by mleacock
clivej wrote:
(Last week, I tried to create a rationalised framework for thinking about this kind of issue, but was met with stony silence. Ah well.)
Concerning your first question, the rules are explicit about what happens in this circumstance, but there's a delicate ping-pong between the sections on infections and outbreaks:
• You (try to) place one infection marker in Mexico City
• Mexico City is the C0Da colour, so you try to place a Faded figure in Mexico City.
• Before placing Faded figures there, mark Mexico City as faded and replace all yellow cubes there with Faded figures, as per rule sticker R.
• Mexico City already has three faded figures, so don't place a 4th, instead there is an outbreak in the city
• In handling that outbreak, you (try to) place one faded figure in Chicago.
• Again, rule sticker R applies: before placing that Faded figure, mark Chicago as faded, replace any yellow cubes there with Faded figures.
• Add a faded figure to Chicago. (If you can. If there isn't room, you now have a chain-reaction outbreak on your hands.)
So far as I can see, rule sticker U only clarifies, it doesn't say anything you can't deduce by precisely following sticker R.
(As an aside, I choose to believe rule sticker R applies to adding cubes during an outbreak, because otherwise nonsense ensues: suppose there's an outbreak in a faded city A adjacent to a non-faded city B containing three C0Da cubes. Relying only on rule sticker U, you'd fade B without converting existing C0Da cubes there into faded figures, leaving B containing three C0Da cubes, one Faded figure and no outbreak. Next time B turned up in the infection deck you'd fade it, convert the C0Da cubes into Faded figures, and end up with a city containing four faded figures. That's so broken I think we have to say rule sticker R applies during an outbreak.)
For the second question, I'm not convinced other commenters have got the answer precisely right.
The first question is: which cities outbreak? That's answered by the section on outbreaks: "If more than 8 cities would outbreak (due to chain reactions) players may choose which cities outbreak and increase their panic level, stopping when you get to the 8th outbreak". That is, 8 is the maximum number of cities that will ever outbreak in a game of Pandemic Legacy. If you have an eighth outbreak and there are more to come, the remaining outbreaks don't happen. But the rules also make it (fairly) clear that that eighth outbreak does happen in its entirety.
The second question is: what happens when a city outbreaks? The "outbreaks" section of the rulebook answers this:
• Advance the outbreaks marker
• (Try to) place 1 disease marker on every city connected to the city (which hasn't already experienced an outbreak as part of this chain reaction)
• Increase the panic level (potentially removing research stations or losing characters)
• Scar characters in the city
So my answer is: when you're losing the game because of a chain-reaction outbreak, you choose the order in which to resolve outbreaks, and only the first eight actually occur. You don't resolve the extra ones for fading or any other purpose.
But, you do try to place faded figures in the cities surrounding each city in which an outbreak does occur. So even if the game ends before an outbreak occurs in a city, the city which would have had the outbreak has already faded because of the adjacent outbreak.
There might be an exception, here: it could be that if you run out of Faded figures during the chain reaction the game ends at once, saving you from further fading. However, the rule that "Any future cubes [...] don't happen" is vague as to whether any side-effects of trying to place a cube do happen, and that wording in any case only appears in the section for running out of cubes, not the one on rule sticker V for running out of Faded figures. Hmm!
Concerning your first question, the rules are explicit about what happens in this circumstance, but there's a delicate ping-pong between the sections on infections and outbreaks:
• You (try to) place one infection marker in Mexico City
• Mexico City is the C0Da colour, so you try to place a Faded figure in Mexico City.
• Before placing Faded figures there, mark Mexico City as faded and replace all yellow cubes there with Faded figures, as per rule sticker R.
• Mexico City already has three faded figures, so don't place a 4th, instead there is an outbreak in the city
• In handling that outbreak, you (try to) place one faded figure in Chicago.
• Again, rule sticker R applies: before placing that Faded figure, mark Chicago as faded, replace any yellow cubes there with Faded figures.
• Add a faded figure to Chicago. (If you can. If there isn't room, you now have a chain-reaction outbreak on your hands.)
So far as I can see, rule sticker U only clarifies, it doesn't say anything you can't deduce by precisely following sticker R.
(As an aside, I choose to believe rule sticker R applies to adding cubes during an outbreak, because otherwise nonsense ensues: suppose there's an outbreak in a faded city A adjacent to a non-faded city B containing three C0Da cubes. Relying only on rule sticker U, you'd fade B without converting existing C0Da cubes there into faded figures, leaving B containing three C0Da cubes, one Faded figure and no outbreak. Next time B turned up in the infection deck you'd fade it, convert the C0Da cubes into Faded figures, and end up with a city containing four faded figures. That's so broken I think we have to say rule sticker R applies during an outbreak.)
For the second question, I'm not convinced other commenters have got the answer precisely right.
The first question is: which cities outbreak? That's answered by the section on outbreaks: "If more than 8 cities would outbreak (due to chain reactions) players may choose which cities outbreak and increase their panic level, stopping when you get to the 8th outbreak". That is, 8 is the maximum number of cities that will ever outbreak in a game of Pandemic Legacy. If you have an eighth outbreak and there are more to come, the remaining outbreaks don't happen. But the rules also make it (fairly) clear that that eighth outbreak does happen in its entirety.
The second question is: what happens when a city outbreaks? The "outbreaks" section of the rulebook answers this:
• Advance the outbreaks marker
• (Try to) place 1 disease marker on every city connected to the city (which hasn't already experienced an outbreak as part of this chain reaction)
• Increase the panic level (potentially removing research stations or losing characters)
• Scar characters in the city
So my answer is: when you're losing the game because of a chain-reaction outbreak, you choose the order in which to resolve outbreaks, and only the first eight actually occur. You don't resolve the extra ones for fading or any other purpose.
But, you do try to place faded figures in the cities surrounding each city in which an outbreak does occur. So even if the game ends before an outbreak occurs in a city, the city which would have had the outbreak has already faded because of the adjacent outbreak.
There might be an exception, here: it could be that if you run out of Faded figures during the chain reaction the game ends at once, saving you from further fading. However, the rule that "Any future cubes [...] don't happen" is vague as to whether any side-effects of trying to place a cube do happen, and that wording in any case only appears in the section for running out of cubes, not the one on rule sticker V for running out of Faded figures. Hmm!
Cliff, your response is entirely correct.
To answer your remaining point, if you run out of Faded figures, the game ends immediately -- and therefore you do not need to resolve any remaining outbreaks after you run out of figures.