First Impressions of Pandemic Iberia

My, how many times through the ages have 4 terrible diseases arisen at once to literally plague mankind? How many times have 2-4 brave gamers donned lab coats, biohazard gear and military slacks to save the world? It must be countless, yet disease (and Z-Man Games) never rests. In Pandemic Iberia we journey back to nineteenth century Spain and Portugal to treat classic diseases like typhoid, dysentery and small pox. After Pandemic Legacy I almost feel a sense of nostalgia (or maybe that’s the tuberculosis setting in).

The thing with early 19^th century Spain, which immediately separates itself from its modern precursors, is the absence of planes. Instead, the fastest mode of transport available to you is donkey, at least until the trains come along. Pandemic Iberia’s major innovation is the train routes that can be laid along the links to form your own fast travel network. Once placed on the board, you can travel from one part of the network to another in a single move. This is so good! It really rewards long term planning and is much more freeing than the research station hoping or card discarding of the original game. I’m almost willing to say I prefer this. My one concern after a single play is that a certain rail network might be ‘optimal’, but there are a limited number of tokens, forcing you to find that best network for this game.

There are a few other tweaks too. You can now purify the water in certain areas, protecting neighbouring towns from disease cubes for a couple of turns. The “research centres” of this edition are tied to a particular disease colour and it is only there that you can research the disease and get closer to winning the game. Interestingly, you can never eradicate these diseases, you can only keep them under some semblance of control while you race to finish your research. These are small changes but definitely change the feel of “Pandemic”.

I’ve always enjoyed Pandemic, but wasn’t so taken with Pandemic Reign of Cthulhu (though see Robin’s review for a different take!). Pandemic Iberia, on the other hand, is a fantastic special edition. The thematic twist, putting back a couple of hundred years, has lead to some really cool and appropriate changes to the gameplay that feel as refreshing as a cool glass of purified water. Plus, it’s absolutely gorgeous! Well worth checking out!

This First Impressions article is based on a demo I played through at Essen 2016. If you want to read about the other titles I got to try there, please have a look here and follow the links within!