Re: Arena? What is the Arena?
 

One idea I had was to improve the prize if the current Champion successfully defended it.

Re: Arena? What is the Arena?
 

As I wrote earlier... even if your commander is lucky enough to win he will most likely be cursed, horror marks, cursed items, blind or something else when playing against human players... thus not that useful! If you're talking super early in the game then it's still usually not worth sending someone if there's lots of human players. Lets not forget the prize will curse the winner to return to all future death matches as well.
And if you're playing a SP game then unless you have less than 4 computer opponents your chances of winning are very slim and thus NOT worth the life of a good commander.

Current prize value is only worth sending someone if it's a small number of opponents.

Re: Arena? What is the Arena?
 

Do not send a destroyer of worlds or any other multiple attack champion to the arena because if u win u lose all other weapon slots to just the trident.

However a shapshifter is a good choice, for example my dragon won it but when I changed shape the trident had gone. Interestingly another arena event was called a turn or 2 later...

So far in SP I have won 4/4 death matches, sent 2 pretenders, 1 prophet and a powerful mage. In SP with a bit of thought, I think u have a very, very good chance of beating any of the AI champions.

In MP I have no experience but I suspect its a very, very bad idea to send a powerful unit to the arena. The prize is simply not worth it, especially as u will probably lose or end up horror/cursed/diseased etc...

Re: Arena? What is the Arena?
 

Oh, in SP... the AI doesn't really set up its commanders for duels. There's a much lower need to cover as many resistances as possible or to handle the fatigue of long battles, for instance, and summons or auto-attacking items have vastly more effect proportionally speaking. And targeting is much more obvious...

Early on, if you have a spare skelespammer (ex Dusk Elder), his odds are quite good against AIs. The prize is less valuable for them now that the quickness doesn't accelerate casting, but *shrug*. Ditto for a talisman o' skeleton-spamming.

A mage capable of casting Gifts from Heaven with heroic precision would be highly entertaining. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

Re: Arena? What is the Arena?
 

The most enticing prize off the top of my head would be the removal of curses, horror marks, cursed items and/or whatnot. That's a prize worth risking death for, and also eliminates the poison pill schemes.