Accepting or Declining Preator Single Combat?

[riadsala]

Hello,

first post here....

I was wondering on what your thoughts were on declining challenges to single combat? As far as I can see, this is the preferable option most the time, especially if you know the player challenging you has a good preator (and even if you don't know, you can make a good guess that if a player is throwing their weight about wanting to settle vendettas by single combat, well, they probably have a good champion...)

So, you lose the PP automatically, but you don't lose your preator.

If you accept, then odds are you'll lose anyway. So you still lose the PP and you lose the Preator.

Am I right in thinking you lose the same number of PPs in both cases?

It would be interesting to work out some rough estimates on chances on the results of preator v preator combat... (obviously there are a lot of factors at play here, so they'd be very rough).

Thoughts? What factors do you take into account when deciding if you're going to accept a challenge or not? What are the best manuscripts for upsetting things? Or is it just best to decline the challenge, then try and steal the preator for yourself... if you can't beat it, steal it!

[John Mc]

The Prestige loss is the same whether you show up to fight or not.

I decline challenges to single combat all the time. I think it's often the best course. Even if I have no use for a Praetor (which is rare) a 10% chance of victory is not worth a 90% chance of leveling up your opponent.

When deciding to accept the challenge I consider my need for my Praetor, my personal estimation of victory odds, and the disadvantage of leveling up my opponent.

The best way to upset things is high damage potential. Infernal Bursts and similar Combat Moves. Hope to kill him super fast. Of course that isn't likely to work, but you can hope.


Stealing Praetors is tough. Not impossible, but tough. If you're a Prince of Lies then obviously you should be trying for it, but otherwise I wouldn't suggest that strategy just because your opponent has a better Praetor.

[timus]

Stealing Praetors is tough. Not impossible, but tough. If you're a Prince of Lies then obviously you should be trying for it, but otherwise I wouldn't suggest that strategy just because your opponent has a better Praetor.

Tough equals lots of resources spent. You usually need about two PCB attempts (unless you have a super-high deceit roll like +7 or better) and about two-three dark augury attempts if the opponent is hiding the praetor in his vault (which is usually the case for any good praetor).You can count the needed resources / order slots yourself.

[John Mc]

Yea, it's a lot of resources, but it's also not fast. Using Timus's ritual cost as an example, if you do 1 per turn then you're looking at 5 turns to achieve the end result.


Also you're assuming that your opponent doesn't have resistance. I'm a big fan of Paranoid for example, and I always throw up Infernal Premonitions when someone starts using Dark Augury on me. So the odds of taking my Praetors is damn bad without Prince of Lies, and not great even with it. Other players might not have those things, so mileage varies.

[vasiln]

Re: manuscripts, I think that veil of smoke is probably the most cost effective spoiler for a decent praetor. Attack or infernal manuals are good too. Anything else is just too risky and order-intensive to bother with. I'd save an obsidian skin manuscript if I got one in tribute, I guess.

When people are playing well, they don't give the other guy a lot of opportunities to level up a praetor. So there aren't that many unbeatable praetors. The exception would be somebody who's dedicated resources to a lot of manuscripts.

If you have the best praetor, it's not very effective to devote resources to making him more powerful. If your opponent has an unbeatable praetor, it's not effective to devote resources to defeating him. So I find that the best praetor I'm likely to face in a game is a good starting praetor (like Haagenti), maybe with one or two victories, and the possibility for a good move or a power-up (like from the event). At that point, if I have no duellist, it's not worth sending one--- but if I have one just a little less powerful, it might be worth browsing the manuscripts.

[riadsala]

So, generally, if you're challenged to preator single combat, you're best off declining (unless you have a fairly solid preator already).

[John Mc]

Unless you think your opponent is bluffing. Basically yea.