[CogDissident]

Let me be more specific on the death match. Most civilizations will send a hero, and then the arena match does a series of 1-on-1 battles, with the victor winning an artifact. You keep the artifact until the next arena, when you can either send another person and try to keep the artifact, or forefit it to the winning nation.

Usually its good to try to win the arena, if you have a powerful well equipped commander (and prophets make a good choice too), simply to kill the enemy commanders and make sure nobody else gets the weapon. Occasionally some empires will risk their god, and gods usually win, but theres always that chance that some Jountheim frost giant will show up with a midget masher and decimate your god.