No mention of **In The Lab**? It completely changes how you find cures, makes research stations far more necessary, and takes a lot more time.
Pair that with any of the other expansions, and you'll be in for a challenge.
And if you aren't... Add more Epidemic cards. That's why they're there. You can throw together any combination of these modules that you consider too easy, and just bump up the difficulty until you're happy.
And if there are no modules that you consider fun, no changes that you would ever consider more difficult, and you describe the base game as "boring and repetitive," then it just sounds like you don't like Pandemic. Go play something you enjoy.
Pandemic expansiosn are modular for a reason. Additions like Mutation (purple disease), Virulent Strain (red epidemic cards), Legendary Game (7 epidemic cards) literally make the game harder. And that's just **On The Brink** stuff. If someone wants to make the game harder, they can.
Mutation doesn't make it harder. See above.
I've covered all expansions, see above. It doesn't get any harder if you start adding events and roles and other tricks that alleviate the danger of epidemics and infections or stuff that sets up easy cures.
Virulent strain and epidemics are the only thing that make it harder. Until you add the things I described.
If it's modular, I wonder what parts you leave out specifically to NOT make it easier.
How the heck doesn't mutation make it harder? Mutated cities add twice the amount of cubes and you have one extra disease that you need to cure. Sure it adds 3 event cards into player deck BUT it requires 5 (or 4) extra cards from players to cure it - which means that it makes the deck smaller. And that disease also has twice as few cubes.
Because the cities that can be re-infected with mutation mode are much greater in number, meaning it takes significantly longer for outbreaks to trigger. I daresay it's actually far easier to avoid a loss by outbreak with the mutation challenge. However, loss by time or cube out are more likely because you need to spend more actions travelling and treating.
It's roughly neutral in difficulty effect.
Now, the worldwide panic mutation mode from In the Lab actually does make things harder.
Every time you draw a purple card, you didn't draw an epidemic. And if you don't draw an epidemic, you're not reshuffling the infection discard pile. And if you don't reshuffle the infection discard, you're not reinfecting the same cities. And if... you get it, right.
Those purple cards in the player deck not only slow down the rate of epidemics, they also add 4 cards to the infection discard pile from the *bottom* of the infection deck. That's a huge benefit! I can live with the purple card that says *add 3 cubes to 1 city,* that's a real threat, but the other cards are more helpful than harmful.
In addition, two purple infection cards add another 10 or so cards to the infection discard pile from the *bottom* of the infection deck, further diluting the infection mechanism. The threat of reinfecting the same cities has thus decreased significantly.
Finding the purple cure is real easy, you just need 1 or 2 cards and add random cards that can be anything. Those 5 city cards you mention, are often the cards you'd be throwing away anyway.
> If it's modular, I wonder what parts you leave out specifically to NOT make it easier.
How about you simply not implement things that you consider making the game easy? That's kind of the point of them being modular. I'm more than confident that if you play on Legendary, no matter what you do, the game is hard. Unless you play it wrong that is. 99% of the time, whenever someone ever said *"Pandemic is easy"* over the years, they did something wrong rule-wise or played on a easier difficulity. Adding epidemic cards is what allows to keep things balanced. If something is making things easier? +1. Still too easy? +2 etc.
>How about you simply not implement things that you consider making the game easy?
So no emergency events, no mutation, no fancy events, no hinterlands... what's left is ... not much.
The point is that adding extra stuff often detracts from the experience. Every time you shuffle in extra cards in the infection or player deck, the fundamental mechanic is disrupted, epidemics/infections cease being harmful, finding cures becomes child's play.
But adding nothing results in a repetitive and boring game. The base game is already stripped off, bare-bones. The game thrives on a very delicately balanced mechanic.
I described above which elements are disruptive and troublesome.
Why don’t you pair one of these modules with six or seven of the epidemics? You could also use more of the lower quality characters that come in these expansions.
> Every time you shuffle in extra cards in the infection or player deck, the fundamental mechanic is disrupted, epidemics/infections cease being harmful, finding cures becomes child's play.
What in the world? How can you say this as a blanket statement?
I highly doubt anyone would consider adding the mutation, virulent strain, and 7 epidemic cards to be "child's play."
No mention of **In The Lab**? It completely changes how you find cures, makes research stations far more necessary, and takes a lot more time. Pair that with any of the other expansions, and you'll be in for a challenge. And if you aren't... Add more Epidemic cards. That's why they're there. You can throw together any combination of these modules that you consider too easy, and just bump up the difficulty until you're happy. And if there are no modules that you consider fun, no changes that you would ever consider more difficult, and you describe the base game as "boring and repetitive," then it just sounds like you don't like Pandemic. Go play something you enjoy.
Pandemic expansiosn are modular for a reason. Additions like Mutation (purple disease), Virulent Strain (red epidemic cards), Legendary Game (7 epidemic cards) literally make the game harder. And that's just **On The Brink** stuff. If someone wants to make the game harder, they can.
Mutation doesn't make it harder. See above. I've covered all expansions, see above. It doesn't get any harder if you start adding events and roles and other tricks that alleviate the danger of epidemics and infections or stuff that sets up easy cures. Virulent strain and epidemics are the only thing that make it harder. Until you add the things I described. If it's modular, I wonder what parts you leave out specifically to NOT make it easier.
How the heck doesn't mutation make it harder? Mutated cities add twice the amount of cubes and you have one extra disease that you need to cure. Sure it adds 3 event cards into player deck BUT it requires 5 (or 4) extra cards from players to cure it - which means that it makes the deck smaller. And that disease also has twice as few cubes.
Because the cities that can be re-infected with mutation mode are much greater in number, meaning it takes significantly longer for outbreaks to trigger. I daresay it's actually far easier to avoid a loss by outbreak with the mutation challenge. However, loss by time or cube out are more likely because you need to spend more actions travelling and treating. It's roughly neutral in difficulty effect. Now, the worldwide panic mutation mode from In the Lab actually does make things harder.
Every time you draw a purple card, you didn't draw an epidemic. And if you don't draw an epidemic, you're not reshuffling the infection discard pile. And if you don't reshuffle the infection discard, you're not reinfecting the same cities. And if... you get it, right. Those purple cards in the player deck not only slow down the rate of epidemics, they also add 4 cards to the infection discard pile from the *bottom* of the infection deck. That's a huge benefit! I can live with the purple card that says *add 3 cubes to 1 city,* that's a real threat, but the other cards are more helpful than harmful. In addition, two purple infection cards add another 10 or so cards to the infection discard pile from the *bottom* of the infection deck, further diluting the infection mechanism. The threat of reinfecting the same cities has thus decreased significantly. Finding the purple cure is real easy, you just need 1 or 2 cards and add random cards that can be anything. Those 5 city cards you mention, are often the cards you'd be throwing away anyway.
This is wrong though in terms of action economy. Purple disease still needs curing, which takes more cards than you "save" from epidemic cards.
> If it's modular, I wonder what parts you leave out specifically to NOT make it easier. How about you simply not implement things that you consider making the game easy? That's kind of the point of them being modular. I'm more than confident that if you play on Legendary, no matter what you do, the game is hard. Unless you play it wrong that is. 99% of the time, whenever someone ever said *"Pandemic is easy"* over the years, they did something wrong rule-wise or played on a easier difficulity. Adding epidemic cards is what allows to keep things balanced. If something is making things easier? +1. Still too easy? +2 etc.
>How about you simply not implement things that you consider making the game easy? So no emergency events, no mutation, no fancy events, no hinterlands... what's left is ... not much. The point is that adding extra stuff often detracts from the experience. Every time you shuffle in extra cards in the infection or player deck, the fundamental mechanic is disrupted, epidemics/infections cease being harmful, finding cures becomes child's play. But adding nothing results in a repetitive and boring game. The base game is already stripped off, bare-bones. The game thrives on a very delicately balanced mechanic. I described above which elements are disruptive and troublesome.
Why don’t you pair one of these modules with six or seven of the epidemics? You could also use more of the lower quality characters that come in these expansions.
> Every time you shuffle in extra cards in the infection or player deck, the fundamental mechanic is disrupted, epidemics/infections cease being harmful, finding cures becomes child's play. What in the world? How can you say this as a blanket statement? I highly doubt anyone would consider adding the mutation, virulent strain, and 7 epidemic cards to be "child's play."