1. When you start the game you have 1000 gold. I have found the best use of this gold is to buy equipment. For me buying two long swords, 350g each, and two leather helmets, 100g each, is the best option. You will have 100g remaining as a buffer, just in case you don’t gain any gold in your first fight.
a. Remember to equip your new equipment before you go to your first fight.
b. For fighting classes that can use two weapons you should equip the long sword in place of the shield.

2. Following this guide you should win your first two fights at Degarre’s drinking den. I suggest you forfeit the championship fight, the third fight. This will cost you some reputation but early in the game you want to keep your reputation low so you don’t advance too quickly. You might also have some difficulty winning the third fight with only two low level gladiators.

3. If you happen to lose your first fight, it has never happened to me if I used the equipment listed in number 1, you will need to sell some of your old equipment to manage the 60g upkeep for your estate. If you followed the guide you should have a mixture of short swords and shields to sell. Shorts words sell for 100g at the market. Shields are worth 25g.

4. The goal early in the game is to avoid losing fights and potentially having your gladiators injured. Early in the game, before you have a Doctor, an injury to a gladiator could cut your winnings in half for multiple weeks, one gladiator fighting rather than two. For this reason I suggest you pass on tournaments at the Staggering Bear until your gladiators are at least level three. Level four would be better.

5. While your gladiators advance in level you should be saving your gold. Your first improvements should be to add an additional cell, so you can buy an additional fighting slave, or build the Bath House so you can buy a pleasure slave. Adding a fighting slave gives you another fighter to train and use in tournaments; remember your new level one slave will have problems competing at the Staggering Bear. I use the pleasure slaves exclusively to train my fighting slaves in dancing, to improve their health and agility. Each building improvement will cost you 500g. A pleasure slave will cost 500g while your first fighting slave will likely cost 250g. The order you purchase these improvements is a personal preference.
a. Since we are discussing purchasing a fighting slave I will offer some advice. All the fighting classes are good except the Tower. I find them to have extremely low offensive capability and their added defense does not make up for the lack of offense. I love facing towers in the tournaments, they are guaranteed wins.
b. New fighting slaves do not come with weapons or shields. Be prepared to buy equipment before you put them in a tournament.

6. At some point you will be asked if you want to go to the Crimson Pit to fight. These will be tough battles but the gold is impressive. I advise passing on these opportunities until your gladiators are a higher level. Leve 7 – 10 depending on their development.

7. As your prestige grows you will be asked to participate in tougher tournaments. The tournaments listed in difficulty order, easiest to hardest, are:
a. Degarre’s drinking den
b. Staggering Bear
c. Greenwood
d. Sandworth
e. Waldley
f. Dune Lords
g. Stonyford
h. Wainton
i. Tonstead
j. Willowsfall
k. The Crimson Pit is unique as its difficulty will increase as your prestige increases.

8. I suggest striving for three fighting slaves and two pleasure slaves as your first goal. I would not add a fourth fighting slave until gold is no longer an issue. If you keep three fighting slaves it will allow better development of those slaves. Your pleasure slaves will only be rotated between three fighters and each fighter should be able to participate in every tournament. Gaining experience along the way.

9. Once you have your slaves in order you can develop you estate as you please:
a. Acquiring the doctor is useful if you should lose a fight, and you will lose a few. He will reduce the time a fighter is out after an injury.
b. The trainer adds a small amount of experience to your group of fighters or a somewhat larger amount of experience to one fighter. Early in the game this is useful but as the game goes on, the amount of benefit each week does not change so the trainer becomes less valuable. There is a small story line associated with the Trainer.
c. The scribe allows you to buy books from the market. All the books have limited value but none of them are game changers.
d. The cook will reduce the cost of maintaining your estate. There is also a small story line possible if you have a cook.

10. When your prestige is high enough you will be able to use the fighting college. You should make use of the college every week.

11. When your prestige is very high, Alfrid will offer you his service. Alfird allows your gladiators to cross train skills from another class. I found the skills to be very costly and my gladiators rarely used the new skills, preferring their own class skills.

The Main Quest is very straight forward, I added this section because on one occurrence I forgot the objective I was after and I had to try different things until I got back on track. Step 7 in the Quest is not intuitive so I added the solution below.

1. You will be approached after winning the tournament at the Staggering Bear.
2. Win the tournament at Sandworth
3. Win at the Dune Lords
4. Win at Stonyford
5. Use the Crescent Blade against Wistan at Wainton
6. Wait for the blade to be sanctified
7. Use the Sanctified blade against the agent who will be either at Tonstead or Willowsfall
8. After meeting the agent, be invited to the tournament at Willowsfall

It can be difficult to advance past Step 7. You must use the sanctified blade against Kendric at Tonstead. You don’t have to win the fight.