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Completed Let's Play Areena 4, an old Finnish fantasy gladiator RPG.

Hobo Elf

Arcane
Joined
Feb 17, 2009
Messages
13,998
Location
Platypus Planet
Chapter list:
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20



Dedicated to shiteatingnippledick who helped me get this game up and running on a modern computer.

What is Areena 4?

Areena 4 (translated Arena 4) is a fantasy gladiator RPG in which you hire different creatures and heroes into your team, outfit them with gear and spells, train them and compete against other teams in turn based combat. The idea of the game is that there are 16 teams competing to become #1. This will be our goal. I will explain more about the game during the actual LP.

There is a newer sequel to the game simply titled Areena 5 which expands upon a lot of things, but this is the game that I played first and the most and so is nearest and dearest to my heart. If this LP provides to be good I will LP Areena 5.

Why Areena 4?

The 90's was a time of incline when it came to Finnish game development. We saw the release of many wonderful shareware and indie games, Areena 4 being very much a part of this era. There was a lot of creativity and we saw many, many great games. Unfortunately this whole scene was all but dead after the 00's. My goal here is to share a little piece of my childhood and show the world what kind of games Finland was making before Death Rally, before Max Payne, before Angry Birds.

Manual

Since the game is Finnish, everything in the game is written in Finnish. The game isn't all that text heavy, however, and is quite easy to understand for anyone who has any kind of experience with RPGs. I have some pictures here with translations and explanations of what is what. I highly recommend reading this first before going into the actual Let's Play.

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From top to bottom: New Game, Load Game, Quick Instructions. We will choose New Game.

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Players (1-4). The game can be played with up to 4 people.

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Insert name for your gladiator team

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Here is the main screen. I have translated all the stats and what the various tabs do. All images from here on will be presented in the same order as the tabs are in the game (1-9). Also, forgot to mention that above the first tab you can see your TEAM NAME, MONEY and the current DATE. The game uses real months (Tammikuu = January).

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Here you can pick which gladiators you wish to participate in the current battle. You may have up to 4 people at a time.

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The shop. You can buy Spears, Swords, Axes, Maces, Bows, Crossbows and Armor. The last tab, Tarjous (Sale), displays all the current equipment on sale for this month.

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This is the Inn. Here you can hire new guys into your team.

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Spell shop. There are damaging spells, healing spells, buffing spells and snares.

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The school. Here you may train your gladiators to increase max HP, Power, Speed and Mana up to their max capacity. All the different races have different caps.

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Other teams. You may look at the rosters of your enemies to see who you are going up against next round or just have a look at which guys are top dogs at the moment.

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Here is a list of all the 16 teams divided into 4 divisions. The goal is to become #1 in the first division.

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And here is the CUP ranking. Each year (season) there is a CUP and the winner gets lots of money. Typically the winner is someone from the 1st division. Entering CUP matches is a huge bummer when you are still stuck in the 4th and 3rd divisions since it typically means that the beefier guys from the higher divisions are going to put your dudes in the ER and so you won't be able to use them in the next proper matches. Of course this applies to the other competing teams as well.

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And here is the programme for the season. It shows who you will be fighting in which month and whether it is a CUP match or a normal series match. The last two months, November and December are winter holidays and no matches are fought during those times. Team members may engage in brotherly Finnish traditions such as docking in the sauna.

Shop List

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Spells


Hyökkäys (Attack) spells


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Unfortunately I can't think of a translation for Turjake so I will explain what it means instead. It is an adjective that we can use to describe, for example, a dog or a person. Someone who is unclean and shaggy. Sometimes even a bit of a degenerate as well. Basically you could imagine that this spell will summon a hobo / alcoholic that will attack the enemy.

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Next I'll add a list of all the magic spells and their descriptions. Unfortunately some spell names might not get translated as I can't think of a way to translate them.
 
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Hobo Elf

Arcane
Joined
Feb 17, 2009
Messages
13,998
Location
Platypus Planet
Chapter 1: Let the games begin! The origin of Prosper's Children

In which we witness the humble beginnings of our gladiator team, Prosper's Children (named by darkpatriot).

Once again there are stirrings happening in the mystical town known as Runecrag..
For it is time again for the gladiator games to begin. Sixteen teams will test their mettle against each other to see who is the best, and there will be no mercy for the weak.
All teams have one goal in mind and it is to win the respected Series Championship.

There are still a few vacancies left for managers to sign up..


And so our tale begins

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After signing up we make way to the local tavern to see who we can hire for our new team.
Each time you start a new game and each time you enter a new month the gladiators available in the tavern are randomized. Sometimes you'll have total crap guys, sometimes there will be one amazing star, and other times it can be just mediocre stuff. Let us have a look at who we have to choose from.

First up is the Minotaur. As far as strength goes he's a badass. Not quite as badass as the Rockmonster (seen in the Manual), but still #2 when it comes to raw strength. You honestly can't go wrong with him if you are looking for a good melee fighter! He is also only 22 years old. It is better to invest in young guys because once they become 35 years old they retire the team and he's gone forever. Items cannot be reclaimed, but they will sell the stuff (you won't get full price from it, though). Younger gladiators cost more money, too, both up front and salary. But their salary will drop down the older they get. Anyway, always invest in young gladiators.
We hire the Minotaur currently known as Oxer.

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Next up is the Druid. He's a bit older, but still young enough for us to want him badly. Just look at his stats. +21 bonus to spell casting, 31 mana. This guy is a beast. We want a good caster to heal, buff strength and either snare melee guys or deal magical damage. We'll see.
The Druid known as Sword agrees to join our team.
I'm not going to show the other characters' stats, but from left to right we have the Sorceress, Kaamos (Finnish word translated into Polar Night), Lizardman and Barbarian. We decide to hire the Barbarian as well.

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And lastly, meet the Barbarian known as Nodder. His stats are mediocre, but he's quite young and he can be trained into a capable fighter. I will not bother explaining what this main menu is and what any of this shit is because I am assuming that you looked at the manual first. In any case after buying 3 rather good gladiators we have 1010 kr left for equipment and spells.

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We enter the store to outfit our gladiators. I buy a Besaittuhaarniska (unfortunately I don't know what the translation for this is) for our Minotaur and Barbarian. It gives a +3 to protection which means it decreases physical damage by 3. I also consider buying a Sword for the Barbarian, but decide to buy a Lyhyt Keihäs (Short spear). It does 1d8 + 1 damage as well as has a PB value of 10. I actually am not sure what HB and PB stand for (didn't find any mention of them in the instructions), but I'm guessing they are short for Hit Bonus and Parry Bonus. This would make sense since Spears have higher PB values and it is probably a way that the game simulates them being weapons with reach and so they are more defensive than other weapons. Maces on the other hand have the highest HB values and hit harder than anything else.
Anyway, after buying these items (note: we left our Minotaur unarmed. He has a good skill with his Fists and does 1-2 damage + the bonus he gets from Power) we head over to the magic store.

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We only have 249 kr left so we grab Henkinen Parannus (Spiritual Healing). It heals 6 points of health per cast, which is good enough for now.

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Now we are ready to go face off against our first enemies, the Bear-Men of Batu. They are always the weakest team in the game so we should have no problems winning this fight.

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We also get 83 kr from the tickets sold to the people coming to spectate

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When I said that Bear-Men of Batu are easy I didn't think it would be THIS easy. A single Wizard against us. We'll cave his face in.
This is the battle screen. There are trees and rocks that you cannot pass when walking, but you can cast spells through them and use ranged weapons as well. The top most button on the right, Pikakierros, is just a Quick Turn button. Otherwise the movement buttons are self-explanatory. Seuraava basically means Next Character, it just passes the turn to the next character without using up their turn. Combat is turn based and rather basic in terms of what you'd expect from an RPG. There is one gameplay element that doesn't factor (completely) in the visible stats and it's character size. The bigger your guy is the more potential he has to hit smaller guys for massive damage. A minotaur, with a good enough weapon and enough Power, could send a smaller being bloodied and rocketing across the arena, putting them into a long coma that may last up to half a season. It sucks when it happens to you but feels great when you are the one dealing death.

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This is the end of the first round. The enemy Wizard attempts to cast Vitamiinipilleri (Vitamin pill) to buff up his strength, and fails.

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We close in on the enemy Wizard as he tries to buff himself each turn, always failing. He suddenly finds himself being sandwiched by a sweaty Minotaur and a Barbarian, both looking at him with an intense rape-face look. He attacks the Minotaur with his fists and hits. Unfortunately he only does 1 damage which is deflected by our armor.

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Oxer takes a turn at him and misses despite his 81% chance to hit. Nodder misses as well.

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The next round begins. The Wizard hits at Oxer again but his armor absorbs all the damage. Oxer manages to hit him for 10 damage. His leather armor absorbs 1 damage. Nodder hits for 9 damage.

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Finally Oxer hits the enemy Wizard so hard that he loses consciousness. We win.

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Oxer gets 8 kr from his fans, Nodder gets 4 kr. Our Druid gets nothing because he spent the whole fight passing his turn.

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We also get a winning bonus for, well, winning.

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And lastly some stats go up. Oxer is better at hitting with his fists, Nodder is better at hitting and parrying with the spear. Great.

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Here are the results for this months matches.

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The overall score and ranking for this season.

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After the match is over Oxer drags himself into our office and says that he heard rumors that there are promising new gladiators in the Tavern waiting to be recruited. Maybe. We don't have money for more people, though. We need to concentrate on upgrading the guys we have now.

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And we pay 98 kr on our gladiators' salaries. It's quite a high amount for the peanuts that we get from 4th division matches, but we'll survive for now.

And that concludes Chapter 1. We assembled our team and beat the first round against a rather pathetic enemy. Look forward to Chapter 2 which will be longer.

Gladiators can be renamed and I'm open to naming our brave warriors after Codexers. Just say who you want to be (Minotaur, Druid, Barbarian) and I'll rename them accordingly. I'll serve on a first come, first serve basis.
 
Last edited:

Hobo Elf

Arcane
Joined
Feb 17, 2009
Messages
13,998
Location
Platypus Planet
Good point. I'd say that the dev probably did it to make the teams seem more fantastical and cool. For a bunch of young guys from northern Finland I'm sure it was different.
 

Elfberserker

Liturgist
Joined
Oct 25, 2013
Messages
1,540
I could be some melee fighter now or later....Doesn't really matter which one.

It's good to see this game getting LP. It's such nostalgia bomb.
 

Hobo Elf

Arcane
Joined
Feb 17, 2009
Messages
13,998
Location
Platypus Planet
Chapter 2: Gaining notoriety amongst the weak


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We only have 121 kr, not much. I decided that we should buy a Tikari (Dagger) for the Minotaur. It does more damage than his fists and while his Sword ability stinks it is a good idea to start training it as early as possible

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With nothing else to do we head off to the next battle against the Redwood Hunters. Here we have against us is a Minotaur, a Gnolli and a Hobitti. I'll not bother translating these races. The Minotaur and Gnoll seem to be decked out for melee and the Hobbit has a Kevyt varsijousi (Light crossbow).

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Druid is shot for 3 damage

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We engage. Druid heals himself. Minotaur hits the enemy Minotaur and misses. Our Barbarian misses the enemy Minotaur as well. Enemy Hobbit hits our Druid again for 3 points of damage.

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We manage to hit the enemy minotaur and the Minotaur god blesses our attack!

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Oxer attacks the Minotaur with such force that he sends the enemy flying against a tree. He takes 21 points of damage and is KO'd Nodder misses the enemy Gnoll.

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The enemy Gnoll hits our Barbarian for 11 points of damage in retaliation. Ouch!

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We fail to cast a healing spell on our Barbarian so we pull out from the battle. Unluckily the Gnoll manages to score a critical hit on our Minotaur which knocks him out in one hit. This could get bad.

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We manage to heal our Barbarian as he tanks the enemy Gnoll. We can win this if we get this Gnoll down, but he's a tougher cookie than I had anticipated.

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And with that said Nodder manages to score a critical hit and the Gnoll is knocked out! The enemy Hobbit is as good as dead now.

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A few rounds and we knock out the Hobbit. We win!

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We get 28 kr from fans, another 75 kr for winning as well as a BUNCH of stat gains.

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Sword, our Druid, barges into our office and says that he feels bad when he sees blood. Thanks for letting us know.

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Unfortunately our Minotaur was hit pretty bad so he's going to sit out the next month in the hospital, but it seems like our next game will be a CUP match so it won't matter. We'll probably lose anyways. Warriors of Fate is a 3rd division team so and they don't seem all that impressive, but they have more people on the field compared to us. Still, we'll try our best. Also, I forgot to rename our gladiators so I'll do that now. The Barbarian is now known as Azira, the Minotaur decides, probably in a feverish delirium, to be hence forth known as Elfberserker. There isn't much else we can do here now and we want to save money so we'll just go and try our best in the CUP match.

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We gain 151 kr just from the tickets, so we are already well on the plus side, so that's nice. Anyways, Meet the Warriors of Fate. They aren't decked out in amazing gear, but looking at their Dwarf he seems to be pretty built. The Orc and Hobbit aren't anything special, although they do have ranged weapons so we need to be mindful of that.

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And during the first turn the Hobbit shoots our Druid for 6 points of damage. We really need to invest in some armor for him, soon.

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The Orc shoots him for 8 points of damage. These guys are packing some serious heat.

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Azira manages to gain some distance while Sword does a commendable job at keeping himself alive with his heals.

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Sword gets hit some more and Azira engages the Dwarf in melee combat, but we will attempt to engage the Hobbit as well so that he can't shoot our Druid.

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It is a success. Azira deflects all attacks while Sword keeps healing himself against the Orcs ranged attacks.

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Unfortunately the Druid failed to heal himself twice in a row and is now knocked out. The hobbit is close to being knocked out, but I doubt we will win anymore. In any case we will witness Azira's fighting spirit!

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He finally manages to take down the Hobbit. We will attempt to engage the Orc now since he is weaker than the Dwarf.

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Unfortunately as soong as Azira engages the Orc stabs him with a spear and he slumps down. If only we had our Minotaur we probably could've won this.

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Nevertheless, Azira's ability to parry with the spear goes up by quite a bit.

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Azira comes into our office and tells as that a Ranged weapon would be useful. He's right, but we cannot afford a ranged attacker right now. We only pay 78 kr on salaries since Elfberserker was sitting this one out. Since we cannot really afford anything worth buying at the moment we will go on to the next battle.

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Our first fight against the Soldiers of Set. Here we have a Lizardman and a Goblin against us. The Lizardman is a bit tough, but nothing too bad that we can't handle. The Goblin is very weak but they have great Speed and are good at using weapons.

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During the first round Azira gets hit by the spell Lentävä Sika (Flying pig). He will be distracted for the next round.

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The Lizardman keeps entertaining Azira with his flying pigs, meanwhile Elfberserker engages their Goblin.

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He smashes the Goblin, but doesn't do enough damage to knock him out.

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Elfberserker gets hit for 1 point of damage so we take this opportunity to heal him in hopes of improving our healing ability.

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Elfberserker hits the Goblin and he is knocked out for two months.

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Azira gets to extract his revenge on the Lizardman for his trickery. Barbarians don't like to be played for fools by Wizards and tricksters!

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Elfberserker continues to miss a lot due to his poor ability at handling weapons, but Azira is wrecking the Lizardmans shit and even scores a critical hit. The enemy has 5 HP left.

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Azira hits the Lizardman one more time and knocks him out.

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Elfberserker becomes better at hitting and parrying with the sword, which is nice.

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These are the current season rankings. Prosper's Children are doing great so far.

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We have 392 kr, which is quite a bit. We have some options as to what we could do now. We could buy a Besaittuhaarniska for our Druid as well, or we could outfit our warriors with better weapons.

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We could buy a Leveä Miekka (Wide Sword) or Bastardimiekka (Bastardsword) for Elfberserker. Leveä Miekka does less damage but has a better chance at hitting. Both choices aren't bad.

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We could also get a new spear for Azira, a Pitkä Keihäs (Longspear). It's quite expensive and the upgrade isn't as significant. We could also train our Warriors, but I do not consider this cost beneficial at this stage of the game. Basically to train HP from 15 to 16 we need to pay 150 kr. The cost to upgrade stats to the next level is always the CurrentStat x 10.

In any case I will not choose what to do with the money now. We may decide what to spend the money on during the next Chapter, or we can just keep saving it so we can get some truly impressive gear. There is no right or wrong answer in this game. Until next time!
 

Elfberserker

Liturgist
Joined
Oct 25, 2013
Messages
1,540
I don't know man.
Getting better hit chance is always good, but maybe we can save cash for now. 4th division is pretty easy, so we should be able to handle anything with basic gear.

Then again it has been years since I played this game, so my memory is very fuzzy.
 

Hobo Elf

Arcane
Joined
Feb 17, 2009
Messages
13,998
Location
Platypus Planet
No but they retire eventually. You'll get some of your money back from the equipment they sell, but all stat gains and spells are lost forever, as one would expect.
 

Hobo Elf

Arcane
Joined
Feb 17, 2009
Messages
13,998
Location
Platypus Planet
The game goes on forever, there are no real limits or anything. Even if you become #1 it doesn't end there. And just because you became #1 once doesn't necessarily mean that you'll be there forever what with your golden gladiators leaving for retirement and leaving you with weak recruits. But for the purpose of this particular LP we'll end once we are #1 in the 1st Division.
 

Hobo Elf

Arcane
Joined
Feb 17, 2009
Messages
13,998
Location
Platypus Planet
Chapter 3: Blood & mud are the ingredients for bitterness

I just read in the game instructions that the dev recommends the player to get 4 gladiators ASAP because you get more ticket money the more people you have fighting. I wasn't aware of this. We should continue saving our money until we find a good 4th combatant for our team. A ranged guy or some kind of ranged / magic hybrid would be good (Sorceress is the best ranged / magic hybrid character), but we shouldn't necessarily turn down any character as long as he has good enough stats and is young.

I also added in a full translation for all the shop items if you haven't seen that yet.

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I checked the Tavern and there was only a mediocre Wizard and a mediocre Karhumies (Bearman). Since we have both Strength and Magic covered by superior guys we keave them there and go on to our next match. Once again it is the Bear-Men of Batu. I'll not bother narrating this fight since this team is just as pathetic as it was the first time we beat them.

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Elfberserker critically hits the Wizard and he's KO'd for 3 months. No stat gains for anyone.

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We check the Tavern again but still no one worth hiring. From left to right we have a Velhotar (Sorceress), Karhumies (Bearman), Haltija (Elf) and Mahtijänis (Mighty rabbit). They are all too old for our cause, except the Mahtijänis, but his stats are rather poor.

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Another month goes by, but we didn't fight anyone this time. This month was reserved for a CUP match but since we lost the first one it doesn't affect us. We don't need to pay our gladiators any salary, though. We check the Tavern again and find 3 promising new recruits. Out of all of them the Hobbit seems to be exactly what we are looking for. He's good with a Bow which is what we want for a ranged combatant. Bows are less damaging that Crossbows and cost a shitton more, but you can shoot with one each round whereas you need to reload your crossbow every other turn.

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Bellman is recruited into our ranks. Unfortunately we can only afford a Lyhytjousi for now, but it isn't worth buying. We'll save for the Örkkijousi. We need to train Power for Bellman asap as well since he suffers a -3 damage penalty with weapons. Otherwise he'll fail to do any kind of damage to a person with even basic armor. The bow comes first, however, since then at least he can train his archery skill.

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Since there isn't much else to do we head off to our next match against the Redwood Hunters again. We'll be facing off a full house it seems. We shall see who will win..

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We wait for them to come to us so that we can get the first trike against them.

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Their minotaur critically hits Elfberserker and he's KO'd. Luckily not too badly.

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Azira can't seem to score a single hit against them and is eventually KO'd by their Kaamio.

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After that our loss is imminent. Azira does get some nice stat gains. Unfortunately Bellman is KO'd for the next round, but since the next round is dedicated to a CUP match is doesn't matter. Since we lost we failed to make any extra money.

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Announcing the winners of this seasons CUP.

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Finally, the last match of this season. If we win we'll advance to the 3rd division, if we lose we stay in the 4th.

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Elfberserker smacks the enemy Hobbit so hard he flies off against the enemy Lizardman. If he had more strength or a more powerful weapon it is possible to harm enemy units by such a collision if ther eis enough force.

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Elfberserker KO's their hobbit and moves on to attack the goblin, meanwhile Azira is taking on their Jäämies (Iceman) one-on-one and Sword is providing healing support to Elfberserker.

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Their Goblin is out and their Iceman is close to falling.

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Azira makes short work of their Iceman.

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And Elfberserker KOs their Lizardman. This means we get to go to the 3rd division now!

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Once again our stat gains. Not too shabby at all! And now we'll be able to afford a bow for Bellman so he can finally start being useful.

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The overall champion of this season is Stars of Sun. When we see Prosper's Children being announced here we have officially won the LP.

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It is time for the two month winter holiday break.

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Well, shit. We entered the the new season but are still stuck in the 4th division. We tied with the Redwood Hunters in terms of victories this season but they were the ones that got chosen to go up. Guards of Inca on the other hand fell into our division. Honestly though I'm not complaining because we really weren't ready for the 3rd division. We could've made more money there but we probably would've gotten slapped around pretty hard there.

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Anyways, we buy an Örkkijousi for Bellman and train his Power by 1 so that decreases the damage penalty. I think. It says melee damage -2, but IIRC it also affects normal ranged weapons. If not then we only lost 50 kr, not a big deal. We'll soon find out from the combat log how they calculate ranged damage!

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Bellman aims at their hobbit and scores a hit. I just read in the instructions that ranged weapons don't factor in Power so it was a waste of money. Oh well! I'm dumb.

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Bellman is already earning his bread by taking out their naked Hobbit with the bow. Elfberserker engages the enemies who are showering us with snares, distraction spells and ranged attacks. Azira will follow now. Elfberserker will attack their Goblin first as he is the weakest and easiest to kill.

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Elfberserker keeps getting snared and our Barbarian keeps getting distracted but Bellman is just wrecking their Iceman with his bow. I love this little guy!

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Bellman manages to put their Iceman into the hospital for a few months before our melee guys can even engage the enemy.

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Elfberserker finally gets his hands on that Goblin and smashes him again, putting him into the hospital as well.

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Finally our Barbarian stabs their Lizardman in the gut with his spear, the Hobbit shoots him in the shoulder and our Minotaur finishes the job my slashing him with his sword. A mighty first victory in the new season!

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Bellman is already a fan favorite, I see.

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And his ability with the bow soars.

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We end this chapter by peeking into the season programme to see who we will be fighting against. Next will be Bear-Men of Batu, but Guards of Inca will be a tough one. And we fight against them two times in a row. I looked at their roster and their guys are packing heat. They have shit armor, but their weapons are much better than ours. We'll see how it all pans out.. Next time!

I want to remind people that we have an unnamed Druid and Hobbit if there is anyone who wants to be named after either of these characters.
 

Jester

Arbiter
Joined
Mar 24, 2013
Messages
1,493
Hmm healer is not taken? If so i volunteer to fill this cowardly, blood fearing void to make Codex team full.
 

Hobo Elf

Arcane
Joined
Feb 17, 2009
Messages
13,998
Location
Platypus Planet
Chapter 4: Old games taught us that you can't always win, but that it's ok and victory only comes off as sweeter that way

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Ok, renamed our Druid into Jester and our Hobbit, into, well, yes. Somehow I have a feeling that this lil' guy is going to be the furious bane for many enemy gladiators. Let's start off by assessing the situation. We didn't make it to the 3rd division, but we have a reputation of 82 with the upper management. They are really happy. I said earlier that there are no real winning conditions for this game, but I forgot to mention that you CAN lose if your reputation sinks into shit. It's pretty hard to have that happen, though. You need to essentially lose every single fight for a few seasons, so we don't have that problem.

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Anyways, moving on. Our next match is against the Bear-Men of Batu. They seem to have outfitted their Wizard with a Longbow now. He manages to score a hit on Elfberserker during the first round.

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Which leads our Hobbit to retaliating. Jester fails his cast to heal the Minotaur. He has a 68% chance of succeeding his heal spell. Initially it was 60% something when we first got it, so it's gone up by almost 10% since then. Nice.

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The Wizard manages to shoot Elfberserker again. This time Jester does manage to succeed in healing, except that now you can see that it has a 69% chance of success. shiteatingnippledick continues to rain ballistic death as retaliation on their Wizard.

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Their Barbarian engages first so our Minotaur gets the first attack. Fortunately for us and unfortunately for him Minotaurs are blessed this month.

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Their Barbarian is smashed.

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Their Wizard scores a critical hit against Elfberserker. The only reason he's still standing is because of his armor.

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Unfortunately we still get to him before he manages to bring anyone down thanks to Jester's heals. Elfberserker cracks Tout the Wizard with a mighty blow, sending him into a 3 month coma. There was no chance of us losing this fight, but it is good and fun to see even the bad teams improve.

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Azira comes into our office and says that we are the best manager he has ever had.

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Now we have the first CUP match against Guards of Inca, the 3rd division dropouts. Now even though they are dropouts that doesn't mean that they are any less dangerous. These guys outclass us in stats and gear. Luckily the gods are favoring Druids this month so all heals are doubled by Jester. We are going to need every help we can get if we want a chance at winning this.

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They all come at us.

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We attack their Kaamio and do some damage to him. Unfortunately he critically hits our Barbarian and he's out. He won't be out for the next match which is more important to us anyway.

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They deal heavy damage to our Minotaur and their Gnoll comes in between our Hobbit and Druid. They are unable to use their spells and ranged attacks if they are engaged with an enemy so they fall back, unfortunately Elfberserker gets KO'd because we cannot help him.

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We lose but no one is seriously injured.

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I realize that Elfberserker is still using a crappy dagger. I go visit the Shop and see that the Leveä Miekka is on sale. We buy it.

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Again against the Guards of Inca, but this time it's not a CUP match. We have a much better weapon for Elfberserker now, but it is unfortunately the Dwarven races turn to be blessed by the gods. We need to take down their Dwarf first ASAP if we want a chance at this.

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I doesn't go well. At all. Azira is KO'd for 3 months.

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We lose again against their superior team. Luckily the next month is a CUP match so it gives Azira 1 more month time to rest. He'll have to sit out the next match but at least he'll only miss one fight. You may be getting an idea now for how unprepared we would've been for the 3rd division when we keep in mind that these guys were the losers.

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We have the Soldiers of Set again. Their Ritari (Knight) is blessed this month, but the Hobbit and Minotaur take him out before manages to do anything. The rest of their team is trying to attack us with ranged attacks.

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Regardless we bring them to their knees.

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I take a look at the current rankings and as you can see, Redwood Hunters are getting their shit slapped there.

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Our next fight is again.. Bear-Men of Batu! Look at that, they have a full team assembled now.

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We out skill and out gear them so we start bringing them down.

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The Knight engages Elfberserker but he hits him with such a force that he is taken back a step. Meanwhile the Hobbit and Barbarian deal with their Bearman and Jester helps keep our Minotaur alive with his always valuable heal spells.

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Everyone attacks one last time and with a mighty roar Elfberserker critically hits their Minotaur who is KO'd for a good while. In the spirit of good sportsmanship I will say that it was a noble effort by Bear-Men of Batu. At least they are starting to get their shit together.

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The last match of this season is against Guards of Inca, for the 3rd time. Regardless of the outcome they will go back to the 3rd division.

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Knights are blessed again this month. Their Knight uses Jalkakahle (chained legs) on Elfberserker. The spell is blessed and now he is unable to move for 12 rounds, but he can still attack.

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Basically the Knight immobilizes our whole team. The good news is that Elfberserker knocks out their Hobbit.

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We also manage to KO their Kaamio.

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But that's about all we manage to do. Still, we manage to take down 2 guys this time which is not bad.

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The final rankings for this season. Now we enter the winter holidays once again.

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Azira comes into our office to let us know that in 11 years, when he retires, he will buy his own house and spend the dark winter evenings around a fireplace reading good books.

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Despite our failure to advance once again, we are still happy to see that Elfberserker has made it into the Top 10 list of most KO's this season. He's in 3rd place but ties with the 1st and 2nd gladiators.

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Announcing all the brave gladiators who are leaving for retirement now. Also, the salary we pay our gladiators drops from 148 kr to 134 kr as they get older

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And once again before we end the chapter we once again have a look at the Season 922 match programme. Redwood Hunters has dropped back into the 4th division.

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We have some money again. Things that we could think about investing in is buying a snare spell for Jester. The best one, Chained legs, only costs 300 kr. Or we could continue to save up money and buy a new, bigger and badder weapon for Azira and then we'll start investing in better armor for our melee fighters, and possibly some cheap armor for our Druid and Hobbit. Anyways, signing off now and thanks for reading!
 

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