Brawling

The **brawling** system was revamped again with update 1.4.2. Keep reading. All the old information is struck through.

~~The brawling system was revamped with update 1.4.0. Read on for details of the changes. We have kept the old information for comparison of the old system to the new system for now. The old system has been struck through.~~

## What is brawling?

Brawling is a fight against other players in the game, also known as PvP. If you mouse over the boxing ring, you will see how many brawlers are currently ready and if you have a protective shield or not.

Clicking the boxing ring will bring up options to set your defenders, go to the brawling screen, inspect your brawlers, view the current tournament standings, and move the ring.

## Brawling Step by Step

   By clicking the brawling screen, you will find a screen similar to the first picture in this section. On it, you see your brawlers along the bottom and the person you are challenging. The person you are challenging will have a blue box showing their name, their rank in the tournament and their win/brawl record. Your information will show in the blue box on the left.

When you are brawling against someone, you are on offense. The player that shows up is defending.

Select the three villagers you want to use to brawl. The first brawler you select will appear in the first place and will brawl first. The second and third brawler you choose will do the same. It is important to use your best brawlers if you want a good chance to win. That means the highest level characters you have with the best statistics. Pointandclix and Ironix are always going to be very good to use. There is some debate on who is better between Democratix and Baltix. Which ever of the two is higher level, use him. Obviously, if you have unlocked any of the Egyptian brawlers, they will probably be the best to use. Choose your order of characters based on who you want to fight first, second, and third. If you decide to change the order of your brawlers, select their portraits along the bottom of the screen and they will leave the top part of the screen, freeing their places and you can start over.

Once your three offensive brawlers are selected, you can equip them with weapons if they have none and give them potions. At the feet of your brawlers are two boxes. The one with the sword gives the ability to set brawling weapons. The other box bring up potions in your inventory.

The last item to deal with before you can click "Place Your Bet" at the bottom is the actual bet. A blue square in the middle of the screen between you and your opponent says "Place bet" and this is where you will choose what item you want to bet in this brawl. ***You cannot bet crafted items and brawling weapons purchased from the merchant.***

Click the blue box and an inventory screen will appear showing you everything in your inventory that can be bet. Whatever you click will go in that blue box. If you want to change your bet, click the item and your inventory screen will reappear. You must select *something* to go here before the option to click the bottom "Place Your Bet" button becomes active. Items bet in brawls can either be duplicated if you win, giving you another of the same item, or will be **lost** to the defending player. The defender will get a mail letting them know they lost a defensive brawl or mail letting them know they won the defensive brawl with your item attached.

When you finally click "Place Your Bet", you have the option to watch the brawl play out or skip to the end immediately. If you win, you have a 50% chance of getting an extra reward in the form of crafted items to make up for not being able to bet crafted items. This can include materials like blocks or bars or even Egyptian Swords and Bronze Viking shields. If you lose, you still have a small chance of getting simple resources like scraps and coal. These do not show up in the item rewards popup. Instead it will fall onto your screen like it would if you were clicking on a rock and getting stone/XP.

## Shields

When you lose in a brawl, you get an 8-hour shield of protection. If your 8-hours has run out, you have recently brawled on offense, or you won your last defensive brawl, you will not have a shield and other players can challenge you. The biggest change in update 1.4.0 is that the protective shield isn't automatic anymore after a defense brawl. If you win the brawl, you do not get a shield now. (Still current with 1.4.2).

~~If you defend in a brawl, you will get a temporary shield preventing another player from brawling against you for about 8 hours.~~ You can also purchase a temporary shield of varying hours in the market with Roman helmets.

If you have an active shield, offensive brawling will terminate the shield, allowing another player to brawl you at that point.

## Points

Points are determined by winning or losing against the difference in your rank vs. your opponent.

On offense:

* Win against a higher ranked opponent: You gain at least 300 points but no more than 350 points. ~~the difference between your rank and your opponent's rank with a minimum of 100 points gained and a maximum of 200 points gained.~~
* Win against a lower ranked opponent: You get at least 150 points but no more than 200 points. ~~80 points.~~
* Lose against a higher ranked opponent: You lose at least 75 points but no more than 100 points. ~~80 points.~~
* Lose against a lower ranked opponent: You lose at least 150 points but no more than 200 points. ~~the difference between your rank and your opponent's rank with a minimum of 100 points lost and a maximum of 200 points lost.~~

On defense:

* Win against a higher ranked opponent: You gain at least 100 points but no more than 120 points. ~~the difference between your rank and your opponent's rank times 0.6 with a minimum of 60 points gained and a maximum of 150 points gained.~~
* Win against a lower ranked opponent: You get at least 50 points but no more than 60 points. ~~50 points.~~
* Lose against a higher ranked opponent: You lose at least 50 points but no more than 60 points. ~~50 points.~~
* Lose against a lower ranked opponent: You lose at least 100 points but no more than 120 points. ~~the difference between your rank and your opponent's rank times 0.6 with a minimum of 60 points lost and a maximum of 150 points lost.~~

~~So the part that seems to be throwing people off is the "difference between your rank and your opponent's rank" part. See if this example will help:~~

* ~~I am ranked at 1,000 and my opponent is ranked at 1,300. I challenge him so I am on offense. I win the fight! The difference between our ranks is 300 points (1,300-1,000=300). So I should gain 300 points... except they put a minimum/maximum in there so the most I can gain is 200 points for winning against a higher ranked brawler.~~
	+ ~~If I lost against that higher ranked brawler, I would lose a flat 80 points regardless of our difference in rank.~~
* ~~I am still ranked at 1,000. My opponent is ranked at 990. I challenge him. I win the fight! The difference between our ranks is 10 points (1,000-990=10). Since he is lower than me, I gain a flat rate of 80 points regardless of our difference of rank.~~
	+ ~~If I lost against that lower ranked brawler, then I lose points. Our difference is only 10 points but the minimum lost is 100 points so I lose 100 points instead of 10 for losing against a lower ranked brawler.~~

**It follows in the same manner for defense. Basically, if you fight against higher ranked players, you will earn more points for a win and lose more points for a loss vs. fighting a lower ranked player where the points won or lost are a flat amount. (still applies in 1.4.2)**

~~Brawling points are determined by how many brawlers are left standing by the winner at the end of the brawl. The points earned or gained affect the brawler's place in the monthly brawling tournament and the brawler's guild's rank (if they are in a guild) in the monthly tournament.~~

Some weekends, Asterix and Friends will double tournament points. This is a great time to try to make large jumps in brawling ranks for better rewards. Be aware of the tournament rewards though as the rewards for finishing in Stone 1 league is better for many players than the rewards for finishing in Bronze 3. ~~However, finishing in Bronze 3 and taking the lesser reward guarantees you will start the next tournament in the higher league, making it a little easier to get even further the next month.~~

## The gold league

The biggest change you will notice (once you figure it out) when you get to gold league, is that everyone drops to a predefined score at the end of each tournament run.

* Gold 3 drops you to the begining of silver 1 - 175000
* Gold 2 drops you to the begining of gold 3 - 200000
* Gold 1 drops you to the begining of gold 2 - 225000

We also notice that the number of players at these levels drop from 1000s to 100s or less.

This comes with important considerations as to how to progress:

* Points need to come from somewhere.
* They need to come relatively quickly, every two weeks at least 25000 points disappear.
* Everyone wants points.
* People start to recognise you more easily and you will brawl against the same opponent (and them you) quite often.

Let's consider the possibilities in the brawls as only brawls change the points:

1. If we brawl and win against higher opponent, we gain 300-350 points, opponent loses 100-120 points, difference: 200-230 points.
2. If we brawl and win against lower opponent, we gain 150-200 points, opponent loses 50-60 points, difference: 100-140 points.
3. If we brawl and lose against higher opponent, we lose 75-100 points, opponent gains 50-60 points, difference: 25-40 points.
4. If we brawl and lose against lower opponent, we lose 150-200 points, opponent gains 100-120 points, difference: 50-80 points.

(Difference is estimate, as no proof yet that it is proportional, but if you do the math the other way, the outcomes are still similar.)

So to bridge the gap of 25000 points in 2 weeks to get to the next level by adding it into the system, we would need to brawl possibility (1), 109-125 times, or possibility (2), 179-250 times, or possibility (4), 313-500 times BUT, hold on, no one else would level up because you didn't lose against the same player. (Possibility (3) is 625-1000 times to same result)

So the natural strategy would then be to do brawls where you brawl against a higher opponent and win, however, there are no players in the gaps between the levels, so at the start you not going to have much of that happening. Someone has to spearhead the closing of the gap to the next level, and this will only be done with winning against a lower opponent or sharing the spearheading with other player(s), until the game allows them to brawl against players from the next level up.

So that explains why there are so few players at the top, but it doesn't explain why so many players have strong defenses in their brawls.

## Important Note about Brawl Reports

~~Currently, you can only store a maximum of 20 brawl reports in your mailbox. If you get a 21st brawl report, you will keep the newest report and the oldest report will auto-delete even though brawl reports are supposed to be able to stay in your mailbox without a time limit. If the report that is deleted contains an item from winning the defensive brawl, ***you will lose your item***. Keep track of how many reports you have in your mailbox.~~

Brawl Reports can only be stored in your mailbox for 28 days, after which time they will auto delete. The time remaining before the report is deleted is displayed in the bottom of the mail.