For an introduction to Clinic: Deluxe Edition see here.
Set up
Ok, so piles of custom meeples (Doctors, Nurses and Orderlies) are sorted into colour coordinated piles, as are cubes (patients) of matching colours. Tiles are stacked and coins emptied into a container.
Relevant Doctors and Patients are placed into the appropriate bags
A randomly drawn white cube leads to our starter clinic being an upside down and back to front ‘L’ shape. The lab and outpatient special modules are available for building.
Two doctors are studying, a couple of relatively healthy patients (white cubes) are in the Psychiatry and Cardiology queues and our junior doctor is parking his car.
All that we need to do is determine a bonus tile and scoring objective. After that, I think we can get this show on the road.
Two random selections later…
Our junior doctor is upgraded from white to yellow. Perhaps this is an administrative error on the part of the locum agency. Whatever the cause, I’ll happily accept this upgrade. It means we can start treating more lucrative…erm…more unwell patients earlier.
Sadly, our more experienced locum doesn’t chime well with our scoring objective. We need to remove all white patients from play by the end of the game. Either by treating them first or allowing them to become more unwell.
So, our early strategy seems clear: admit white patients and leave them on trolleys in pre-assessment. They’ll become more ill that way and change colour (guess our Clinic doesn’t have to patients after all).
Turn 1
Actions: Build/Admit/Hire
It seemed sensible to build the lab early. It’s a handy way to upgrade doctors and gain a VP per turn. Second build was an entrance straight into the Psych treatment room. Time efficiency is a key consideration and better access to the clinic allows for improved queue management.
The two early arrivals to clinic were both admitted, as was an additional psychiatric patient. A second, more inexperienced, doctor was hired. Parking at this point is no problem.
The junior moved into the Psych treatment room while the yellow locum went to the lab. One patient was admitted into Psych and treated for a total of $8.
After deducting staff and maintenance costs our profit for the round was: $1
Better than nothing. I have my eye on those deteriorating patients and the soon to be upgraded lab based yellow doctor.
Turn 2
Actions: Build/Hire/Admit.
Alright, I admit it. This round was basically the same as the first. Except executed poorly. Significant procrastination led to complete brain meltdown. The decision for where to place the Cardiology service hub would have led to heckling and an egg timer countdown in anything but a solo game.
Patients were left in corridors to become more unwell and the parking situation began to deteriorate.
Staff costs rose sharply as a new nurse and an orderly joined the team. Meanwhile our yellow doctor qualified as an almighty red doctor and decided to stay in the lab.
Hey, at least we didn’t make a loss.
Profit: £0
Retained for investment: £0
Turn 3
Actions: Build/Admit/Admit
Make or break time. This turn is pivotal and will end one of two ways: another case of hospital mismanagement hitting the headlines, or, by some miracle, the hospital will turn a profit. Either way, it’ll be interesting.
With no money to invest our first action is wasted, however, we gain our miracle with the two admit actions. One red patient for our red doctor and the white doctor is supported by a nurse to treat a yellow patient
That’s an income of 44 coins this turn!
The profits are used to by 8 popularity points. These are added to those gained from the lab-based doctor for a total of 10 popularity.
However, the time cost is creeping up. 12 hours spent in three turns. That seems…inefficient.
Turn 4
Actions: Admit/Hire/Build
Through a combination of a new nurse and another orange doctor it was possible to repeat the success of turn three. This time a nurse helped bridge the arrogance gap and an orange doctor treated a lowly yellow patient. Meanwhile our white doctor punched above his weight to do the same.
Patient transportation was invested in heavily to improve time efficiency. Hooray for patient teleporters!
The engine is motoring now.
Income: 44 coins
Popularity bought: 6
Turn 5
Actions: Admit/Hire/Hire
A MASSIVE TURN!
Some select queue juggling and doctor/nurse combos led to no less than 4 orange patients being treated. $80 income in a single turn!
I cackle maniacally to myself. $63 pure profit. 20 popularity points in the bag. I cackle further as I congratulate myself for being an administrative genius.
Then I realise that there are still three white patients in play moving into the final turn. It will all be for nothing if I don’t get rid of…er…cure them somehow. I’ve also got several sick patients malingering in pre-assessment. Time to get juggling.
Turn 6
Final Turn
Actions: Admit/Admit/Hire
Just had to get those white patients out of the bag and into the queue with the first action. Unfortunately, only three available queue points meant that I had to admit a more unwell patient or risk not being able to manipulate the queue enough to get the correct patients admitted in the next action. All white patients are now in play.
The second Hire action moves them from the queue to pre-assessment. A quick calculation reveals that I am going to lose points at game end for sick patients in pre-assessment. At least I will be able to score. After 5 games written off as ‘learning experiences’, I count this as an achievement.
Not able to admit a third time and not needing to build anything I decide to hire a yellow doctor. This will, if I have judged it correctly allow me to treat all the remaining white patients with doctors already in the clinic. This new doctor will head for the lab and upgrade to red in time for game end scoring.
Sounded like a plan
Game End
Time for final scoring. I’ve treated the white patients, my lab doctor upgraded to red, I’ve gained further popularity for clinic height and size and I feel in a good position. I had been able to buy more popularity by treating the white patients and a yellow on that last turn. I’m at 55 points. Awesome!
Then came the adjustments. Each deduction making me cringe as my inefficiencies were revealed.
Minus 6 points for the orange patient still in pre-assessment. Ouch!
Minus another 6 points for 18 hours spent moving patients and staff around. Ouch!
Was that it? Oh, it was. Not as bad as I thought!
Final Popularity:43
That makes me a ‘Resident’.
Thoughts
Well, that just shows why there aren’t many session reports for heavy economic Eurogames. Trying to make cube shuffling and basic accountancy sound exciting is a challenge!
There is no doubt I could have been significantly more efficient. I would also put the chance that I made a mistake somewhere during the game at around 95%.
Still I had fun playing and writing about Clinic: Deluxe Edition. I hope you have enjoyed reading it.
