How can I play Pandemic with 6 players?

Question

I've recently bought Pandemic, and really liked the game. But since the basic game is only 2-4 players, I ordered the expansion "On the Brink", which brings it up to 5 players.

Is there a rules variant that would let me play with 6 players?

Answer 1

I haven't seen recommendations for six-player, but I can't think of a reason it can't be done. I think the only thing that needs to be decided is the size of the players' starting hands. 4 and 5-player games start with two cards. You could either go with two or drop it to one. I'd probably stick with two. Beyond that I think you can just play. There's nothing in the game that will break by having six people.

That said, I'm not sure how well it will play. The consensus is that the game gets harder with more people, but fortunately it's very easy to tweak the difficulty in Pandemic. You can decrease the number of Epidemic cards, increase the Special Event cards, or allow players to choose their role, each of these will make the game easier to beat.

If I were going to try it, I'd probably go with two cards for the starting hands, four epidemic cards, and I'd put all 13 Special Event cards in. I'd see how that goes and then tweak it from there.

Answer 2

Pandemic is a great game with tremendously elegant mechanics. Matt Leacock did fantastic job of using the infection deck and the draw deck as sequencer/timers. This careful mechanical design is precisely what makes it difficult to expand the game to six players.

(thinks for a while)

Okay. Here's an idea that should let you play with as six players (and possibly more):

• Assign roles to players at random. Deal out cards as if playing with five players. Also give each player an "action" token.

• When it's your turn, you can spend your action token and take a turn, or pass. If you do not have an action token, you must pass. If you pass, your entire turn (including the infection phase) is skipped.

• When no player has an action token, every player gets an action token.

You might need to tweak the starting hand sizes, but this little hack just might suffice.

Answer 3

The new-ish "In the Lab" expansion has "team" rules which support six players as 3 teams of 2.

Answer 4

The problem with 6 players is that one of the losing conditions of Pandemic is running out of time (via empty Player Card Deck). With more players that deck becomes used up faster. I wouldn't try six players without somehow enlarging the player deck. Perhaps if you buy another set of player cards and then add more Infection cards.

Answer 5

I would recommend buying a second copy of Pandemic and just playing seperate 3-player games.

Answer 6

I have been working on this 6 Player variant of Pandemic for over 2 years. After a lot of play-testing, I feel that this is now where I want it to be.

DESIGN AIMS FOR THIS VARIANT

• The game should feel like Pandemic for all 6 Players. (I felt that the 6 Player variant included with the In The Lab expansion did not feel the same).

• All modifications required for this variant should be to the setup, there should be no modifications to the core gameplay.

• Players should be able to contribute during their downtime, given that 5 other Players will need to take their turns.

• Gameplay must have variety and replayability.

• Games should feel close and balanced in the same way that the base game does.

PLAY-TESTING

• I have been play-testing this variant for 2 years (the last year of which has been in its final form).

• The vast majority of this play-testing has been 6-handed solo, however I have also had good feedback from the groups that I have tested this with.

• The success rate stated for each difficulty is based on the final form of that difficulty as detailed below.

PANDEMIC 6-PLAYER EASY

Expansions required: On the Brink; In the Lab

Expansion modules required: Roles; Events

Success rate in play-testing: 100%

1. Player Deck Setup

a. Shuffle 48 City Cards and 13 random Event Cards together, and deal 2 Cards to each Player.

b. Divide the remaining 49 Cards into 4 piles of 10 Cards and 1 pile of 9 cards.

c. Shuffle 1 Epidemic Card into each of those 5 piles and stack the piles together to form the Player Deck, with the smallest pile at the bottom.

2. Character Setup

a. Randomly assign which player will be Player 1

b. Distribute the following roles to each player

Player 1 = Pilot

Player 2 = Dispatcher

Player 3 = Medic

Player 4 = Scientist

Player 5 = Operations Expert

Player 6 = Quarantine Specialist

3. Game start

Player 1 goes first

Overview:

There are a maximum of 28 turns in the game (5 turns each for Players 1-4, and 4 turns each for Players 5-6).

The Scientist (Player 4) will get the last turn if the game goes to turn 28, at the end of which there will be no Player Cards to draw.

PANDEMIC 6-PLAYER STANDARD

Expansions required: On the Brink; In the Lab; State of Emergency

Expansion modules required: Roles; Events; Emergency Events; Quarantines

Success rate in play-testing: 75%

1. Player Deck Setup

a. Shuffle 48 City Cards and 12 random Event Cards together, and deal 2 Cards to each Player.

b. Divide the remaining 48 Cards into 3 piles of 10 Cards and 2 piles of 9 cards.

c. Shuffle 1 Epidemic Card and 1 Emergency Event into each of those 5 piles and stack the piles together to form the Player Deck, with the two smallest piles at the bottom.

2. Character Setup

a. Randomly assign which player will be Player 1

b. Distribute the following roles to each player

Player 1 = Pilot

Player 2 = Dispatcher

Player 3 = Medic

Player 4 = Operations Expert

Player 5 = Quarantine Specialist

Player 6 = Scientist

3. Board Setup

Place 4 Quarantine tokens near the Board.

4. Game start

Player 1 goes first

Overview:

There are a maximum of 30 turns in the game (5 turns each).

The Scientist (Player 6) will get the last turn if the game goes to turn 30, at the end of which there will be no Player Cards to draw (unless the Time Runs Out Emergency Event comes out).

PANDEMIC 6-PLAYER HEROIC

Expansions required: On the Brink; In the Lab; State of Emergency

Expansion modules required: Roles; Events; Emergency Events; Quarantines

Success rate in play-testing: 66.7%

1. Player Deck Setup

a. Shuffle 48 City Cards and 12 random Event Cards together, and deal 2 Cards to each Player.

b. Divide the remaining 48 Cards into 6 piles of 8 Cards.

c. Shuffle 1 Epidemic Card and 1 Emergency Event into each of those 6 piles and stack the piles together to form the Player Deck.

2. Character Setup

a. Randomly assign which player will be Player 1

b. Distribute the following roles to each player

Player 1 = Pilot

Player 2 = Dispatcher

Player 3 = Medic

Player 4 = Operations Expert

Player 5 = Quarantine Specialist

Player 6 = Scientist

3. Board Setup

Place 4 Quarantine tokens near the Board.

4. Game start

Player 1 goes first

Overview:

There are a maximum of 31 turns in the game (6 turns for Player 1 and 5 turns each for Players 2-6).

The Pilot (Player 1) will get the last turn if the game goes to turn 31, at the end of which there will be no Player Cards to draw (unless the Time Runs Out Emergency Event comes out).

PANDEMIC 6-PLAYER LEGENDARY

Expansions required: On the Brink; In the Lab; State of Emergency

Expansion modules required: Roles; Events; Emergency Events; Quarantines

Success rate in play-testing: 0%

1. Player Deck Setup

a. Shuffle 48 City Cards and 12 random Event Cards together, and deal 2 Cards to each Player.

b. Divide the remaining 48 Cards into 6 piles of 7 Cards and 1 pile of 6 Cards.

c. Shuffle 1 Epidemic Card and 1 Emergency Event into each of those 7 piles and stack the piles together to form the Player Deck, with the smallest pile at the bottom.

2. Character Setup a. Randomly assign which player will be Player 1

b. Distribute the following roles to each player

Player 1 = Pilot

Player 2 = Dispatcher

Player 3 = Medic

Player 4 = Operations Expert

Player 5 = Quarantine Specialist

Player 6 = Scientist

3. Board Setup

Place 4 Quarantine tokens near the Board.

4. Game start

Player 1 goes first

Overview:

There are a maximum of 32 turns in the game (6 turns each for Players 1-2 and 5 turns each for Players 3-6).

The Dispatcher (Player 2) will get the last turn if the game goes to turn 31, at the end of which there will be no Player Cards to draw (unless the Time Runs Out Emergency Event comes out).

IMPACT OF VARIANTS ON GAMEPLAY

• The Pilot and Dispatcher going first allows immediate distribution of Players across the board. The Quarantine Specialist can be easily moved across the board in this way to become effective well before that Player’s turn.

• The Scientist going later and/or last gives the best possible chance of setting up 4-card Cures.

• The high number of Event cards mean that players are involved at all times.

• The additional Events and Emergency Events give more time to account for the difficulties of a higher Player count, more turns for each Player, something for Players to do off-turn (playing Events), variety and replayability.

• The Quarantines in the Standard, Heroic and Legendary difficulties help to offset the delay between Player turns and the problematic cube effects that can result from Emergency Events.

• Despite the fixed Character roster and order, each game has a surprising amount of variety thanks to the multiple possible Events and Emergency Events that alter the game, as well as the interaction between them.

FINAL WORD

My favourite way to play of the four difficulties above is Standard. The closeness of each game and the success rate are ideal for me, and the Scientist going both last in the Player cycle and last in the game gives the best balance of Character abilities.

Answer 7

I just played for the first time and thought of a way to add an additional role to the game. Have someone play the actual disease.

10 card maximum in hand Draw rate is 3 cards "actions" or infecting is = to the infection rate. The epidemic cards can be split 50% into infection draw pile and the other 50% into the player draw pile.

This does a few things for the game. 1. Makes the "players" more discreet of their plans. 2. Difficulty will rise with more players. 3. Allows for an additional player to be added. 4. Brings a different style of play to the game. Strategies etc. 5. Can be modified further to add more "diseases", or "players" to the game.

This is all still a thought in process as I literally played for the first time tonight.

Answer 8

Ok. Regular game. 6 players, 3 teams of two. Each player has a role but share a hand of cards... when it's your teams turn you may use your action on either players role identity or split between the two. In other words, if I am the dispatch and my partner ( on my team) is the medic.... we can use the dispatch to move the researcher ( another team) across the map ( one action), move the medic to a danger spot, ( let's say two actions) then switch and use the medic to clear the danger spot ( one action).

There are natural offsets ( having to choose which role to spend actions on is a weakness, but having the option to choose from two roles is a strength.). I plan to try this tonight and see how it goes.

Answer 9

It says explicitly at the end of the rule book of the in the lab extension that it gets easier with 3 teams of 2 (6 players) and that you should start at a higher infection rate.

Answer 10

We played with 5 once and once the deck was empty, shuffled the cards and put 10 on the pile. We still lost by running out of cards but by one turn so worth trying again.