How to gather Unique Gladiators

[bakagrappler]

So just throwing this out there because this system is not particularly clear. I'm sure most players have encountered the unique gladiators in the game, much to their dismay. Either in tournaments, stand alone matches, or in Arena challenges. You know if they are a Unique Gladiator if they have a character portrait that is obviously not auto generated from in game graphics.

Anyway, these guys are very powerful, often with skill investments and stats that are head and shoulders above what you can bring to the field.

Now, I'm sure most players have been able to defeat a challenging Unique Glad and make them part of the Arena, but there is a better way to recruit them. The Red, max difficulty, Slaving missions.

You have a chance, something like a 15 to 20 percent chance or one of the Unique Gladiators who are marked as "Freemen" in the list of top Gladiators to appear in these camps. Freemen are Gladiators who are not a part of any Arena, meaning they roam around, battling at their own discretion, and are the ones who able to challenge your Arena.

Also, there is a possibility that if you don't beat and recruit Lin during her scripted Arena Challenge you can get her through this method. I have not tried verifying this because I don't want to brick a playthrough, thanks.

And BTW, I've noticed that the number of Arena Challenges from Freemen gladiators drops sharply once you have a large roster of Gladiators in your arena, meaning the ONLY way to get more than a few Unique Glads is to actually go hunting for them.

METHOD:
So the level that is used for the Slavery dispatch missions is static after it is selected, but what is found inside the level is randomized at the time of it being loaded in. If you are not Ironman Mode, then you can save before going into the mission, you can save scum and reload the game over and over until either a Unique Freeman Gladiator appears in the map, or you can do it until a specific Unique Gladiator appears if you have one you specifically want to play with, like say Maggie the Mage.

With most maps, you can check who the final opponents at the end of the level are, and then reload if they are not what or who you want to quickly try again.

Now, you want to have a ranged unit that can outrun opponents, use Stealth and have them move independently of the rest of the group, and use the archer to pull and then ambush one opponent at a time to clear out the enemies without having to have even a single stand up fight. By the time you fight the last opponent, the unique Gladiator, you will still have a full and unweathered team to gang up 4 on 1 with.

WHY GET Unique Glads?
They can't die. Ever. They'll just lose HP and get wounded, which requires time to get fixed up, but they won't ever perish. That is fantastic, especially if you do a lot of Dispatching for Arena fights. You can send a team of Unique Gladiators to Arena fights and never have to fear a death due to bad RNG. This will sharply increase your income rate and your save scumming if you're that kind of player. For Ironman, it means zero risk Dispatching to any or all Arenas on the map. It's fantastic.

[bakagrappler]

And of course, as soon as I post this, things changed for no G D reason. Okay, so for some reason, I reload a save and go back in and I'm getting consistency all of a sudden. I access the map once, and there are no Unique Gladiators. I load back a save, and I get a Unique Gladiator. It's not the one I want, so I reload. And no matter how many times I reload, I get the same Unique Gladiator.

I dunno why; nothing changed that I can discern, and I don't know about any updates that happened. Well, you can still "Collect them all" eventually, I suppose.

[Vvv]

That's great to know, I thought that you could only recruit few scripted ones. I would gladly try and get Maggie because she's Op af.

I had a tournament at my own arena, max people 1vs1. And I got the few 4-5 unique gladiators that I could easily beat with my archer. But if you fight Maggie or if you spectate her fights she will win almost against anything. I say almost because I guess there's a way to beat her but I am not sure myself except maybe going full mage like her.

Her fire shield reduces all dmg she takes by 75% and she almost never runs out of mana on top of having plenty of magic to cast from immobilising and doing dmg.

Anyway, super glad to find out about this, I am hyped to get a few now.

[Vvv]

Also I forgot to ask, do you need to have free space for those unique gladiators or you can get them even if you have full house already?

[bakagrappler]

Unique Gladiators are added on top of what you have, and don't reduce your guard's security percentage chance of catching runaway gladiators. So you are able to have up to 20 regular Gladiators, and as many unique Gladiators as you want. Really helpful for Dispatching, and keeping your coffers full, even while your Meal Costs skyrocket.

Also, with the Favor income this generates, you should be running matches and tournaments non-stop. Matches if it's good equipment from a sponsor you want, and Tournaments with some crap items as prizes to draw spectators to make money (don't use sponsors for tournaments, they take all the money). Use a low cash prize for sponsored matches to prevent Unique Gladiators from coming in and sweeping your game so you can get the prizes for yourself. For tournaments, I put the prize to max, 2 gold, make the tournament as large as possible, and then don't participate. When it's over I typically net 2 to 3 Gold coins in profit just by offering Common rarity items as rewards. And by the time the tournament is over, I've rebuilt my Favor to max all over again, so I repeat. Good passive income for buying Epic level goods.

[bakagrappler]

OK, I'm starting to get a feeling for what is going on in this game with Unique Glads in Slave Capture missions. It seems like there is a sort of Seed that is made for that mission on the turn you can do the combat on it. That Seed decides, basically, the potential rarity of the characters that appear in the mission, basically.

I spent an hour or two last night save scumming in various ways on the exact same Slavery mission to see what happened. Sometimes, I would have a missions that never spawned a Unique Glad. Sometimes I had a mission that ALWAYS spawned a Unique Glad. And I found that the pool of Gladiators may be dependent on the level map you are performing the Slavery mission on. The map I worked on last night was spawning only 2 potential Gladiators out of the 4 Freeman Glads who are still roaming free on the map for me, and in my previous run on that particular map one of those Glads was working in an Arena and was not showing up at that time.

So, what I can say is, if you are doing a Slave catching map and you want to have options, save the game before you assign gladiators to the mission and send it, and have a separate save for the beginning of the mission turn before you interact with it (before pressing Suspend or anything else) and tool around with it.

But note, it seems like the new gladiators, Maggie and Roland, are just not appearing for me. They may not be able to show up in Slave Hunting maps at this time. I'm gonna drop a note for the Devs in their Discord on it.

[Hisomu]

Originally posted by bakagrappler:

But note, it seems like the new gladiators, Maggie and Roland, are just not appearing for me. They may not be able to show up in Slave Hunting maps at this time.

Same. I got all Freemens except Maggie and Roland.

[Steinaar]

Some good intel here but I never seen the slave round-ups go red yet. My other events all over the map go red or have that indicator there is a unique gladiator in the mix. Seems your method is patched or I have to wait longer on the date.

I don't understand why the Ai gets these auto by default after Spring Games milestone but you can not accept the challenge and expect to win when they come knocking on your gate. I tried savescum, I dislike doing, for over an hour trying every trick in the book vs a unique gladiator that came challenging me after Spring Games. Not possible but the world populates them into other Lanista's lineups and the map progresses with them in almost all events.

Why not make them a little easier to get or progress timestamp them for their stats for you can actually win at certain dates in game? I dunno it seems off to me this entire unique gladiator thing. I feel like once I do, if ever, get one of these gladiators they will just always win insta quick. Or just don't drop them until you can actually challenge them. Having them appear right after Spring Games is too much imo or maybe I am too newb, shrugs.

[bakagrappler]

They used to appear in games before the spring games. Unique Glads appear with basically level 22+ quality while you're level 15. You can stand a better chance against them with my Shield Hero build, but just avoid those heroes for a little bit until you get your Glads fully built and into Purple gear. Use your arena to run games that give purple gear you need, and forge Champion Armor with your blacksmith.