Pandemic’s map is large and your turn is short. Four actions do not go far, so every game becomes a quiet argument about how to get where the trouble is. This last Level 1 lesson settles that argument with a simple idea: each way of moving has a price, and research stations are how the team stops paying it.
The price of each move
All four moves are on your reference card. Here they are with their costs side by side.
| Move | Actions | Cards | Best use |
|---|---|---|---|
| Drive / Ferry | 1 per city | None | Short trips, and treating along the way |
| Direct Flight | 1 | The card of where you are going | A long trip with a card nobody needs |
| Charter Flight | 1 | The card of where you are | Anywhere at all, from a city whose card you hold |
| Shuttle Flight | 1 | None | Any station to any other station |
Two details from the rulebook help here. Lines that run off one edge of the map come back on the other, so the Pacific is shorter than it looks. And every card you discard for a flight goes to the Player discard pile for good.
Cards are the real currency
The Player deck is your clock, and the City cards in it are your cures. There are 12 cards of each color, and a cure needs 5 of them in one hand (4 for the Scientist). So every flight is a trade: one action of travel now for one card toward a cure.
That makes some flights cheap and some expensive:
- Cheap: a card of a color the team has already cured. It does nothing else for you now.
- Fair: a card of a color nobody is collecting, early in the game.
- Expensive: a card of the color your collector needs, or any card of an uncured color once that color is getting thin.
Before you fly, say the card’s color out loud and ask if anyone is collecting it. That one sentence saves more games than any clever route.
What research stations do for you
A research station is three tools in one.
- A free road. Shuttle Flight moves you between stations for one action and no card.
- A place to cure. Every cure needs a station, and any station cures any color.
- A launch pad. For the Operations Expert, a station lets him fly anywhere by discarding any City card, once per turn.
The game comes with 6. Atlanta starts with one. Building another costs one action and the card of the city you are in, unless the Operations Expert builds it, or the Government Grant Event places it for free. When you Build a Research Station and all 6 are already on the board, you take one from somewhere else on the map.
Where to build
There is no fixed best map, because the infected cities change every game. But good stations tend to share three traits.
- Near the danger. A station in or next to a cluster of infected cities lets the Medic or anyone else shuttle in and treat.
- Near the collector. The player gathering cards for a cure has to finish at a station. Put one where they already are, or where they will be.
- On a crossroads. Some cities connect to many others. A station there puts a lot of the map one drive away.
A rough rule: one station for each region where the team keeps working. Usually that is three or four stations by the midgame, not six spread out evenly.
Building without wasting a card
If someone other than the Operations Expert builds, pick the card carefully. A good station card is one of a color the team has cured, or a color with many cards still to come. If you must use a card your collector needs, ask whether a station one drive away would do just as well.
Shuttle routes change how you plan
Once you have three or more stations, the map shrinks. Your planning question changes from “how do I get there?” to “which station is closest to where I need to be?” A useful habit: at the start of each turn, find the station nearest the hottest city, then count drives from there.
Shuttle Flights also make meetings easier. Share Knowledge needs both players in the city on the card. If that city has a station, two players anywhere on the network can meet there in one action each.
When to move a station
Moving a station happens only when all 6 are built. Do it when an early station sits in a region the team no longer needs, and the infection has shifted somewhere else. Never move the one your collector is about to cure at.
With moves and stations under control, the opening and the midgame start to connect. Level 2 begins there: reading which cities come next, and spending each turn where it counts.
Next lesson
The Pandemic Midgame: Reading the Infection Deck
Level 2 opens with the midgame: reading the Infection discard pile, timing the next Epidemic, and spending each turn where it counts.
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