Tips for beginners

[ap]

Before you get into this game, it is very important to understand that Age of Gladiators is a game revolved around chance and the whole notion of randomness. Each fighters are comprised of stats, some are obliviously stronger than others and possess strengths and weaknesses, as others are utter crap. However, do not be swayed by the numbers. These stats present a facade for a game mechanic which utilizes chance rather than stats vs stats.

Taking that into mind, if you want your ludas to stand the test of time, and spill blood across the sands, it is utterly important to get a firm grasp on the first beginner city. If you do not completely destroy the board and take hold of the first city, you will not survive the next stage. So, here are some tips on how to not only survive the first city, but to completely dominate it and prepare yourself for the real end game.

- When you pick your lanista, the background you pick will pretty much dictate how the game will turn out. I personally always go for the showman background, which gives you more games per calendar month. Why is this so important?

There will be times where you turn the next month and you will have 2 or even 1 fight... for the whole month. This forces you to spend 20k - 40k on sponsorships, which again, do not gaurantee you more games just a percetange (the whole random thing). Picking the showman background will pretty much guranantee you a nice run of games for your gladiators, without the need to spend 20k - 40k. Remember, every fight that you skipp or neglect, is money wasted. This is not that important in the beginner stage, but from the next city onwards, you will lose a whole lot of money.

- The most important staff is the scout, for obvious reasons. However, if your initial available scouts do not excell in networking (the most important attribute) and expertise (I forgot what the other stat is called), just start a new game. It is not worth picking an average scout and buying gladiators who are just mediocore at best. If you do not find yourself with an outstanding, top scout, you will be too far behind.

This is so important because before you enter the next city, you will want at least 2 - 3 fighters to be superstars, I'm talking about absolute beasts. In my playthrough I had a fighter level 22 before I entered the next city, and he got completely crushed by the last boss.

- You do not have to fight every battle!

If you are short on fighters, do not be afraid to neglect the low - average hype games, and prepare your fighter for the strong - massive ones. It is better to win a massive hype game, and have your fighter out for a couple of days, than win a low one and have him miss a massive game.

- SAVE YOUR MONEY!!!

Oh my god, I had 2 million denari before I entered the next city, and i lost it all in 2 months because of a fighter who literally, I mean literally, killed every fighter in my roster. Yes, no exagerration, this guy was so good, he killed half my roster while sick & fatigued.

It is so important to get into the next city with at least 1 mill denari. Do not just start buying new staff and improving your staples whenever you win a nice sum, save it up. Save it because you will come to a situation where your best fighters are dead, which will leave your roster mutinious, which will force you to buy new fighters, which will force you to start from square 1.

- Morale is ambigious...

There is no clear explanation of what high morale does. When your morale is too low, your fighters will just leave your ludas, without even telling you! You'll get one message that says your fighter left, but over time, some of your best fighters will just disappear from your roster. Therefore, do not put so much money and time into having the best morale for your fighters. As long as they are not mutunous, there really is no incentive to make them super happy.

Just remember, if you find yourself struggling in the first city, just restart, there is absolutely 0 chance for you to survive the next city. If you find yourself bankrupt in the first stage, restart the game. If you do not win the majority of games in your first month, restart the game.

[Durendal]

Good advice and a fine warning here. I found the difficulty spike unenjoyable and unnecessary.

I moved onto the second city with what I thought was a decent war chest (500K+) a roster of good fighters, including three level 10+ who had been smashing the opposition silly with good weapons and stats. My overheads were manageable and like you I was using the Showman background. Ready to take things to the next level surely?

A couple of weeks into the second city and I'm almost bankrupt and the good fighters are all dead or fled after morale tanked. The replacements didn't fare too well, and from a character point of view, it's unfortunate to see all the original fighters you've been building up to that point get thrown in the woodchipper. I'd been avoiding all the larger shows as well and had cut back on unecessary expenditure to try and reduce costs but ultimately it was game over.

Maybe something for Creavtive Storm to take a look at? Up until this point I was very much enjoying the game (playing on Ironman mode).

[Creative Storm Entertainment]

Thanks Sosa and David. I'm definitely listening to you all and will be looking at balance issues in the coming weeks.

[ap]

I don't think it is an issue with difficulty, rather all the "hidden elements" that goes on behind the combat. Even if you completely excell over your opponent in terms of stats, for example if you have 70 dexterity and he has 10, it does not explain how your opponent will unleash 4 attacks in a row whilst you manage 1 every 10 misses.

Creative Storm, you have dictated too much of the gameplay elements on randomness. Which means there is a heavy emphasis on your random algorithms to produce the correct "randomness" but unfortunately I don't think you guys did a good job.

The game has a lot of potential, I love this time era and having a gladiator manager sim game is my kind of ♥♥♥♥ but come on guys...

[Creative Storm Entertainment]

Okay, here's how the combat works.

In order:

- Stamina roll: If gladiator has stamina, he attacks. If not he has to recover. End turn. Fall through. With enough stamina, he next does:

- Dexterity roll: Dexterity is divided by 2 to give a percentage out of 100 (so a gladiator with maximum attribute of 150 dexterity has a 75% chance of hitting) and rolled against a 100 dice roll. If the roll is over his (dexterity / 2 = 75%), then he misses. End of turn. Fall through. But if the dice roll is under, it is then up now to the opposing gladiator to roll for two saves: Agility and Reflexes.

- Same as above, Agility and Reflexes are divided by 2 to produce a percentage out of 100. 150 being the maximum attribute attainable, means that a gladiator has a maximum chance of 75% to first dodge the attack. Failing that, he has a maximum 75% chance to block the attack. Failing both of those, the attack lands.

- Critical damage is rolled next. Depending on your gladiators critical chance % (which is improved through expertise), the hit is either calculated as a critical hit or a regular.

- The hit next inflicts damage which = (damage - opposing gladiator toughness) - opposing gladiator armor mitigation).

So there is randomness. Yes, a gladiator with maxed out Dexterity at 75% can miss his attacks. And furthermore, even if he lands it, if the next gladiator has a chance to dodge or block attacks depending on his defensive stats.

So the randomness is based on nothing more than rolling your gladiator's dexterity against a 100.

There will be bad breaks. Absolutely. But the percentages are sound.

[ap]

Man all of this shouldve been in an ingame manual! The basic explanations for each stat don't tell us much, if this was in like an enhanced ingame tool tip, it would allow us to carefully model our fighters


Although this makes sense, it still does not explain some situations. For example, a sick & fatigued opponent with 200 hp killing 3-4 of my fighters in a row who are at full hp and have dominating stats. I don't consider situations like these "bad breaks" but an issue either with your random algorithm or a balancing issue

[waTTe]

Just puchased the game minutes ago and so will have to see by myself, how the fights work and "feel" - the detailed explaination how the fights work is great, but ...

I assume the point might be already there:
A totally maxed out fighter (god, hero, almost superhuman?!) will (statistically) miss at least 1 out of 4 attacks? And that because of a test on his own ability? Not an opposed role?
So he will also miss a one-armed, blind, arthritic Grandfather (practically a none moving, stunned target?!) 1 out of 4 times (hell he will miss a wall! Thats something you occasionally have in bad pen and paper rpgs and usually the first thing to be corrected or the reason to abandon this ruleset), before the stats of the grandfather will even come into play?
I see that as overdone randomness too.
Also I miss an Initiative in what is listed above? Is the fighter-god Gladiator to act first or the Grandfather? Is it random? Supposed to be simultanously?

[thc.]

i dont think the game relys on rng that much, although i love numbers games, it took me a few go arounds by once you get a stuf its not hard to ride him to the top, its important to have balanced guys i think

[Kelfezond]

I watched a bunch of videos before playing this myself of people repeatedly failing, gladiators dying without getting a hit in, going bankrupt.
Then I read this and I'm totally confused. I went to the second city with around 200'00. My highest level gladiator was level 11. I'm not really struggling like you're saying. Admittedly my undefeated champion was just killed but I'm still surviving and winning most of my games.

[waTTe]

Its luck or no luck!

The combat system looks pretty solid, but with the initial dexterity thing. This is the total randomizer and needs to be changed.

For a different (maybe funny) point of view.

I did a quick rush just to see how the game works and totally and early went bancrupt.
Now I am in my frist serious playthrough.
The first 2 fights of my glads lasted 161 and 178 turns, with dexterity of 18 and 13. Even if you consider that 4, 5 or even more turns could happen in a minute that is lengthy, if you consider that you cant keep such a pace up forever and after a good amount exhaustion kicks in, it might diminish to something like 2 to 4 turns in minute.
Imagine the audience (on such a blood sport possibly not the friendliest one) watching the second match for about 25 minutes (average 7 turns per min) 30 mins (6 per min) 35 mins (5).
Well comments like: dont send in blinds, its the one before you, you are supposed to fight here you know? try putting the sticky end towards him, do you have a truce?, someone is making a joke here .... , would be the milder ones.
From 178 turns, under 10 were hits ... err ... didnt attack thin air but neared the target, from those 4 came through, deciding the fight. So there were at least 168 "attacks" when the opponent didnt even need to dodge or block, cause they didnt come near to him 8-) and the recovery phases.
This system is ridicilous and nearly totally random.

That said the game is already very good despite this flaw and I´m having lots of fun!

[bigcakes]

It seems a bit too dependent on RNG, I had a fighter with at least double the stats in almost everything of the opponent, and he got killed, had another fight with another double stat fighter and then lost again. Maybe I just got super unlucky both times, but it seems a little strange that someone so much better loses. Maybe if you or opponents could pay the head of the games off to ignore some underhanded fighting or something, then it would make more sense.

[ap]

@kelfzoned

Which boss are you at on the second city?

When I was fighting the very last boss, his champion, who definiately had impressive stats, was able to kill 2 of my highest level and most popular fighters, which alright it happens.

But then one of my mediocore fighters was able to defeat him but not kill him, which means it leaves him in a injured & faitgued state. The last boss kept using this injured fighter, and he wiped my whole roster clean.. from being sick & fatigued

This is def the most extreme example I have come across in this game of the whole random factor not working as intended

[Kelfezond]

I've been working my way through the second boss although my stable has now crumbled and all my gladiators are dead :(

[Mad Bad Gay]

I think as it stands the whole bush league gladiators with 5-10% chance to hit plus with people blocking and dodging makes fights go through several hundred rounds too much and it feels like I should just be dumping all my points into Dex over anything else because of how low hit %'s are.

Id rather see something like a flat hit % for all fighters across the board and Dex doing something like lowering your opponent's Dodge rate. Block could more or less remain the same, but instead of negating an attack, it mitigates it for half or so.

[thc.]

Heres my tips for beginners:

Put your Expertise points in Fast Learning first, getting to 10 SP per level is huge in the fighters end build capability, so far i have capped 5 guys and only have 1 with more then 1 capped skill (150).

The build that seems to work logically for me is maxed dex, everything else atleast 90 and Str as high as possible.
I dump my expertise points into Fast Learning, Then Armor, Then Crit % and dmg. Lastly ill do Survival rate and Kill rate. Ive got a specific guy im training who will actually get the first hit trait and will have maxed str/dex. Will be interesting to see how many 1 hit fihts he has.

Ive yet to lose a capped fighter in a fight, and compined with high staff I pretty much only deal with minor sickness from time to time and can roll my studs out every battle while letting youth train up until one day they may grace the arena with there presence.

I got to Rome with 20M Denari, a fighter with 140 wins and Wiped the first bosses best fighter off the map in his first showing.

I actually started with Merchant for this run through, and it gave me the ability to invest in my Ludus and staff from the get go, I lost a good deal of fighters in the early years but managed to peg 2 guys who rose above to lead me out of Utica.

Maxed Morale is great, i dont use any security maxed my ludus morale boosts and with lvl 25 trainers i get about 300xp per turn for my trainees.

My next playthrough will be with another starting type, with what i have gained in knowledge here i think i will have no problems starting off with a lower $$ start.

[Lomax]

I've been having good results just buying slaves with the best Stamina/Dexterity combo's. The other stats just don't seem as important. High stamina lets you attack more and high dex nets you more hits so even with very low str I am winning fights via quantity over quality. That being said I'm still in the first city so I may only ride this wave for so long...

Great game set in an interesting era. Having a lot of fun w/ this one.