ĝo however use your champion in fights to help buy equipment for the rest of your gladiators.
The game balances around your best equipped (armor) gladiator, and when he dies, the game difficulty does not reset.
ĝon’t risk everything on one guy - train many.
Maintain morale by giving coin (or wine) to your fighters (won’t be needed with the Bard).
Besides, winning battles increases all stats. It looks like damage is king, so I just go for weapon training. There doesn’t seem to be a great need for agility to counter equipment weight or defence to absorb enemy damage.
TIPS FOR GLADIATOR BEGINS FULL
Once they have 100 Meditate, you will want to go full Weapon training (until at least level 20).
Retiarius = low aggro, med turtle, high evasion Thraex = med aggro, high turtle, low evasion Murmillo = high aggro, low turtle, med evasion I use Murmillo, since the Murmillo’s Zweihander do the most damage.
ěuy strong (300+ HP) slaves from the Magistrate and train them appropriately.
Have the Educator research Focus and Anatomy first, then the rest.
When you have 15 Palus’, replace the Architect with the Educator (the Architect’s purchases stays, but researched bonuses from all other employees disappear when they are fired).
Keep researching with your Bard and Sacerdos (generally only do the useful stuff, since they don’t work when they are researching).
Keep building Palus with your Architect.
If you get Mind Control, know that pointing the mouse determines where your gladiator strikes at various angles and at different sides, while the keyboard moves in directions.
You have enough time in the year to pretty much research everything available. Everything after that you can decide for yourself. Prioritize Blade Control, Deep Breathing, Attack Vector, Rolling Attack, Murmillo Training and then Dismemberment.
Ěrrange exhibition matches to train gladiators (they always surrender), but give them time to heal before the next battle.
However, they will soon lose faith quite fast, so after a while maybe don’t bother.
In the beginning, give wine to the Legate and Magistrate to get easier mandatory fights and better rewards (gold), but only give the full amount (…64,128,256) or they will be angry at you for giving them less than expected.
Keep food and water around 1000 in case of an unlucky event.
ěuy food, water and/or wine often, since the market is full after for 2 days.
If you have been awarded new slaves/gladiators – sell them or let them be cannon fodder for unfair fights from the Legate or Magistrate (better than selling, since you will get a consolation price).
If you got any new, strong card drops, remember to equip them.
On lower difficulties, use “training speed” and “auto heal” cards specifically (when you get to know the useful Jupiter cards, just discard the bad ones to prevent clutter - only a few cards truly matter).
You'll want to heal the gladiator you just sent into battle.
Don't worry if you didn't get it all done in time, just do it after the fight.
If you were able to click fast enough, you should have been able to get all this done before the first fight begins.
The Architect builds training equipment starting from the top left to right, one row at a time and this is how you should line up your gladiators (you can drag and move both gladiators and Palus’).
Move your 3 gladiators to the top left 3 training positions.
Research “Song of Ceres” from the Bard and “Mars Prayer” from the Sacerdos.
Send wine 4 times to both the Legate and Magistrate and apply for patronage a them both.
Ĝlick on the table to open the market screen, buy all the food, wine and water you can.
Ĝlick on the Jupiter card table and drag the Jupiter Blessing card on a geared gladiator.
Immediately click on the Doctore to the left, check the Auto Train box and train Humility.
TIPS FOR GLADIATOR BEGINS UPGRADE
Upgrade the weapons on the 2 geared gladiators to Gladius and Large Basic Shield.
Move all newcomers Meditate sliders to MAX until they reach 100 (always train Meditate first!).
Restart until you get around 160 HP (and high aggro) on 2 of your 3 starting men.
DISCLAIMER: I have re-written info from some others guides, but by far most of this guide is my own creation.