by fredd13
loudwalrus wrote:
Hmm. I interpreted it to mean that the city of Utopia couldn't have any city improvements like satellites, shelters, or supply centers. All of these seemed thematically correct (you can't build these kinds of things in enemy territory) and also somewhat relevant to difficulty. Utopia will be swarming with Hollow Men pretty quickly because of the way the infection deck is stacked and not being able build a shelter means you have to get out of dodge quickly or risk exposure. (It also means you may take some population hits that could affect final score.)
And that possible interpretation was precisely why I came here and asked the question.
In all honesty - assuming we didn't miss another critical rule - I don't think it would have made a massive difference to us. Our Utopia was never"swarming with Hollow Men"; we saw 3 there in total. In fact, we had rather more on a couple of cities we were using as "Honey Pots". (Four cards deliberately left in the Infection deck; permanent Shelters; supplies topped up as required, to minimise Incidents. "Hollow Men welcome!" signs prominently displayed.)
[o]We'd stacked Utopia with enough supplies to avoid any possibility of an initial Incident. The actual Infect brought out (from memory) 4 Utopia cards, one of which was a Hollow Men. The Hollow Men we immediately Misdirected to a suitably pleasant Rest Home in Japan; the cards we Inoculated as soon as we could get someone in there (on the second player's turn). None of them came came back out.
We did build a shelter in Utopia at the earliest opportunity, but (as indicated) we only saw Hollow Men Gather on Utopia twice more before it ceased to matter. I can't swear that we would have had the actions left to shift those as well and end the game on the same move - not least, we'd have spent more actions trying to avoid characters starting turns on Utopia because of its Infested status, so I suspect it would have gone once more round the board before we sent in our chosen "sacrificial lamb". And like everyone else I've learned that Pandemic can deal very harshly with players who think that they have plenty of time in hand. But we were a long way from losing (we'd had 2 Incidents and 3 Epidemics at game end), and we felt well under control all the way. Yes, it might have cost us a couple of points; I doubt we'd have noticed or cared.[/o]