Death Match Questions

[Amerasu]

Another newbie inquiry.

So far, when I get the Death Match message early in the game, I've been reluctant to send a champion. I don't want to lose a valuable unit early on.

So, a few questions, if I may:

- Do you send champions to the Death Matches early in the game?

- Do you ever send your pretender or just your best commander?

- A Man specific question; how strong are the Tuatha? Would they make a decent candidate for a death match or would that just be throwing them away?

Thanks for any help.

[ March 29, 2004, 16:43: Message edited by: Amerasu ]

[Wauthan]

You'll get a lot of different opinions on this one. In early game I send a champion that would be sure to either win, like say a level 5 priest with water9 blessing, or someone that would atleast take down one other participant, like an assassin or a melee commander with the selfdestruct item, berzerkers pelt or the amulet of lycantropy (the winner will more than likely pick the item up).

I only send the pretender in when I'm sure I can beat the snot out of every other pretender out there. Only a SC will have much use for the trident however.

Tuatha are strong enough to be able to slay most basic commanders, especially if they got the spells to back their melee.

[tinkthank]

What Wauthan says is, as usual, 100% right.
If I may add my own tiny opinion: I rarely send a champion, period, unless I really want to eliminate some enemy commanders. I rarely send a champion not so much because I hate losing mine (although I do), but because I hate the prize. It's a halfway decent trident, but it's cursed so that you can never remove it.

[Taqwus]

The trident gives quickness, which can be useful for a mage whom you would not give other hand gear to -- e.g. will not be giving a Staff of Elemental Mastery etc.
Early on, the XP bonus is also likely to land the winner a spot in the Hall of Fame and thus a heroic ability.
Even in SP, I sometimes sit out the first match and see what the AIs send; if a pretender wins, I'll prepare a few "gifts" for the next contest.

[Cainehill]

So, the winner of the Death Match recieves the magic trident, which is actually a fairly decent item early in the game (since I've seen DM's announced on something like turn 2 or 3).

But, the trident goes in a hand slot, and it's cursed. So .... What happens if a commander that doesn't have hands wins the Death Match? A Dragon, say, or, heh, a Monolith?

[Peter Ebbesen]

In a deathmatch with n contenders, at least n-1 contenders will die. (It is possible that all n contenders die). Remember this, always.

Thus, unless you are absolutely sure that the contender is sending will win, you are not going to affect the outcome of the number of enemy contenders that will die.

With exception of a special case (dealt with in a moment), the real question is thus: Do you have a commander that

1. will win almost certainly
2. can actually use the trident and will never want to dump it in favour of a good sword, shield, bow, staff of elemental mastery &etc
3. will at random be forced to participate in future deathmatces, no matter what you want him to do at the time

In most cases, the answer is no. Those strong enough to be near certain winners are nearly always magical creatures that benefit much more from magic-boosting or shielding items than from the quickness of the Trident and the extra XP gained from winning. Additionally, the higher the difficulty level of enemies, the nastier things you will meet so the more powerful you will have to be to win - and the less likely that it is a unit that will overall benefit from wielding the Trident.

(Note: In case the winner has no hands, he does not get the Trident. You could base around not even getting that one, but still risking life and limb, I guess, but that is a bit far out.]

In other words, there are exceptionally few cases where it pays to enter the Death Match with the intent to win. This is skewed by the number of human players to AI players, but a good baseline: Don't enter in order to win - it does not pay off.

[Unless you are Ermor and send a spare Dusk Elder. Dusk Elders will kill just about anything in a Death Match and it is hard to afford decent equipment for all your Dusk Elder's anyhow]

I promised a special case before, and this is it. You can enter in order to lose, and still gain. This is done by booby-trapping your contestant such that he will hurt the opposing contenders.

It should be immediately obvious that a booby trap based on inflicting massive damage on a single contender is useless. If you are not going to win, then there is only going to be one enemy survivor anyhow, so your killing off one is completely and utterly irrelevant.

In other words, what you are interested in is cursed items that the enemy will pick up. With a bit of luck, it will be given to the enemy that defeats your contender, who, if defeated, will hand it over to another contender &etc. Eyes of Aiming, Berserker Pelts, Knives of the Damned, Amulets of Lycanthropy, Armour of Thorns - only your imagination sets the limit - so long as you choose something cursed or immediately disabilitating (Fever Fetish).

[ March 29, 2004, 17:46: Message edited by: Peter Ebbesen ]

[Slogan]

Another consideration is that if you do defeat an enemy pretender then you would be at war with jpretender's nation. In the early game I try to limit the number of nations with which I am at war, so therefore I avoid the deathmatch early. As stated earlier this allows you to see what the other nations are sending and prepare an SC against a known contender.

[PrinzMegaherz]

One other thing though is the honour you gain by winning the death match.

Sure, it does not give you anything, but I always try to win the contest to show everybody that my champion rocks

[velk]

Eyes of Aiming, Berserker Pelts, Knives of the Damned, Amulets of Lycanthropy, Armour of Thorns - only your imagination sets the limit - so long as you choose something cursed or immediately disabilitating (Fever Fetish).

This is why winning with a pretender gives them a horrible achilles heel against human opponents, mostly because once they win they can never refuse to participate and the longer the game goes on, the more nasty suprises they could get. I would imagine a gift of kurgi could be somewhat painful for example 8)

Still I don't think you loot anything if your slots are already full, so you could probably avoid most of that irritation by loading your SC up with cheap items.

[Nagot Gick Fel]

Originally posted by Peter Ebbesen:
In a deathmatch with n contenders, at least n-1 contenders will die. (It is possible that all n contenders die). Remember this, always.

Not always true. Counter-example below.

I promised a special case before, and this is it. You can enter in order to lose, and still gain. This is done by booby-trapping your contestant such that he will hurt the opposing contenders.

It should be immediately obvious that a booby trap based on inflicting massive damage on a single contender is useless. If you are not going to win, then there is only going to be one enemy survivor anyhow, so your killing off one is completely and utterly irrelevant.

In other words, what you are interested in is cursed items that the enemy will pick up.

There are other ways to booby-trap an arena deathmatch and keep your champion. The most effective I've seen is using an astral/nature mage with an item like a Lantern Shield or BOLW, and scripted (Curse)(Horror Mark)(Soul Slay)(Soul Slay)(Returning). With Ritual of Returning on top of it as an extra insurance. There are other variants, but this one is nasty.

[ March 30, 2004, 07:24: Message edited by: Nagot Gick Fel ]