Welcome to the Iberian Peninsula! Set in 1848, Pandemic Iberia asks you to take on the roles of nurse, railwayman, rural doctor, sailor, and more to find the cures to malaria, typhus, the yellow fever, and cholera.
From Barcelona to Lisboa, you will need to travel by carriage, by boat, or by train to help the Iberian populace. While doing so, distributing purified water and developing railways will help you slow the spread of diseases in this new version of Pandemic.
Discover a unique part of the world during a historically significant time period: the construction of the first railroad in the Iberian Peninsula during the Spring of Nations.
The game comes with two variants that can be added :
Influx of Patients : the cubes, representing patients, will tend to flock to hospitals to try to get cured. Hospitals also are a bit more powerful.
Historical Diseases : instead of being generic, each disease has a specific power to better represent what it is (Malaria, Cholera, Yellow Fever etc.)
Part of the Pandemic series.
- Vibrant map with festival-driven scoring that adds decision space
- Drafting starting tickets increases strategic tension and interaction
- Province-style board adds area-majority scoring and pacing control
- Rules are approachable; good for players moving from base game
- High randomness can undermine skill-based play and consistency
- Second ticket draft can complicate pacing and lead to less satisfying choices
- Setup overhead and festival-tracking can slow play and increase downtime
- Not ideal for brand-new players due to the drafting and randomness
- Rail network construction with festival-driven scoring
- Spain/Eiberia region
- Overview and critique of map mechanics
- Netherlands map
- Switzerland map
- Europe maps (various base sets)
- India map
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- Festival cards and scoring — Festival cards appear in the same deck as train cards near cities; collecting them yields end-game points.
- Route Building — Standard Ticket to Ride route-building across the Iberian map.
- Starting-tickets drafting twist — A two-phase draft for starting tickets adds early strategic tension and neighbor interaction.
- Ticket drafting at game start — Starting tickets are drafted in a six-card pool, with a four-card final keep after round-based drafting.
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- it's chaotic
- I would give this map an eight out of 10
- the randomness is just too high to make this a map that I want to play over and over again
- easy to teach
- a nice little addition
References (from this video)
- short to medium play with euro feel
- easy to teach compared to giants
- not as deeply known as other euro giants
- merchant exploration and routes
- late 18th-century Iberian trade and exploration
- economic/trade game flavor
- Brass Birmingham
- Agricola
- Through the Ages
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- route/rail-like network — Build a supply network across Iberia to gain points.
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- gloomhaven well everybody knows that right
- pandemic season one is a cooperative game
- it's the crew
- code names
- magic maze
- the correct answer is sheriff of Nottingham
- subscribe like and comment on this video
- time stories isn't it but time stories isn't as well so one point for you
- you don't know board games
- Terraforming Mars