Gearing up: Save your Influence!

If you followed my advice and made a lot of new allies and bought a Desperate Roman (47-40-65, 160 Denarii) as your first main gladiator, you shouldn't be having too much trouble advancing through Paestum.

As your arena wins and gifts from allies accumulate you will be left wondering how best to spend your Denarii and Influence.

Well you definitely want to save your Influence to purchase the Spiked Bronze Scutum (3 Atk, 8 Def). It is easily the best shield in the game and you can only buy it with Influence.

I don't really recommend spending a whole lot of  Denarii on lesser shields, 150 Influence really isn't that hard to come by if you are getting regular gifts from allies and arena wins. If you find yourself coming up short, it is probably a good idea to add more allies.

Since the Desperate Roman comes with the worst shield in the game, the Wood Parma (1 Def), it is justifiable to spend a small amount of Denarii on either the Wood Scutum (3 Def) or Copper Parma (1 Atk, 2 Def).


They are inexpensive and are probably worth the Denarii to speed up your trip through Paestum. I wouldn't bother going for the Copper Scutum (4 Def), Iron Parma (1 Atk, 3 Def) or Iron Scutum (6 Def) though, they really don't give all that much more bang for the buck and you need to start saving for a weapon.

Your Desperate Roman will start with a Wood Sica and you definitely want to upgrade from that relatively quickly. 

I'd recommend going for the Wood Spatha (3 Atk) or Copper Gladius (5 Atk). The gladius is 60 Denarii more expensive but the cost is not intolerable.

Ultimately you will want to save up for the best weapon within your immediate reach, the Iron Spatha.

It gives a big boost to Attack (11 Atk) at the cost of 360 Denarii. After the Iron Spatha there is a huge 760 Denarii increase in price to the Bronze Gladius (13 Atk) and it doesn't hit all that much harder.

You'd be better off using that 760 Denarii to upgrade from the Desperate Roman gladiator to the Healthy Slave, who boasts better Max Stats overall.

Once you've bought your Healthy Slave I recommend buying him the Iron Spatha (11 Atk) and then as you gain arena victories and Denarii gifts save up and upgrade directly to the Bronze Spatha (15 Atk), which is currently the best weapon you can buy.

 

As far as armor goes I recommend buying Leather Armor (4 Def) for your Desperate Roman and your Healthy Slave, and once you have the Denarii saved up, upgrade your Healthy Slave to Bronze Protectorate (11 Def), which is the best armor available. 

The only way your Desperate Roman should upgrade from Leather Armor is if your get Copper Armor (6 Def) or Bronze Armor (8 Def) as arena rewards and your Healthy Slave is already wearing as good or better armor.


There seems to be no point in spending Denarii on either Linen Armor, Copper Armor or Bronze Armor. They don't give big enough upgrades for the cost.