Cooperative games are potentially such fun and rewarding activities and Pandemic is arguably the best of the lot, but it seems like we get our clock cleaned and lose to the game with disturbing regularity. Even at beginner level (four epidemic cards) we only seem to win I would estimate maybe a quarter to a third of the time. The odds go down from there with the addition of each epidemic card. Are we playing that badly or doing something wrong? Could we just be that unlucky? How do you fare?
We play with our kids (11 and 9) and we have it set on 5 epidemic cards and win 50% of the time. We win every time on 4 cards but this is only after trial and error.
Others will be along with other tips but the one thing I’d suggest is to make the most of the special roles that your players have. Make the Researcher research, make the engineer build etc.
Every move not used doing something specific is a move wasted.
Also make good use of the special event cards. A good “one quiet night” right after an epidemic that put a trouble-spot back on top of the deck can be crucial.
How are you usually losing? Outbreaks? Deck running out? Running out of cubes of a color? If it’s always the same reason, focus on preventing that.
Don’t waste a lot of time cleaning up cubes that don’t matter. Focus on the ones that will cause outbreaks, especially chain reactions.
One rule I’ve seen people miss that makes the game a lot harder: You do not need to eradicate all disease (remove all cubes). You just need to find the cure for each one.
And also don’t worry about every outbreak. They’re going to happen. If you try to stop every one it will make the game a lot harder.
The first time I played this game, we were wiped out extremely early by a bunch of chain reaction outbreaks. I’m not sure there was anything much we could have done about it. So a non-zero percentage of the time you will probably flat-out lose.
The second time I played, we managed to find the last cure on the absolute last player’s turn before we ran out of “time”, and only managed this because I was able to spot a combination of things that would allow us to get the right card into the right hand in time, and plan it in advance a couple turns.
The last bit is really the key. The game is extremely cooperative. You don’t just do your own thing while working towards the same goal. You have to work together and think about how to use each others resources along with your own toward the path to finding cures while preventing outbreaks. Don’t clean up everything - just make sure an outbreak will stay confined; you might not even have to worry about a single outbreak if you’ve kept them under control and aren’t getting them chaining off each other. Focus more on finding cures, and that means getting people in the right places to be able to pass off cards. Make use of the powers that let you research things easily and pass cards between players easily.
The game is freaking HARD. It’s probably the hardest cooperative board game I’ve ever played. That’s one of the reasons why it’s so fun, because when you win you really earned something.
But I swear, most of the time we have a good strategy and we’re making good progress and this time we’re going to make it and WHAM, we lose.
Does the game get harder with 3-4 players? Because my wife and I play with 5 epidemic cards, and win on a regular basis. I’ve gone through the rules several more times to see if we’re doing anything wrong, and I believe we’re playing the right way. Do the extra cards that 2 players start with make that big of a difference?
Probably? It is hard to say without a detailed account of how you are playing, but Pandemic is a game that if you get one rule wrong you can drastically change the difficulty level., and you shouldn’t be doing that poorly.
I’d start here to see if you are doing anything wrong.
This is true, almost to a fault. It’s why a single experienced player (or in some cases, just a single LOUD player) can dominate the game. (So much so that among co-op gamers this is often called “The Pandemic Problem”.) If you look at everyone’s options as the options of the group as a whole, you have a much better chance of winning. (Sadly, there’s a fine line between that and looking at everyone’s options as your own options if they just do as you say. :p)
Ha! Forbidden Desert eats Pandemic for breakfast. 
For the record, Forbidden Desert was made by the same fellow who made Pandemic. He is a cruel cruel soul. 
I’m kidding of course Forbidden Desert is a pile of cooperative fun. For a twist on the cooperative genre check out Betrayal at House on the Hill. The games starts cooperative but one player will become the traitor! Very well done!
Our gaming group usually beats Pandemic on normal (maybe 4 out of 5 times) and we have on rare occasion won on heroic (maybe 1 in 6). We’ve beaten Forbidden Desert once, just once, on normal. On heroic, we do play Pandemic with a house rule that there is no engineer because the engineer is underpowered.
I find the key to Pandemic is to cooperate. I’ve noticed a lot of people who play the game and lose do so because they play as 4 (or whatever) individual players doing their individual best to win. The character’s abilities interact in ways that give you a lot of power if you use them. My personal favorite character to play is the dispatcher. The ability to move other player’s tokens to get them into key positions is very powerful.
Getting one cure quickly is very important, and absolutely mandatory on heroic. So obviously you want the researcher and scientist to stick together and work together, but sometimes that isn’t enough. If need be every player needs to move to get a cure. And don’t forget although the scientist can make a cure with one less card any player, even the dispatcher can make a cure. Look for those key opportunities to make a cure even if it is sub-optional in the sense that you are burning one extra card.
Make every reasonable effort to sunset one disease. When a diseased is sunset every time that colour is drawn it is a dead card for the “bad guys” (the disease).
Be careful about burning too many cards for travel though. If it is a key move that’s fine, but we’ve lost games where we simply burned too many cards.
Resist the urge to play special events cards the moment you get them. Use them to create a key moment that moves you down the path to victory. For example, if you’re about to sunset a disease than “One Quiet Night” or “Forecast” can give you the ability to ensure it will happen. If at all possible use what you know about what might be drawn to avoid wasting a special event. If you know there are 3 reds and 1 blacks that can be drawn but you’re worried about a yellow, well then you have nothing to worry about.
Alternatively, if there is the potential for a critical failure. For example, two sets of three diseases next to each other that can be a very good moment to play a special event to prevent it.
Haven’t played that one, but try Knizia’s Lord of the Rings. When you finally beat it, you’ll feel like you really just backpacked through Mordor.
And Space Hulk Death Angel with the expansion Marines is the only co-op in my collection that we’ve NEVER won.
I have not played it, but I have heard that Ghost Stories is very hard.
Brian
Challenge accepted.
Absolutely.
Analysing ahead and working as a team is vital (e.g. I’ll build a Research Station so you can travel there in your turn, or I’ll collect black cards whilst you collect blue)
Agreed, but I think early on is a good time to burn cards to:
- set up a network of Research Stations
- deal with scary-looking situations, such as a group of adjacent diseases
I also think there are some good combinations of Specialists. For example, in a 2 player game I really like:
- Researcher + Scientist (Researcher gives the Scientist cards and only four of a kind are needed for a cure)
- Operations Expert + Medic (Operations Expert sets up Research Stations and Medic travels there to cure all)
It’s not harder per se, but the powers of individual roles get weaker (or stronger) depending on the number of players. For instance, the guy that cleans all disease on his city with 1 action is aces in a 2 player game, but he’s just OK in a 4 player game.
[QUOTE=gonzoron]
Haven’t played that one, but try Knizia’s Lord of the Rings. When you finally beat it, you’ll feel like you really just backpacked through Mordor.
[/QUOTE]
Arkham Horror is pretty tough as well. And not only is the game itself difficult, there’s a metric fuckton of stuff to keep in mind and manipulate at all times. The related dice game, Elder Sign, can also be hellishly unfair at times.
Our very first game of Elder Sign literally came down to a last roll. If the rolled fail, we won if not “Game Over”. That roll came down to one last die needing one symbol (I think skull). No clues left so that was it. Die is cast… you can see it bounce onto the skull (or whatever) and then bounce off… Game Over! Evil Wins!
It was soooooooooooo awesome! So I also recommend Elder Signs. Once we got a bit better at cooperating in Elder Sign our group would usually win. Maybe 3 out of 4. Then we got the expansion pack. The expansion pack is pure brutality. After that we won maybe 1 in 4. Personally I prefer cooperative games where victory is hard as it makes it that much sweeter. For example, by contrast our group has never lost a game of Castle Panic. It is still fun to play but there’s no elation that comes with victory!!
Yes. More players is harder due to the card distribution. With 4 people it is imperative to exchange cards, which is a pain in the ass. There are only 11 or so of each color, so the chances of one player getting five of a color isn’t so good with 4 players. Also, certain roles are more powerful with fewer players.
The real key is getting that first cure on the board ASAP. Sacrifice an outbreak to make this happen! Exchange cards to make it happen. Don’t wait to draw the color you need. Once you start discarding cards that you need later, you are in trouble.
I find the way we typically lose is getting over the limit on outbreaks. Maybe we’re doing outbreaks wrong? We had a debate about the rules recently - I’ll throw it out to you all:
three mutually connected cities each have three cubes of one color on them. An outbreak occurs on one…how many outbreaks ultimately occur under this condition?
I will also concede we may not have made the best use of player special abilities. Or even cooperated/planned together particularly well.
Three, assuming no other outbreaks outside of those three cities. I’m guessing someone is suggesting that there’s a recursive loop of sorts, where City A outbreaks to City B, and City B outbreaks right back at City A? Nope - per the rules: “When a chain reaction outbreak occurs, first move the outbreaks marker forward 1 space. Then, place cubes as above, except do not add a cube to cities that have already had an outbreak (or a chain reaction outbreak) as part of resolving the current Infection card”. There’s a handy example on page 7 of the rulebook, involving an outbreak starting in Algiers.