Death Match Competition

[JimMorrison]

PvK said:
It's currently worth sending a low-level fellow who could use a trident and whom you don't mind losing... except the odds are fairly low unless no one is bothering, and the AI usually sends inappropriate units such as pretenders and prophets (meaning N-1 such AI units die whenever the arena happens, and appropriately lowly contestants are extra-unlikely to live).

The AI sending powerful units seems like the biggest shame of this to me, since it impairs SP games a bit. I'd say either the AI shouldn't do that, or the prize should be improved somehow so it's worth gambling a pretender at low odds. Like, if the winner got all of the defeated contestants' magic items delivered to their lab (or at least looted to the commander) and maybe a prize of all the gens and gold cost of the defeated units.

See that's exactly where my train of thought went. Then I started to think about how large the rewards could get, especially in larger games with 18-20 or more nations, and the train derailed.

I think it's going to be hard to make the reward feel truly compelling, without making it potentially incredibly unbalanced.