Choosing Your Champion: To buy $$$ or not to buy.

If you don't mind spending $5.50 or doing a bit of online shopping, by all means buy yourself a Gannicus to be your Champion.

His starting Max Stats add up to 258, which means he will have 100s for Speed, Brawn, and Vitality after 420 arena wins.

More importantly he comes equipped with the Legendary Spatha as his weapon. It has an attack value of 19, which is 4 higher than the best weapon you can buy at the moment, which is the Bronze Spatha with an attack value of 15.

As far as Barca goes he costs $5.00 and his Max Stats add up to 262, which means he will reach straight 100s after only 380 arena wins, 40 wins faster than Gannicus. Unlike Gannicus however, he does not come equipped with any special gear, in fact all of his gear ultimately needs to be upgraded.

If you are like me and you don't feel like spending real life money on a Facebook game (regardless of how many hours you spend playing it), then you are going to want to buy the gladiator to the left, the Healthy Slave.

His Max Stats add up to 188, which is the best of any gladiator you can buy with Denarii. Sure it will take 1,120 arena wins to reach 100's in all three stat categories, but the game is all about the journey anyway...right?

I believe I have seen this Healthy Slave sell for as low as 766 Denarii, so you might want to reload your screen a few times to see if you can find him at a lower price.

As you advance past Pompeii to Neapolis, you are going to want this Healthy Slave (or Gannicus or Barca if you bought them) to fight the majority of your arena battles. If you bought the Desperate Roman (47-40-65, 160 Denarii) as your first gladiator, you will notice he doesn't really cut it once you get past Pompeii.

When you get to the more difficult cities of Neapolis, Capua, and beyond, if you focus on one gladiator he will become stronger as his Max Stats increase with every 10 victories. This will allow your ludus to advance more quickly to Rome than you would if you sent inferior gladiators to slaughter wasting precious energy.

Here is an example of a fight between two Healthy Slaves in Capua Division 7. Hephaestus has 592 wins under his belt and the best gear available. 

Achilles is a freshly bought gladiator with less than 10 wins, hasn't finished maxing out Speed and Brawn and is equipped with inferior armor and weapon.

The match ends with predictable results. In spite of landing one less successful attack, Hespaestus does over twice as much damage, and deflects nearly twice as much damage with superior armor and Brawn.


This goes to show the importance of putting a greater investment into a single gladiator as opposed to spreading the gear and arena fights around evenly among several.