Last night, I played my first run through of any of the co-ops. We chose Forgotten Souls. We read the rules many times before playing.

Nonetheless, I have a question just to make sure I am seeing things correctly.

When you make up the exploration deck, the rules state that you do the following:

1. Remove the "starred" card which is the starting room. You also remove the "numbered" cards 1-3 which are the main rooms.
2. You are left with 8 exploration cards. You shuffle them all up, and then deal them into 3 piles, containing 3 cards, 3 cards, and 2 cards.
3. You take the numbered "3" exploration card and shuffle it into the 2 card pile (so you now have a pile of 3).
4. You take the numbered "2" exploration card and shuffle it into one of the two 3 card piles (resulting in a pile of 4 cards). You place that pile on top of the 3 card pile of step 2.
5. You take the numbered "1" exploration card and shuffle it into the remaining 3 card pile (resulting in a pile of 4 cards). You place that pile on top of the 7 card pile resulting from step 4.
6. This makes up your exploration deck.

The players lose if Fate and Doom ever exist in the same circle on the ladder. The players win if they successfully complete main room #3.

So, it would seem that the only way to win, is to play a minimum of 9 exploration cards. The top pile of 4 cards has room #1 some where in it (positions 1 through 4), the second set of 4 cards has room #2 some where in it (positions 5-8) and you can hope that room #3 is at the very top of the third pile of 3 cards.

If I have all of this correct, and I think I do, then you have a minimum of 9 rooms and a maximum of 11 rooms (beyond the very first one), to explore.

And we didn't get out of room 2. It would seem these co-ops will be tough to beat.

One other point. We chose to play with 4 heroes which starts Doom only 3-4 spaces from Fate. While Fate can move backwards or be reset entirely, Doom never does so. Once it moves upward, it is always there.

Makes me wonder if playing with only 2 heroes would be better, as Doom and Fate would then start like 6 spaces away from each other.

Granted, I only played once, and we didn't get very far, but I was wondering about other's thoughts that have played the game. How many heroes did you use? Have you tried the game with 2, 3, and 4 heroes. Is it better balanced for a certain number of heroes?

Did we just have bad luck in room selection, play poorly, roll poorly (definitely did this)?

Obviously, a sample size of 1 does not give a fair reading of the game ... that is why I am trying to leverage other players thoughts.

I find playing with 2 heroes is much easier for this reason. I have played forgotten souls and Nature's Ire a few times, have never gotten further than 1 or 2 rooms after the second numbered room (transition to act 2.)

I......did beat it with 4 Heroes. Granted... I DID reroll a few times...

I never tried it with two heroes. Yes, there is no room for error when playing with 4, you never ever want Doom to travel. You can afford a few Advance Fate steps though if you need a breather. Usually you can get it to refresh or at least knock it back one. The really hard part is keeping Fatigue in check. Heroes that are good at regenerating it are really great for Co-Ops.

Also... I found Tomble/Thief to be a great hero for Co-Ops. He can give you some free open door actions, grab search tokens from afar and use Sneaky on any monster that happen to spawn into the next room.

I feel you need to play it multiple times before you will be able to get further.

At first, you don't know what is coming, so you don't know which encounters might be waiting right around the corner, or how to best spend you actions preparing for that.

"(...) Have you tried the game with 2, 3, and 4 heroes. Is it better balanced for a certain number of heroes?"

I did play about 6 times, beating the game 3 times and losing other 3. I think is easier with more heroes. All the times I beat the game I was playing with 4 heroes.

On Forgotten Souls, what I think unbalanced is the main encounters. The #1 encounter, "Room of Souls" is annoying; the #2 "Lava Tomb" is easier and the 3# "Throne of Fallen" is moderate.

I believe the most important is the sinergy among the heroes and their classes and skills.

Last time I beat it, I was playing with:

1) Tahlia, as Skirmisher;

2) Andira Runehand, as Bard;

3) Tinashi, as Shadow Walker;

4) Highmage Quellen, as Conjurer.

It was my easiest playthrough. Of course, its all luck-dependant, but some combinations get best results.

Often I did use Tinashi first, to use its basic ability and put the shadow familiar on a strategic position to increase the damage of other party members.. At last, Andira, putting her on the best place to enjoy the bard ability "dissonance" and her hero ability.

So, if some monster activates near the group and within the range, he got 1 damage from the "dissonance", if he causes damage to a hero, he will suffer 1 damage from Andira 's hero ability.

Thalia get 2 movement points after each killing, so she can move around without spending fatigue.

Quellen often recover fatigue from his hero ability, making easy to conjure MIrror Images and use Channeling and Refraction.

Well, its not a --- "Wow, what a perfect combinantion !" --- but... it worked fine.