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Contagious Purple Disease with Quarantine Rules
Background or why do I want to use this variant anyway?
The rules for the Purple disease in On the Brink make it too easy to kill off the purple disease. You simply turn in any five cards and it is cured. This variant makes the Purple disease a bit more unpredictable and dangerous. The quarantine rules also give additional choices to the players to make. Should we quarantine a city? When should it be done? Which player should do it? When should the quarantine (if ever) be lifted? Which player (if you have a choice) should lift the quarantine?
Requirements
One player must be the Medic in this variant. It is suggested that another player be either the Epidemiologist or Scientist.
You will not need to make any new cards, but you will need several quarantine markers. You can use anything for this. Use tokens or extra pieces from another game or make your own.
Additional Purple Disease Spread
The Purple disease continues to propagate and spread the way the original rules explain. In addition, the player playing the “Infector” needs to roll two dice after choosing and playing the infector cards to see if the Purple disease breaks out in any (additional) cities. Match the die roll to the results below and implement all results immediately. Ignore any other die rolls.
Die roll Result
2 Add one Purple to any city adjacent to any Purple; then add one Purple to player’s space
3 Add two Purple in each space adjacent to player
11 Add one Purple in each space adjacent to player
12 Add one Purple in space of player and two Purple in each space adjacent to player
There is also no cure possible for Purple. Purple is too virulent and no cure can be found during the play of the game. Players can only treat Purple. This rule makes for a Purple that can spread very quickly.
Implementing Quarantines
To balance out and counter the nastiness of the new virulent strain of Purple, players will have an option to quarantine cities to prevent the spread of diseases. It is not easy to set up an effective Quarantine of a city, (just watch I am Legend). So if a Player decides a Quarantine is warranted, the Player must use all of their actions for a turn to implement a Quarantine in a city. Hence only one city may be quarantined by a player in that player’s turn. A player may implement a Quarantine in the city where they are located or any adjacent city. As soon as a city is Quarantined, no outbreaks (of any disease) occur from that city or into that city. Put a (homemade) Quarantined marker on that city. Diseases can still be added to the city, but only from infections in the city. The only player allowed into or out of a Quarantined city is the Medic. To clarify, diseases of any color can grow to a maximum of three in a quarantined city but cannot spread outside the city. If a disease of one color is called for in a quarantined city, and it already has three cubes of that disease, then the potential outbreak of that disease has been averted and the infection card is ignored. it is ignored. There is no limit to the number of Quarantined markers that can be placed on the board. If an outbreak is averted due to a quarantine, then do not move the outbreak marker. This rule can affect non-quarantined cities as well. For example, suppose Santiago is not quarantined and has three yellow cubes and a Santiago infection card is drawn. If Lima is Quarantined, then no outbreak from Santiago occurs, since Lima is the only place where such as outbreak could go and with Lima Quarantined, the outbreak is preevented and the card is ignored.
Ending a Quarantine of a City
Implementing a quarantine is difficult, but ending one is fairly simple, if you have the authority to do so. Only the Scientist or Epidemiologist have the authority to end a quarantine. To end a quarantine the Scientist or Epidemiologist Player may on their turn use an action and remove the quarantine (marker) from one city. They may do this so that a Player may get into or out of the city or because the threat of the diseases in that city has been reduced or because they simply want to show off their political power. They may not end the quarantine, move in or out of the city and then re-impose the quarantine in one turn (since it takes all of their actions in one turn to implement a quarantine.) The next player may reimplement the quarantine of that city if desired.
Play Balance
If the Purple disease is still too easy to handle for you in this variant, then add more Epidemic cards. If too hard then reduce the number of Epidemic cards.
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