This guide was created because as of 12/2018 I could only find videos and guides for older versions of the game that were significantly easier than the current level Pro-Gamer difficulty now gives you. The game is actually hard now. Previous strategies no longer work due to nerfs either to EXP gains or certain employees getting nerfed like the Faber who got his automatic upgrade frequency nerfed into the ground. If your looking for an updated guide this is for you so lets jump right into it.

Update: Included a video guide that contains all the info contained in the written guide. If you are a BOSS that doesn't like doing the un-manliest thing in the world, "reading" (Eww), check it out!

So there are certain aspects to this game that you need a firm handle on to succeed in Pro-Gamer Difficulty and to my strategy in general. These tips don't necessarily fit into a single category but they are a critical piece to set you up to succeed. At no point do I mention a gladiator's starting stats simply because they are NOT IMPORTANT! If your starting gladiator only has 120 health it DOES NOT MATTER he will still be a killing machine at the end game. You do not need to constantly restart the game if you get a bad starting gladiator and/or jupiter blessing. Just roll with it, you wanted a hard difficulty for a reason.

GENERAL TIPS:

• Only send in your main fighter gladiator in if you are sure he can win. The game seems to increase difficulty based on how often you are winning in a row (this is only for scheduled fights, pit fights are generally way easier) AND the overall skill/size/equipment of your ludus. If you can't win still accept the fight, but throw in the poor naked gladiators (we're gonna call them 'the naked ones' from here on out). You still give the crowd what they want but you protect your champion with their lives.
  
  
• If you see a roaming lion on the board - dont risk your main fighter unless he has crazy high agility and can kill it in one hit. Even then, your guys will often ignore the lion to fight the enemy gladiators - big mistake. Lions will 90% of the time smell your guys from across the map and go for your men and they do ABSURD damage if you don't get a block on it; I usually throw a naked one in a match with them on the off chance they go for the enemy but usually they will go for your guy. The audience loves when the lion attacks though, even if a naked one dies in one bite he earns you some coin - so he's good for that atleast. =/
  
  
• For this run you want to purchase slaves from the Magistrate as quick as you can until you have 10-ish guys, their stats do not matter. As a matter-of-fact as SOON as you get in the game BUY YOUR FIRST SLAVE. Just having a naked guy in your ludus will make your first pit fight very likely to be insanely easy. The larger your ludus I find your scheduled/pit fights are significantly easier. Most of the pit fighters won't even have a weapon and only 1 piece of armor IF you have a large ludus with next to no equipment. Keep buying until you get 10 or more guys in your ludus. After that you can chill on buying more and just keep them training. Always throw in the LEAST skilled guy if you need to lose a match.
  
  
• Heads up: This is a game about gladiator combat! The crowd is an important piece you can work to your advantage. Crowds love you more the longer the fight is and the more that is going on. They also hate when you mind control your gladiator. (This is part of why I never do mind control in any of my play-throughs) In general the more bodies in a match and the more attacking going on, the more they love it and the more you get in crowd favor. This can be a SIGNIFICANT sum of money if you just had a team (or even better, 1 guy) slaughter an entire team. Late game you earn more from continuous exhibition matches than the scheduled fights sometimes. Dont underestimate the crowd.
  
  
• AI skill is the best skill that your fighters can have... but you should NEVER have them train for it. Never ever. The reason is they will gain the same amount of AI skill in 1 battle than they would if they trained that skill every day for 10 days. Guess what? You're on a time bomb. You can't spend 10% of your time to train a skill you will get in a few battles anyway. Only your starting gladiator should train it because it will be the biggest bang for the buck in the first few days. After that, never have anyone train it. Seriously.
  
  
• On pit fights you are mainly looking at their amount of victories and comparing them to your champion. If they have more victories/WAY superior equipment be wary, but generally these fights are the easiest in the game. For multiple fighters just thrown in your champion with some naked ones - they will distract the enemy while your main bae goes to town. For pit fights only, if your champion cant win it just dont take the fight at all. Pit fights are basically only dangerous-ish in the early game and are a good training ground to allow promising fighters to gain some skill once you get in the mid game.
  
  
• IF YOUR STARTING JUPITER BLESSING IS NOT SOMETHING FOR DAMAGE SELL IT. You need the coin; stuff for training will not help you win in the beginning, defense is ok if your fighter has high turtle stat. Auto-heal is also pretty good. If its not any of those sell it and put that money into research or employees. Do this for all future jupiter blessings except the blue ones until you have the Doctore Emeritus, once you get to him you will be making a lot more money through exhibition matches and you can afford to keep the good jupiter blessings on your top fighters. Anything that reduces employee upgrade cost or time stick on the Doctore Emeritus, followed by the normal Doctore.
  
  
• If you get the event that allows you to buy or capture a gladiator GET THAT BAD BOY . Theres also an event that has gauls invading, send word to the legate sometimes he will gift you a soldier they captured and the gladiator you get from that is BOSS Every time I've gotten a gladiator off of these events they have MASSIVE stats, I'm talking 100-150 in every stat... which if you get early is pretty much a GG.
  
  
• AS SOON AS YOUR FIGHTER CAN BEAT A CHAMPIONSHIP, DO IT! The main reason you do them ASAP is because of the blue jupiter blessing cards. You will need these in the mid game when you are training all your gladiators in the mid/late game to reduce your research cost/time for the Doctore Emeritus. Championships I will cover in its own section, but know that you NEED TO PRIORITIZE COMPLETEING ALL OF 'THE BIG 3' BY 300 DAYS LEFT!
  
  
• I cannot stress enough that you have to CONSTANTLY be researching and start it fast. Your fighters are worthless without the acompanying research to support them.

To start the early game you obviously want to pause the game as soon as you get in and see what you have available. Here I'm going to explain my choices for starting employees and some theory on why - in the hopes you'll better understand why you are choosing them and that will give you the knowledge to decide when you no longer need them, as well as a few general gameplay tips.

Employee Freebie: Doctore Doom

You know him, you love him. Your slaves' favorite muscle man with a whip.

• You need to constantly be researching early skills with this guy.
  
  
• RUSH DEEP BREATHING. After that prioritize rushing Interpretive dance, then Blade Control, then Automatic-yield. After that I usually save the rest for later in the game when theres nothing better to buy.
  
  
• Get Murmillo training later on when you can actually start training your guys. More on that in the Mid-Game section.
  
  
• Later in the game round out the rest of your training when you can afford it, because once you get Doctore Emeritus you wont focus much on the original Doctore.

Employee of the month #1: Sneaky Mc-Stabby

• This guy is actually 100% your best starting employee aside from the Doctore hands down. Your biggest issue is money in the early game, because my strat pretty much requires you to get super fat on your wallet as early as humanly possible. He's like a Faber only better as he can upgrade your equipment every few days compared to the Faber who only works like 1-2x a month. Get this guy. Get him immediately.
  
  
• Try to have him steal a weapon immediately when you buy him. If he gets caught no biggie just buy him again. He usually succeeds for me. After your gladiator has a Basic Qama don't ever try to steal a better weapon as he usually gets caught stealing those, not worth the lost time and coin.
  
  
• Never try to do anything with him unless his reputation is in the 'Dark Figure' stage and he will almost never get caught (this means for every time AFTER the very first time).
  
  
• If he gets caught just immediately re-buy him. If you follow advice above he rarely gets caught.
  
  
• Bet 150 coin on every pit fight. If the fight looks bad dont take it - you don't lose the money if you dont accept the fight.
  
  
• He can arrange pit fights while stealing.
  
  
• Get rid of this guy in the mid game after you get your Doctore Emeritus finished researching the 'Yield at 20% health' skill. Replace with the Educator.
  
  
• EVEN AFTER FIRING HIM CONTINUE DOING PIT FIGHTS!

Employee #2: Jesus

• This guy is the most expensive option on the list but he fills a vital role in the hardest part of the early game - Surviving your first fights when your starting gladiator can barely survive a tussle with a chicken.
  
  
• Go for the Prayer to Venus first: This skill will win you fights when gladiators hit the weakest in the game - it acts as both heal at the ludus (which will save you valuable coin and heal the damaged slaves you buy from the magistrate) and more importantly: It regens your gladiators mid-battle as well. It also stacks with Deep-breathing AND the Auto-heal Jupiter card if you are lucky and get one in the beginning.
  
  
• Go for Prayer to Mars next. Honestly this skill is pretty meh BUT every advantage in your first fight you can get you need to take. Get other skills after. Don't get the skill that gives you wine.
  
  
• The other reason you take this guy is he passively increases everyone's stats and at a pretty good rate as well. He's the fastest way to level your guys without upgrades like palus, so its best to get him early and toss him later when you can train much faster on your own with upgrades.
  
  
• When you get the Doctore Emeritus (who you are rushing to get) Get rid of this guy immediately and get the Faber.
  
  

Employee #3: M.C. Hammer

• Honestly everyone online seems to love this guy, but he is absolute 100% hot garbage now. Training time even with palus + rocks + coal pit is slower than a snail on a rock. The main reason I take this guy is to build baths. You want to minimize the time your gladiators are healing after big fights. I've been testing around with the Apothecary as well but I can't tell if it works or not without a medicus so I usually skip it. Build as many palus as you can after baths, but replace this guy with the Bard as soon as you get Doctore Emeritus done researching 'Deeper Humility I'. Bard is much better. I will cover Bard in the mid-game section as he is important to the strategy in the mid-game.
  
  
• DO NOT TRAIN YOUR MAIN FIGHTER ON THE PALUS'S YOU BUILD! The Palus are only for naked ones right now. Your main fighter will be maxed out in all stats at the end of the game (assuming he survive until then) just through fighting, he does not need a palus to train. Leave it to the other guys.

• DO NOT OUTFIT OTHER GLADIATORS YET! Just your main fighter. Once your main fighter has the best equipment you can possibly get him, start on another. Don't spend more than 10-20 coin on the individual equipments just let your agent do his work upgrading your moneymaker. I usually upgrade to the Centurian's Mail and Centurian's Waist, max out the legs, death helmet and bronze pauldron shoulders. With Faber upgrades your looking at 350-ish to upgrade a naked one in the late game. Do not fully upgrade with your own coin.

To start out, upgrade your starting gladiator's weapon up to a gladius and try to have the agent steal a better weapon. After getting all the rest of your employees doing what you can with them - deck your gladiator out in the most expensive gear you can - up to the pieces that cost 30-40 gold. Do this the day before your first scheduled fight.

Your priority in the early game is:

• Constantly be researching. RUSH DEEP BREATHING. After that prioritize rushing Interpretive dance, then Blade Control, then Automatic-yield. All these skills are super cheap and effective allowing you to funnel money to buy the Doctore Emeritus. By this point your main fighter should be a tanky beefcake. Once you get 'Auto-matic Yield' most of the other skills can wait as by that point you will have Doctore Emeritus and you will be focusing more of the upgrades on him so save your coin and upgrade the original Doctore when you have nothing better to spend it on.
  
  
• Only have 1 gladiator that does the fighting, have the others only training in this stage. You will get lots of gladiators in the pits. DO NOT ASSIGN A NON-FIGHTING GLADIATOR A CLASS. If you get awarded a gladiator that already has armor and a class - sell him. The reason you do not want more than 1 fighting gladiator with a class is your agent may upgrade their items instead of your main money-maker.
  
  
• Buy slaves from the magistrate any time they are available. Literally every time. Their stats don't matter. A bigger ludus will make all your fights easier and it gives your main fighter more protection from random events that might kill him.
  
  
• After your first starting employees your priority should be getting DOCTORE EMERITUS as fast as humanly possible. Replace starters when you can but you want to have this guy by 300 days left. That gives you 60 days. This guy is why you are saving every penny and he's gonna be covered in the mid-game section.
  
  
• You will basically only be able to get the Doctore Emeritus if you do the championships within the first 50 days, as you'll lose 10 days from the championships themselves. Save that money. You need him fast.

Hey, I dunno if you've noticed, but championships are pretty important. Aside from the final championship there are what I call the 'Big 3' that you REALLY need to complete early as they will save you a TON of coin, and they are the easiest ones to win. You need only a barely competent fighter to win all 3. As a general rule as soon as my main fighter has double the attack/agility stats of these guys I challenge them. As a side note, all these guys are static, meaning they have the same stats and it's the same fight every single game. Once you've done it once, or read this guide, you know what to expect. Dont try the last guy without Blade-Control researched as you don't want a long drawn-out fight with him as he has decent block and does respectable damage.

The rewards don't look that impressive but the REAL loot is the blue jupiter cards that you get for beating these guys. Sometimes you'll get unlucky and all 3 will be crap but the ones you want are ones that reduce coin cost by 15% or 33%, either one of these bad boys are paydirt. Now that we've covered why we're doing this, let's start with the first fight.

Championship #1: Fight of the Centurions

This guy is laughably easy and is one of the reasons why you rush through 'polearm defense', 'deep breathing', and 'net defense'. Don't take him on without these skills. His net is the most dangerous thing about him, once you can cut through that quickly he will go down like a sack of meat.


Championship #2: Unfinished Business

This is another fairly easy fight. It appears he has a lot of damage (compared to early game fighters) but the main thing murmillos suffer from in this game is the big 2-handed weapons take SO much stamina to swing. This guy will be out of breath after 2-3 swings and his damage (if he even hit you) will drop dramatically. Make sure your main gladiator has good AI skill and a good shield and comparable damage or defense and this guy will go down easy.


Championship #3: Rumble in the Jungle

This guy looks pretty dangerous on paper, but he suffers a similiar problem to the previous guy, all the heavy armor makes him slow and he gets out of breath easy. If you dont have an aggressive fighter with attack blessings this guy is more dangerous than normal simply because of all the heavy armor, but you should still get through him.


The other fights are special such as your guys starting out chained to the center, or require too much resources like a chariot/horse, or are what I consider simply too risky in the early game, but if you are confident in your fighters give the others a try. Dont try to take out behemoths unless you can kill them in one hit.

Ahh yes, the Mid-Game. I rate this as about 300 days left before the tournament. This is where the real meat of the strategy starts to take hold. Hopefully by this point you have your Doctore Emeritus and atleast 2 if not all 3 championships under your belt. If you do, great you are right where you want to be and if not, get there asap.

Mid-game is where your whole strategy up until this point is going to shift. Up until now you've been focusing on 1 man... but 1 man can't win you the championship no-matter how strong he is or how much dmg he does. You need a team of fighters to win the championship and this is where you start building it. Lets start with the employees you should have by now and the reason why you got them. Everyone else will support this next guy.

Employee #1: Big D himself

• Now, your eyes probably bulged out of your sockets when you saw his price, but stay with me. The whole strat works because of this guy right here. Everything revolves around him and seriously, damn-near all his skills are awesome. Able to reduce training time by 75%, Chance for 1 swing to hit multiple gladiators, gladiators learn loads more in battle? This guy single-handedly will allow every guy on your team to be decent fighters IF you can get him early and researching fast. We're gonna call him Big D from now on. Also his chest is hilariously huge.
  
  If you've never used him before, heres his skills.
  
  
  Now, for Big D you want to prioritize getting all his bottom skills first but in a certain order.
  
  1. Just like the photo, rush Deeper Humility I. This allows all your gladiators to surrender at 20% health. This is a HUGE boon even though it sounds bad. I know right, why would you want your guys giving up quicker, you ask? Because my friend, this single skill will stop your gladiators from getting impediments when they fight in exhibition matches... meaning you can actually start training all your naked ones when you get it! It also has the added benefit of allowing your fighters and even naked ones have a decent chance to survive a lost match. Once it's researched arm all your naked ones with starter equipment and a wooden gladius and make them fight, heal, fight, repeat. Leave 1-2 promising naked ones to turn into murmillos, have the rest fight fight fight and fight more. Stop to heal them to full each time and they will be incredible fighters after even 100 days, and you have 300 days to work with! Keep in mind with each fight you will be also earning 100-200 coin. Put that back into research or equipment. Between Exhibition matches, pit fighting, and scheduled fights you can easily make 1000 coin every 10 days.
     
  2. After the yield skill, go straight for Master Mimic. This skill causes your gladiators to learn more from their opponents during battle. This skill is huge. New naked ones can learn +100 AI skill IN ONE FIGHT FROM THIS! FIGHTERS CAN LEARN +10-30 WEAPON/STRENGTH SKILL IN ONE FIGHT! GET THIS and rush it all the way up that line.
     
  3. Before the final championship make sure you unlock his whole right-side skill tree, you'll need the additional chances to critically hit and the chance to hit multiple gladiators because the final fight is a doozy.
     
  4. DO NOT get the final skill in each line, it costs way too much for basically nothing.
  
  Also, Big D's first skill will allow your gladiators not to be super pissed if they are overcrowded by 3 guys. At this point you want to keep as many guys are you can without it messing with their morale. So, you can hold 18 guys but any more than that sell, or set free a decent fighter and train the new guy. You want to set free about 5 fighters in the 30-50 stat range to survive after the championship, more is better and if you can spare better ones that will help. The fight after the final championship is way easier than the actual championship itself.
  
  
  Employee runner-up: #2 The Spoony Bard
  
  
  Now, this guy serves a few purposes, but mainly we chose him because
  • A: He improves training time, which when paired with Big D is going to make your guys start wrecking stuff VERY very quickly and they will start one-shotting most enemies in the pits before long.
    
  • B: He allows morale to be maxed out when paired with baths, the educator, and him. Morale improves base stats and when your stats are high and morale is maxed out - you guessed it; ♥♥♥♥ dies quick.
    
  • You will mostly likely be keeping the Bard the rest of the game.
  
  Employee #3 Some greek guy
  
  
  • This guy is as classy as he always has been. Get all his skills starting with training time, which is why you have him to begin with.
    
  • You will be keeping the Educator the rest of the game.
  
  Employee #4: Luke, I am your Faber
  
  
  • This guy, while maybe not as great as he once was, is still your best option with your choices. His main benefit by the time you get him is actually for his blueprint skills as they will save you tons of coin. Auto-matic upgrade you still want to get first as he will immediately auto-upgrade 1 piece, then you research a blueprint and after he is done researching that he will immediately auto-upgrade another piece after that, etc. Upgrades after that will be much slower. Get all the blueprint skills they will save you tons of coin. Do not waste money on the repair skills and make sure auto-upgrade is turned on when it is researched.
  
  The rest of the Mid-game (what I consider up until about 50-60 days left) just train, pit fight, fight, and gather money. Do not spend money on upgrading gladiators unless they are 100+ in every single stat. This is because you dont want them ending the exhibition fights too early because if you give them top tier equipment they will wreck the less skilled guys and they wont get much EXP for fighting. Mid-game into late game start putting jupiter blessings on your top tier fighters that arent doing the exihibition matches, everyone else will be cannon fodder to hold the line.
  
  From the mid-game on do not use your main fighter unless he is the ONLY one that can win a fight. From about <250 days left theres a good chance he is going to be challenged and possibly die no matter how much he is trained or what equipment he has. It will obviously suck to lose him BUT if you do its not huge in the overall plan IF you spread your training a little. Giving him good Jupiter Blessings like Attack Stance or Riposte will massively increase his survivability for when he is challenged... and make no mistake, he WILL be challenged.
  
  For the other guys you are training up, let some of them take over fights in the pit against unarmed opponents or ones with few victories. Once your guys get 30-50 stats in everything they will be able to handle most fights in the pit and the guys you've had a training a while will easily be able to handle them as well.

So you've made it to the final stretch. If you've been doing well you should have several thousand gold saved up with about 60 days to bring it all together and win the final championship. Heres what I usually go for. If you got loads of money, like, enough to fully outfit your entire ludus with change to spare just do that, make sure you have 4-5 good fighters that you have freed. If you havent or you dont have a lot of coin heres the deal.

• Get rid of the Bard, hire the Emptor. Upgrade equipment haggling and nothing else.
  
  
• The Faber discount AND the Emptor discount stack, so you can outfit your guys for dirt cheap. Get everyone decent gear and a gladius if they don't already have it.

Side Note: I consider 'decent gear' to be the following...
1. Weapon: Gladius
   
2. Shield: Elite Roman Centurion Shield
   
3. Helmet: Death's Helmet
   
4. Chest: Centurion Mail
   
5. Waist: Centurion Leathers
   
6. Feet: Onyx Greaves

This combo gives you the biggest bang for the buck. After that MAXIMIZE your best guys. These will be your show-stoppers. Work your way down the list with the rest of the coin you have untill you have 200-ish coin left.

• Once you've have like 200 coin left (dont go lower or it can backfire really bad) fire the emptor, get the bard back and have him go for the morale buffs again.
  
  
• At around 6-10 days left, fire the Faber and hire the Haruspex and get all his curses for the opponents. IMPORTANT: DO NOT PIT FIGHT OR DO ANY FIGHT DURING THIS TIME AS IT WILL CONSUME THE CURSE BUFFS AND YOULL HAVE TO GET THEM AGAIN and they will be way more expensive the 2nd time around.
  
  
• Twiddle your thumbs until the final fight.
  
  As a recap, before the final fight your ludus should look something like this if you are doing well.
  
  I like to arrange my fighters by sheer skill in the top row and work my way down, but 2/3rd's of your fighters should have 100 in all stats by now and you should have 3-4 BOSS fighters that should be 160-200 in everything. The naked ones have come a long way. *sniff*
  
  Be entertained for the final fights.
  
  The Final fight: The final fight, much like the other championships, will not change in any playthrough. That same Murmillo that got a lucky hit on your best fighter last game is still going to be there and have the same monster stats that he messed you up with in your previous game. All the enemy fighters have a minimum of 100 in every single stat and the best equipment. If you want to win and win decisively, Haruspex will not let you down. Even if you only get the HP or the removal of their jupiter blessings off of them it is still a huge advantage if you have jupiter blessings and they don't. This last fight will be your toughest yet, but good things aren't easy. Good luck.

I hope you have enjoyed this guide and have found it helpful and informative.

Massive thank-you to the devs for making such a great game that I can't stop playing!

Please rate the guide if you've found it helpful and any comments/questions are welcome.

*THE END*