Outbreaks

Outbreak: a city that would take a 4th cube of a colour moves the Outbreaks marker up 1 instead, and every connected city gets 1 cube of it.
Chain reaction: that can set off more outbreaks, but a city that has already had an outbreak in that chain takes no more cubes from it.

Curing and eradicating

Cured diseases are cured everywhere at once.
Eradication: once the last cube of a cured colour leaves the board, that colour is never placed again.

The 7 roles

1 dealt to each player at setup; unused roles sit out entirely.

Roles: Scientist, Medic, Operations Expert, Quarantine Specialist, Researcher, Dispatcher and Contingency Planner each have a special power.

Event cards

5 in the Player Deck. Play one any time except between drawing and resolving a card; it's free.

Events: One Quiet Night, Resilient Population, Airlift, Government Grant and Forecast.

Winning and losing

Win the moment your team discovers the 4th cure.
Lose at once if the Outbreaks marker reaches the last space of its track (8 outbreaks).
Lose at once if you need a cube of a colour and none are left.
Lose at once if fewer than 2 cards remain in the Player Deck when you go to draw.

Expansion rules

Only needed if you play with the expansion named on each heading.

On the Brink On the Brink

Adds a 5th player, new roles and events, and three optional challenges.

New roles: Archivist, Containment Specialist, Epidemiologist, Field Operative, Generalist and Troubleshooter, plus 8 new events.
Legendary: the expansion's Epidemic card allows a 7-Epidemic game.
Setup: with 5 players, give the 5th player a Role card and a Reference card; everyone starts with 2 Player cards.
Setup: Legendary: add the expansion's Epidemic card for 7 Epidemics and split the Player Deck into 7 piles.
Setup: Virulent Strain: shuffle the Virulent Strain Epidemic cards and use as many as your difficulty, instead of regular Epidemics.
Setup: Bio-Terrorist: 2 Event cards per player, counting the Bio-Terrorist, who takes a Location Pad and keeps the black pawn off the board. After the first 9 cities, they draw 2 Infection cards and secretly record a starting city.
Challenges: Virulent Strain, Mutation (a 5th, purple disease) and the Bio-Terrorist.
Bio-Terrorist: each Bio-Terrorist turn comes after another player's turn; the team can capture the Bio-Terrorist when spotted.

Winning with Mutation On the Brink

Mutation win: cure all 5 diseases, or cure the 4 regular ones with no purple cubes on the board. The purple cure has its own cost.

In the Lab In the Lab

Cures are researched on a lab board before they are discovered.

Lab actions at a research station research cures; Process a Sample moves cubes across the lab board, and a completed research line cures with just 3 City cards.
Also included: Lab roles, a team game and a CDC solo mode.

State of Emergency State of Emergency

5 new roles, 7 new events, Quarantine markers and three optional challenges. When trying a new challenge, the rulebook suggests 1 fewer Epidemic card.

Setup: use 2 Event cards per player instead of the base number.
Quarantine markers each block the next 2 cube placements in their city.
Setup: Emergency Events: shuffle the 10 face down, use as many as Epidemic cards and put 1 in each Player card pile with its Epidemic.
Setup: Hinterlands: the boards beside the main board, the 18 coloured disks on the cities linked to the 4 spaces, and the die on the Infection Deck. When infecting the first 9 cities, add 1 matching cube to each Hinterlands space.
Setup: Superbug: 24 purple cubes, the vaccine doses and 4 vaccine factories in the supply, 4 Quarantine markers (6 with the Colonel), a Superbug Reference card each and the Superbug Medic if the Medic is used. Use as many Superbug Bonus cards as Epidemics.
Challenges: Emergency Events, Hinterlands (roll the Hinterlands die each turn) and the Superbug (which needs Quarantines; see the Superbug Infection card).

Superbug: cure and vaccinate State of Emergency

Cure the Superbug at a research station; that station becomes a vaccine factory.
Vaccine: each factory makes doses; spend 1 dose to clear all purple cubes from your city. Treat Disease never removes purple.

Winning with the Superbug State of Emergency

Superbug win: cure all 5 diseases and eradicate the Superbug. Losing works as in the base game.

All Pandemic rules (108)

Setup

Components

Turn

A Turn — Full Sequence

Actions

Clarification

Components

Draw Phase

Infect Cities

Event Cards

Roles

Game End

On the Brink expansion

In the Lab expansion

State of Emergency expansion

Expansions covered

On the Brink Roles, events, Virulent Strain, Mutation, Bio-Terrorist
In the Lab Base game; its Virulent Strain and Mutation cards need On the Brink
State of Emergency Quarantines, Hinterlands, Superbug

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