Once, the lands were ripe with warriors of renowned skill, all lusting for glory and fortune through their mastery of swordplay. The king, a wise ruler with keen insight on keeping his subjects happy, decided that these fighters should do battle not in dingy back alleys and rat infested warehouses like they were used to, but rather they should be able to showcase their aptitude in an officially sanctioned environment. And so the great Arena was built, and the official Coliseum League was birthed.

The sport soon became massively popular. From thousands of leagues away, from every walk of life, the citizenry of the kingdom came to witness the carnage in the arena and cheer on their favorite gladiators. And as in any organized professional sport, there were those that managed the teams of warriors. In a sport where the loser is carted off to feed the crows being a manager is no easy task. Warriors must be carefully groomed for battle. Training is an always ongoing process, and when training doesn't seem to be providing the edge managers may turn to dark sorceries and alchemy. In the end, all of this may be for naught, as old age is still the ultimate leveler of man.

When the training goes smooth though, when the warriors are as finely honed as their weapons, when the crowd roars in anticipation of the coming battle, then all the blood and sweat to get to that point finally feels worth it. It's those days that being a Coliseum manager makes you feel as regal as the king, as tough as your most tenacious gladiator.

In Stormcloud Creations' Coliseum players will get the chance to become those managers. You'll guide three young warriors and with rigorous training, and a little dose of the Gods own luck, transform them into seasoned veterans of the Coliseum circuit.

Gameplay is resolved using an extremely detailed text based simulation engine. Every aspect of being an Arena manager is covered, from the basics of training your warriors (and perhaps even enhancing their performance with body altering potions) to dealing with disease and injury. Warriors will age over time, and even run the risk of getting in trouble outside the Arena (something that never happens in real life sports, now does it?).

With combat taking place with a real-time, blow by blow account drawn from literally hundreds of thousands of vivid descriptions, no two games will ever play the same. Factor in all the other elements (hundreds of diseases and injuries, the realistic aging system, budget constraints, outside events, free agents) and you have a game with infinite possibilities! Get yourself lucky!

You've played other sports management style games, now play the only one that involves decapitations and disembowelments! Can you lead your team of gladiators into the Hall of Fame, or will they end on the wrong end of a trident? Nobody lives forever, but can they live long enough to retire? Find this out and whether you have the chops to manage three bloodthirsty brutes in the exciting world of Coliseum!

Here are some key features of "Coliseum":

· Single player, text-based gladiatorial management simulation that puts the fantasy into fantasy sporting.
· Manage three gladiators, created from a random combination of five basic stats for hundreds of thousands of possible fighter combinations. Additionally, there is Potential, a unique hidden stat. With Potential you'll have to judge whether your warrior has finally reached his pinnacle or if he's just getting started. Just like managing in real life, you'll never know for sure.
· Train your fighters as you see fit. You can do focus training for specific stats, and if they're not living up to your expectations even auction them off and pick up new talent at the end of a season, including adding free agents to your stable.
· If a physical training regiment is not to your liking you can always purchase enchantments to help your warriors in the Arena, or enhancement potions. Watch out though, as these potions can have long term negative effects on your fighters.
· Play an unlimited number of seasons. Each season consists of ten fighters duking it out for total Coliseum supremacy. At the end of the season the four best fighters advance into the ultimate championship to decide who is the land's true Champion!
· Time plays an important part. A realistic aging system governs the game. Fighters will grow old, with all the effects that aging has on a body. The lucky ones will get to retire in fame, and the truly blessed will enter into the Hall of Fame. New fighters are entering the league all the time. It's up to you to guide them.
· An intense text orientated realistic combat system, with blows described in gruesome detail thanks to the thousands upon thousands of possible descriptions, bring the battles to life. Over two hundred possible injuries, including recurring nagging injuries, are present, along with almost three hundred unique disorders/diseases.
· Excellent immersion element thanks to the generated detailed news reports that let managers know what's happening in the circuit, and also what's going on in the rest of the world.
· A wealth of detail helps create one of the most intense sports management simulations on the market. Gladiators can get in trouble outside the arena, build up a tolerance for the various potions, or even suffer from an immediate problem thanks to potion intolerance. Managers can auction off poorly performing warriors, draft new ones, and even bet on matches that don't personally involve their team.
· Thanks to the hundreds of thousands fighter combinations, uniquely generated news stories, injuries and diseases, potion and spell effects, and blow by blow combat system no two games will ever play out the same. Infinite battles await the gamer!


What's New in This Release:

Bug Fixes:
· Corrected a problem with Head-to-Head losses not always being tallied correctly.
· Corrected a problem with the Season Number not incrementing up correctly if you keep all of your warriors in between seasons.
· Fixed a rare problem where news reports would report on a warrior on your team fighting that hasn't fought before.
· Fixed a problem where news reports would be cut off occasionally.
· Fixed occasional stat irregularities with injuries and spells.
· Fixed a bug where if you released a suspended fighter and signed a new free pool fighter, he would inherit the old warrior's suspended status
· Fixed a bug where if a CPU warrior retired early, it would sometimes clear the wrong set of stats, leaving an empty CPU slot
· Fixed the problem where the Exit Arena button would stay lit and active while simming matches, and clicking it again would reset the simming and cause stat problems
· Corrected some rare injury bug problems with CPU warriors
Tweaks:
· Adjusted the cost of enchantments up and reduced their duration ranges slightly
· Adjusted contract signing costs up slightly.
· Added a "poisoning" element to using enchantments as well as potions; using too many can have harmful results for your warriors in the long term, similar to potions
· Added a possible "Performance" bonus in combat which could occur if you pass a manager Performance stat check; also added possible combat bonuses for "experience" as a warrior moves into prime fighting years
· Tweaked the chance of deaths down slightly, so that your warriors will tend to live a bit longer and aging will be more of a factor
· Tweaked the various ways manager stats can go up, so that they may change a bit more often
· Changed the enchantments to shuffle randomly more often if one is not currently active
· Redid and moved the Cancel Training button to be cleaner looking on the interface
· Added a warning on the Exit Game button text that the game data will be lost unless the game is saved before exiting
· Players now collect a 250 Gold award for qualifying for the playoffs, and 1,000 Gold award for winning a championship
New Features:
· Added a "Tome of Champions", which keeps track of and stores tournament playoff champions for the last 50 seasons.
· Revamped Gambling in the game to be payout/odds-based, where the odds are based on the warrior's record and stats, to make gambling more challenging and balanced, and redesigned the schedule screen with new graphics, and added text explaining the betting system to the Schedule help screen
· Added fully implemented season fatigue, with a visible status bar. Now warriors, when fighting or training, tire and you must periodically rest them - Retooled the look of the Manager Options screen to be crisper and cleaner looking
· Added the current season record in parenthesis next to each warrior, along with their career record
· Retooled the development curve for warriors through ages 30-49 to be more distinct and slightly more varied
· Added a funeral screen that may pop up when warriors are killed, with new music, to enhance the visual impact of a death in the game
· Added current injury display to the Playoff screen
· Added access to the current news report via a new icon in the match-up screen to make it easier and more streamlined
· Added an option to delete existing saved games to the Save Game menu
· Added a selectable Season Length option (20, 30 or 40 days) when creating a new league