Adoede's Guide for Beginners

[Apoca1ypse]

Kudos for taking the time to write up a guide. Having done 3 of these myself, I know how god damn grueling it is to get things to read properly and include all the relevant info. I've added it to the player guide compendium I'm also sending Nate a PM to sticky this thread.


Bit of feedback for the guide:

Activity/bloodlust:
I've always recommended the following breakdown:
Lvl 1-10: 3/3 (this is now the default a gladiator starts)
Lvl 10-20: 4/4 (or 3/3 zerk)
lvl 20-30: 6/6 (or 4/4 zerk)

after that, managers should have a feel of what's good/appropriate

Skill Trains:
While I'm an advocate for 10/10 when training, a good rule of thumb for impatient managers ( ) is stopping when things get to 8/10 (minimum), get another skill to 8/10, and then revisit the first skill to 10/10. (edit, I see kreegan said similar, but I really think that weapon skill 10/10 before starting a 3rd skill is a must)

2H weapons:
I am yet to see any real difference between speed 1 and speed 1.1 weapons, beyond 1 extra swing every 3-4 rounds. In short, it doesnt really matter. Just keep in mind that 2H swords use slash, while all other 2H weapons use Bash.


Races:
While Elaar is awesome in bloodgods, it's health penalty is a real problem for new glads, especially for new managers. If they want to go the distance with a HoL glad, Elaar is fine. For a new glad that is being used purely to grind towards retiring for a HoL glad, Urk is pretty damn awesome. Urk's endurance is amazing at early levels when everyone is durdling around with bad weapon skill.


Stable Upgrades:
Dont forget to mention Barracks upgrades More glads = more gold, and more stuff to do recycling gear to new glads is also great to save gold.


Blood Gods:
IIRC one benefit of getting into blood gods is that it waives the minimum fight or w/l requirement (I swear I saw that somewhere...)

[Adoede]

Haha Apoc, your suggestion for Urk is hilarious - and quite true I suppose

As for the waiving of requirements for minimum fights and w/l, I can confirm that this is, sadly, not true. I've had glads get into Blood gods at ~650 total fights and they still had to grind to 1000 before they could retire. And while the required w/l ratio declines gradually over time, I think that's true of every glad.

I'll add comments for your suggestions in a bit.

oh, and thanks for adding this to the player guides sticky Happy to make a contribution to helping more new managers find success and stick around.

[Sotc]

Good stuff Adoede, nicely written. One thing to note on favorable/unfavorable matchups is that they will shift somewhat depending on relative gear levels so new players may find that they hit a wall against a build they were previously beating consistently.

@Apoc "durdling" is the best new word I've heard in a long time xD

[Apoca1ypse]

durdle is an awesome word


For BG's, my bad about 1000 fight waiver. It lets you ignore the w/l requirement though right? I'm 99% sure it lets you waive that requirement... <looks uncertain>

[Adoede]

Thanks SOTC. Now if only you'd write one up for the Advanced level of the game

@Apoc - You must be incredibly lucky because that 1% chance that win/loss does still count in Blood gods towards retirement is actually still the case. True, the more fights your glad has, the lower the required w/l ratio becomes...so most of my old glads only need a 33% w/l ratio to retire. But my relatively newer Blood gods member still needs 45% to retire. Don't know if that is also the case in Primus...

[Apoca1ypse]

Hmmm, It must have been a brief thing Nate introduced then when people started having problems. Oh well

[Alba Kebab]

All I gotta comment is: Durdle is real word?!
Whoa, PoW is educational as well, I learnt a new word!

[Cynaidh]

Very nice guide! Was a good read.

[Pit Lord]

Defensive theatrics are actually good against speed rages.

The guide was really enjoyable to read. Need to be sticky.

[Adoede]

Thanks Cynaidh and Pit Lord. I'll adjust the notes for defensive theatrics since you have much more experience with them than I do.