Pandemic Legacy Disease Backstories

I was originally thinking about telling the story of each of our games of Pandemic Legacy, but I don't have the skill or the attention span to see that through. So I think this will be the only post.

Sarah and I started playing the board game Pandemic Legacy recently. It takes the game of Pandemic where you work as a team of doctors and researchers trying to cure the world of four diseases and turns it into a multi-game campaign where events that transpire in one game will affect what happens in the sebsequent game. You rip up cards, place stickers on the board, and open up secret compartments as the games go on.

One of the cool things that the game asks you to do is to take a pen and write the name of each disease on the board. After careful consideration, these were the names we picked. I also came up with a bit of backstory for each of them.

"Robo Fever" (Red)
"Robo fever" is the nickname for a new disease that has sprung up in east Asia after cybernetic implants became commonplace in the region for practical reason and fashion reasons. It is currently suspected that the bacteria feed off of the synthetic compounds in the implants but require the acidic environment of the human gut to reproduce. Technically the name "Robo Fever" is a misnomer since those affected should be classified as cyborgs at most and not as robots. While the CDC isn't particularly concerned about the effect this will have on those with vanity implants/enhancements, there is significant concern for the effect this disease will have on those with medical implants and prosthetics.

Affluenza (Blue)
It doesn't always pay to be an early adopter. Although this flu variety has since made it to the general population, it started showing up among wealthy people and tech workers in San Francisco. Investigations have tied it back to early adopters of the Ploylent Meal Substitute that went on market several months ago. It's hypothesized that someone at Ploylent's manufacturer had a mutated form of the flu and got it in the supply. The innovative packaging meant to preserve the substitute during transport also managed to keep the flu alive during transport.

Although it's different from typical flu varieties, existing flu research has greatly aided in finding a vaccine and effective treatments.

Gakarrhea (Yellow)
This disease causes frequent, diarrhea-like bowel movements. It earned its name because the consistency of those bowel movements was "slimy" and green and resembled Nickelodeon's "Gak" from the 90s. Although diarrhea is symptom and not a disease, the name Gakarrhea has stuck since it's a trademark sign of this particular disease and came about before the disease had been isolated and understood.

"Pluto Pox" (Black)
The world was rocked when a nuclear explosion detonated in Afghanistan that appeared to target a terrorist stronghold in the area. Naturally, America was blamed for the attack. America disavowed involvement in the attack and cast suspicion on Russia. After the explosion a new disease showed up in the area, which wasn't similar to anything seen in the aftermath of a previous nuclear bombing. It's marked by pockmarks that always appear in pairs, resembling Pluto and its moon Charon. Researchers believe that the radiation from the blast mutated some pre-existing disease and are currently hoping that will help them develop a cure.

Some of those afflicted with the disease believe that it has made them immune to the effects of the radiation and are attempting to settle in regions that are still considered dangerous. Research has not backed up this claim.

Board Games!

This is actually an old picture, it's gotten much worse.

Anyone who follows me on twitter probably has noticed that I've been talking about tabletop games quite a bit lately. In the past couple of months Sarah and I have added significantly to our collection. For an idea of what I'm talking about, look to the right. It's gotten much worse since then.

We have 56 games, in total. Not all of them are in that picture, because some of them are actually behind the others. For example, you can see Munchkin there but we actually have other versions of Munchkin, they're just stashed behind Carcassonne, Ghost Stories, and Yahtzee.

There's quite a variety there, too. You see classic games like Risk and Monopoly, but there's plenty of other games too. There's the cooperative fire-fighting simulator Flash Point: Fire Rescue. There's the popular Eurogame about connecting train routes Ticket to Ride. There's the literally-only-sixteen-cards get-your-love-letter-to-the-princess simulator Love Letter (a truly excellent game). There's also the dexterity-challenging magnet-balancing game Polarity.

This might seem like a sudden shift for me but it's really a natural extension of a trend that's been going on for roughly a decade.

Forbidden Island, a cooperative game where you play as treasure hunters trying
to get four relics from an island before it sinks.

Seeking new things
I can't really say that I know what caused it. Maybe it was because of my friend the next room over my freshman year of college. Maybe it's because that was the year Katamari Damacy was released. Maybe it's because that was the year that the PSP and the DS were released, and I hadn't really been into portable gaming since the original Pokemon some long time prior. Or possibly it's because of all these things. Ever since that year, however, I've constantly been seeking new gaming experiences. I would rather play small, mediocre, yet novel games as opposed to a full-price game that's well polished yet doesn't bring much new to the table. In the past this has meant playing mobile/handheld games and download-only games, but now it's extending to tabletop games.

Tabletop games really offer a lot of things that video games don't.

Meat Space Nine
Tabletop games are all about playing with your friends right around you. You can see and talk to each other in ways that are hampered by communicating over headset or having to share real estate on a screen. This isn't to say that there aren't great video games that you can play with your friends all on the same couch, Smash Bros. and Towerfall and great examples of such, but this is what board games are all about. It is their jam.

Dungeons & Dragons: Castle Ravenloft

No need for dexterity
Tabletop games are almost always turn-based as well (Escape: The Curse of the Temple notwithstanding). Many people can't play competitive video games because of a reliance on manual dexterity, fast reaction times, having to juggle a lot of information without time to think, or they can get nauseous in the case of a first-person game. This gives tabletop games an extra level of accessibility that video games don't have.

Hackability
Most video games go to great lengths to keep you from playing them in ways that the developers don't intend. You can't make your own rules, except on a social level ("Nobody's allowed to pick Oddjob, okay!?"). You can't add and remove components. You can't do anything, usually. Tabletop games literally cannot avoid this. Don't want to play with a particular rule? GONE. Want to add your own class to the roster of characters? DO IT. Want to add a rule or more content to the game? EASY. Think something is unbalanced? CHANGE IT. They're literally powerless to stop you. This makes them great for budding game designers to experiment with how changing rules affects the gameplay or for hobbyist to make something that they love even better. If I think that Smash Bros isn't balanced well it takes a ton of effort to make it more balanced. If I think a Dungeons and Dragons class is unbalanced, that's easy to fix.

More apparent mathiness
One thing that really appeals to me in particular is, in addition to their hackability, is that their turn-based nature makes it easier to see the math behind the game and optimize your gameplay. For example, in Ticket to Ride, you get 1 point for a 1 train section, 2 for 2, 4 for 3, 7 for 4, 10 for 5 and 15 for 6. Here you can easily see that you get more points per train from doing longer routes and should try and do those if possible. This advantage becomes even more clear when you realize that by playing trains there is an opportunity cost in that any turn spent playing trains is a turn in which you aren't drawing cards. So you could spent two turns playing 3 trains each and be down 6 cards and only have 8 points or you could spend two turns, 1 playing 6 trains and 1 drawing cards, and have 15 points and only be down 4 cards.

I have by no means given up on video games. I still love and play those. Most recently I've been playing a lot of Hearthstone and Spelunky.

Risk Battle Statistics and Simulator

Number of Attackers: Offensive Airfield
Number of Defenders: Defensive Airfield

Offense Rolls:
Defense Rolls:
Offense Wins:
Defense Wins:
Cumulative Offense Wins: 0
Cumulative Defense Wins: 0
Offensive Kill-Death Ratio: NA

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I was trying to find an image to put above and then I had the bright idea to code the above simulator. After an embarrassingly long amount of time due to my Javascript inexperience, it is done. An explanation of how battle works in Risk is at the bottom following the *

A long time ago I wrote a post that contained some probability calculations associated with the popular board game Risk. This was long before I knew how to format things nicely on the internet and before I was aware of some other things. That said, I think that I can approach the content and its presentation much better now than I could then so I've redone the post.

The original post was focused on showing that you should always choose to attack and defend with as many units as you can, that the odds work out best for you that way. This means that the offense should always attack with 3 if possible and the defense should always defend with 2.

It turns out that the latest version of the Risk rules (which are the rules used in Risk: Factions, a downloadable title for the PS3 and XBox 360) can have situations which modify your battles. Fulfilling certain objectives can allow a player to attack with up to 4 soldiers or defend with up to 3. Furthermore, the player can obtain an airport which bestow a +1 bonus to that player's highest die roll when attacking or defending for any battle that takes place on or adjacent to the territory which has the airport.

I decided that I wanted to see how these variables affect the probabilities of success and the kill-death ratio for the offense. To quickly explain the data in the chart:

• Most entries fall under "X Kills" which is the probability that under those circumstance the offense will kill X of the defender's pieces. Remember that if the offense doesn't kill a defender's piece then the defender kills a piece belonging to the offense.
• KDR stands for Kill-to-Death Ratio and is how many pieces the offense should expect to kill for every piece they expect to lose. For example, in the 3 vs 2 matchup with an airport for the offense, the offense should expect to kill almost 2 of the defender's pieces for each piece they lose. A KDR>1 is good for the offense. A KDR<1 is good for the defense.

Probability of offense winning X rolls and KDR
3 vs 2 2 Kills 1 Kill 0 Kills KDR Normal 37% 34% 29% 1.17 Off +1 51% 31% 18% 1.97 Def +1 24% 41% 35% 0.80	3 vs 3 3 Kills 2 Kills 1 Kill 0 Kills KDR Normal 14% 21% 26% 38% 0.58 Off +1 20% 25% 31% 24% 0.88 Def +1 8% 21% 27% 45% 0.44
4 vs 2 2 Kills 1 Kill 0 Kills KDR Normal 46% 33% 21% 1.67 Off +1 63% 25% 12% 3.11 Def +1 30% 45% 25% 1.09	4 vs 3 3 Kills 2 Kills 1 Kill 0 Kills KDR Normal 25% 26% 25% 24% 1.03 Off +1 37% 25% 24% 14% 1.61 Def +1 14% 31% 27% 28% 0.78

There's nothing surprising here, but it is very interesting to see how much of an advantage the offense has in the normal situation and how much that advantage changes depending on various conditions. There is another advantage that the offense has that isn't discussed here. The offense gets to choose when and where they attack, which allows the to pick battles that they are fairly certain they can win. Play wisely, everyone.

*In classic Risk the objective is to conquer all the territory on the map. You do this by engaging your enemies in battle. To do this you select up to three units on a territory you control to attack an adjacent territory. The owner of that territory can defend with up to two units (these numbers can be increased under certain conditions)

Each player rolls a die for each unit they are attack/defending with and sorts them from highest to lowest. The compare matching dice and if the offense's roll is higher than the defense's the defense loses a piece. If the defense's is higher or there is a tie, then the offense loses a piece. This repeats until the defender loses all their pieces on the territory or the offense gives up.

Example: The offense attacks with 3 pieces and the defense defends with 2. Their rolls are

• Offense: 4 6 2
• Defense: 5 4

Sorted, the offense has 6, 4 and 2 and the defense has 5 and 4. The offense's 6 beats the defense's matching 5 but the defense's 4 beats the offense's matching 4 since the defense wins ties. Both sides lose a piece. The 2 is ignored.