Testing all 4-character teams in Heroic mode

[aghagh]

I decided to test all 4-character teams in Heroic mode to see how well each of them fared. There are 35 4-character teams and I played 100 games with each of them, 3500 games in total. I hope you find my results of interest.

Things I tracked:
* Victories
* First night epidemics
* Streaks
* Epidemics on cities with cubes from previous outbreakes (starting from the second team).

- Characters' final ranking (number of victories | % | character)
(each character was a member of 20 teams, so their maximum number of victories was 2000)
1.- 1333 (66.65%) (R)esearcher
2.- 1319 (65.95%) (Q)uarantine specialist
3.- 1196 (59.80%) (M)edic
4.- 1157 (57.85%) (O)perations expert
5.- 1140 (57.00%) (S)cientist
6.- 1118 (55.90%) (D)ispatcher
7.- 1093 (54.65%) (C)ontingency planner

- Teams' final ranking (team members | number of victories after 100 games | best winning and worst losing streaks)
(there is more or less of a correlation between streaks and how good or bad a team is)
01.- (R)(Q)(D)(C) 82 (20/3)
02.- (R)(Q)(O)(S) 79 (17/2)
03.- (R)(Q)(M)(O) 78 (16/2)
04.- (R)(M)(O)(S) 77 (11/3)
==.- (R)(Q)(M)(D) 77 (14/5)
06.- (Q)(O)(S)(D) 73 (14/3)
07.- (R)(Q)(M)(C) 72 (11/3)
08.- (R)(Q)(M)(S) 71 (9/2)
==.- (R)(Q)(O)(D) 71 (10/3)
10.- (R)(Q)(S)(D) 70 (9/3)
11.- (R)(Q)(S)(C) 69 (8/3)
==.- (R)(Q)(O)(C) 69 (16/4)
13.- (R)(M)(O)(C) 68 (13/6)
14.- (R)(M)(S)(C) 67 (5/4)
==.- (R)(M)(D)(C) 67 (13/3)
16.- (Q)(M)(O)(D) 66 (7/2)
17.- (R)(M)(S)(D) 65 (9/4)
==.- (Q)(O)(S)(C) 65 (8/4)
19.- (R)(M)(O)(D) 64 (9/3)
20.- (Q)(M)(O)(C) 62 (9/4)
21.- (Q)(M)(S)(D) 59 (13/8)
22.- (R)(O)(S)(C) 55 (4/7)
==.- (Q)(M)(O)(S) 55 (8/6)
==.- (Q)(M)(D)(C) 55 (6/6)
25.- (Q)(O)(D)(C) 52 (5/4)
26.- (R)(O)(S)(C) 49 (6/4)
27.- (Q)(S)(D)(C) 48 (4/9)
28.- (Q)(M)(S)(C) 46 (8/7)
==.- (M)(O)(S)(C) 46 (5/6)
30.- (R)(O)(S)(D) 45 (6/8)
31.- (R)(O)(D)(C) 38 (4/5)
==.- (M)(O)(S)(C) 38 (5/8)
33.- (M)(S)(D)(C) 35 (4/12)
34.- (O)(S)(D)(C) 28 (3/9)
==.- (M)(O)(D)(C) 28 (4/17)

Total number of victories after 3500 games: 2089 (59.68%). With the help of other human players I'm sure the rate of victories would have been a bit higher because at times I made the wrong choices or did not see a potential path to victory until it was too late.

Games where a city with a cube from a previous outbreak was drawn after an epidemic: 620. Victories: 138 (22.26%). This is one of the worst things that can happen in a Pandemic game, because it's very hard to prevent and there is a lot of luck involved.

Games with an epidemic drawn on the first night: 717. Victories: 410 (57.18%). On average, having an epidemic drawn on the first night is not as bad as it may sound. Chances of having an epidemic on the first night are 2/9, 22-23 per 100 games and I had 717/3500 (20.49%).

* Fastest loss and fastest victory
Fastest loss: 0 minutes (26 seconds)
https://boardgamearena.com/table?table=226512273
Fastest victory: 4 minutes
https://boardgamearena.com/table?table=226406238

[Ankeszu]

Well done!
I am kind of surprised Dispatcher < OpEx win %, and that low Sci score. Will look more into your results/methodology later when have more time Thank you for this check!


BTW I'm privately checking something similar in real life games with people for 2p Pandemic teams, but it gets faaar slower than here

[Rachwin]

I never expected the Researcher to be that good, especially without the Scientist!!
I am a big advocate for the Quarantine Specialist, especially in the Legacy game!

[Meeplelowda]

"How can you lose in 26 seconds?!?"
<views game replay>
"Oh, that's how...."

[aghagh]

I am kind of surprised Dispatcher < OpEx win %, and that low Sci score. Will look more into your results/methodology later when have more time

I never expected the Researcher to be that good, especially without the Scientist!!
I am a big advocate for the Quarantine Specialist, especially in the Legacy game!

For me the Researcher was the strongest character from the beginning as she saves many actions to exchange cards. As for the ranking of some of the characters, It could also be that I failed to use some of them to their fullest potential. One way to find out would be for other players to do the same and compare results. For me the surprise was to find the Contingency Planner (weakest character in theory) being part of the best team (or at least *my* best team).

BTW I'm privately checking something similar in real life games with people for 2p Pandemic teams, but it gets faaar slower than here

I started doing 2p teams as well, but after a while I decided to move to 4p teams because I didn't want to do all 2p, 3p and 4p teams. As a happy anecdote, I remember one game with the Researcher and the Scientist where I was able to erradicate the blue desease on the first turn.

"How can you lose in 26 seconds?!?" <views game replay> "Oh, that's how...."

Yes, that was unlucky. It was a game with a lot of black cubes to start with. I decided to deal with them with the second character, but I never got that far (I mean, what were the odds, right?). Epidemic on the first (and last) night, drew another black city connected with the others and then the two drawn cards were again black cities, running out of black cubes to put on the map.