Hi,
I've tried this game with my son, first family tutorial and after 5 attempts there's no way we can win this. Victims appear in places we already checked, Fire start on the same spot we flooded last turn, it's really hard to think about a strategy and progress. Too bad because otherwise the game is really enjoyable.
I'm guessing you're only using 2 firefighters. This does mean less time between moving, and less chance of getting burnt. But what I found when I was first learning the board game, 3-4 firefighters was easier. You can more effectively cover the whole house, and when you're learning, fire management is key. So start by putting out as much of the fire as possible, and then focus on learning to keep the fire under control. Learning fire management can take time, but as you learn to work together it will become easy.
I agree with br3n065, 3 or 4 firefighters seems the best/easiest as they can effectively take sections of the house much easier. Tendency for new players is to try and get people out of the house straight away, the priority should be to get the fire under control first. Having new victims show up in spots that you’ve just walked over (or even taken another victim from) is a bizarre thematic disconnect. But it’s to do with how the original game determined their location.
If you haven't given up for good here's some more advice
- don't finish a turn standing next to fire. It can flare up and KO your firefighter
- put out smoke where you can. It takes less AP than fire, and if fire appears next to it, all adjacent smoke will turn to fire!
- close doors to stop the spread of fire
- move victims to safe spots to be collected by paramedics/rescue specialists, rather than tying up a firefighter for the whole rescue
frustrating that i can't beat the tutorial with 6 firefighters. embers go through everything, closed doors or not. the family must be al queda gardeners with stored explosives and ammonia nitrate everywhere in the house. every time i move a firefighter the fire gets a turn. even though with 6 guys i should be doing 6x the work i am actually just making it spread 6x faster.
i choose the complex ruleset and long narrow house and used the firefighter with the 3 free extinguish and managed to solo win the level with loss of one guy and 7 rescued, one dead at the other side of the house, one i dropped outside far from the ambo, and one i was hauling to the stretcher when house finally went down. so the control the fire strat is the winning one as listed above.
