After burning out somewhat on Pandemic: Fall of Rome, I've returned to the one that's set in my own country in more modern times. We don't worry too much about barbarians or diseases over here, but the water's a constant threat. My house for example is built a few meters below sea level, in the former Zuiderzee. Here's Pandemic: Rising Tide:
This is the most thematic Pandemic version I've played. You're really managing the water flows strategically to make sure you're ready for another storm. By placing or strengthening dikes, and by building and managing pumps (nice orange windmills). I find gameplay more streamlined than with the various disease variants. Gone are the four arbitrary and abstract diseases, there's just one threat: water. There's also no need for an outbreak tracker: when you have a flood, more water will be added to other low regions and when you're out of water cubes, you've lost.
Like I did this time, because of a huge flood in Zeeland. And just to show you how well the simulation works: this unfortunately also happened in real life, before we had the Deltawerken to protect us - just like I hadn't built them during my session.
There's enough variation in the box: you can play with variable goals per game. Some of the variants have you take population into account in addition to the water levels, which makes it even more immersive. But most of all it's great to have the country where I live on the board of a game that plays so well and spend time "constructing" our national hydraulic structures.
You should. 🙂 I think it's done really well and can be enjoyed by people that aren't overly fond of Pandemic as well.
As a fellow Dutchie I should find myself a copy of this 🤔