ii. Ronza & MH’s First Birthday

Happy Birthday Mousehunt! On March 7, 2009, Mousehunt celebrated the 1-year anniversary of the game going live on Facebook. To celebrate, more mice were released that gave away presents. In this case, the Birthday Mouse. Each hunter could get several gifts, but only one Fancy Gift. There were three fancy gift items that one could receive; two bases and one trap. There was also a special surprise waiting in the regular gifts for hunters who got lucky.

The first fancy gift was the polar base- hooray if you didn’t have one. The second gift was the Birthday Cake Base, and the Third was the Hitgrab Horsey Trap (basically an inside joke from the developer videos, if you watch them). As for the gifts, they could potentially hold a Party Hat.

Well, as was true with the polar base, everyone wants everything and they want it now, and so Ronza fast arrived to help the king deal with the complaints. She carried all of these gifts for hunters to buy one last time!

Birthday Cake Base
Stats: 175 power, 11% power bonus, 5% attraction bonus, 0 luck, No Cheese Effect
Cost: 12,350, No points required

HitGrab Horsey
Stats: Physical-type, 550 power, 2% power bonus, 0% attraction bonus, 20 luck, Very Fresh Cheese Effect
Cost: 15,850, No points required
These traps intrigued veteran hunters, because for once the traps were NOT obscenely good. Rather, they were good, but mostly they were just comical. I mean, look at them. Can you really not chuckle at least a little bit? I know I can’t.
But I’m not here to chuckle, I’m here to let you know whether or not you want to use these things, aren’t I.

  • The hitgrab horsey can be used in place of the Swiss Army Mouse Trap. Our research has finally concluded that this is not mere fantasy- if you have this trap, feel free to skip the Swiss Army Mouse Trap. That means you can actually use this trap all the way up to and through the lab. Wherever you see me recommend the Swiss Army, just swap in this thing.
  • As for the birthday cake base, it’s a great base for sure. Roughly comparable to the polar base, except you trade luck for attraction. However, as cool as it is, it’s hard to think of a time when I’d really want to use this base, to be honest. Other things are just better- Early on the explosive base is a much better idea because it soundly outclasses the Birthday Cake’s power, and later in the game when you are using the polar base, the 4 luck is crucial over the 5% attraction. I guess in Bristle Woods you could use it, especially with the ACRoNYM. It has 18 luck of its own, the extra 1% bonus will help more with that trap than any other, and the 5% attraction is good for the fairly low-attraction radioactive blue that you will often use in the catacombs.

And as for the party hat, Ronza sold this thing for 15,000 gold. It’s uselss on its own, but it can be used in crafting. If one smashes the DeathBot with the hunter’s hammer and retrieves the parts, you can craft with it to create a great upgrade to the Deathbot!

Partybot
Stats: Physical-Type, 2,850 power, 15% power bonus, 15% attraction bonus, 25 luck, Stale Cheese Effect
Cost: 243,580-271,400 (depends)

The “depends” is whether or not you buy the DeathBot in Gnawnia or in Digby and whether or not you got the partyhat as a gift or paid 15,000 for it.

So, here’s the PartyBot. I bet you’ve heard about this thing before on the forums. People love this thing because like the Chrome DeathBot, it has high power AND high luck. However, unlike the Chrome DeathBot, there are now a LOT of people with this trap! So how best to use this toy?

First of all, if you’re trying to decide between the Force Field and the Deathbot and you have the Party Hat to make the PartyBot, then by all means make the PartyBot! The NVMRC is better than the Deathbot, but it’s got NOTHING on the Partybot! Get it if you can.

  • Against physical mice, there are few that are better. Because of the 25 luck, it outdoes both the Ambush and the Digby Drillbot. The ACRoNYM, which has a MUCH higher power along with having 18 luck of its own, will often do as well if not better, and the Chrome Deathbot has 5 more luck and about the same power so IT does better too. Still, those two traps are not exactly easy to come by, so for most of the game, if you have this trap, you’ll get some great use out of it. Even the mighty Rhinobot has a hard time competing with this thing (although it is definitely slightly better)
  • In the mousoleum, while you won’t catch as many ghosts, mummies or ravenous zombies, you catch a LOT more zombies and bats, and so you actually wind up making more gold over the long run. Plus, the lycan and the monster, owing to their really high difficulty, are actually caught almost as easily by the partybot with luck as they are with the portals using raw power. So you get more gold, and you can still catch the Lycan, which leads the way to leaving the mousoleum. Ergo, it works as a substitute. HOWEVER, keep in mind that it’s way more expensive. So if you’re in the lab and you are contemplating buying a deathbot right now JUST so you can hunt in the mousoleum with it, don’t. Just get a portal and save yourself 100,000 gold.
  • In Furoma, the partybot works OK. However, its definitely not as good as Zugzwang’s Last Move or the Mutated Venus Mouse Trap. While you could skip the ZLM and MVMT and just use the PartyBot (as you could have with the Chrome DeathBot), I once again recommend you not do that. It’s not worth the inevitable frustration you will encounter trying to catch student and master mice with this trap, especially since using a tactical trap will allow you to avoid such frustrations. Plus, with the 140,000 gold you save by not needing the portal for the mousoleum, you can more readily afford them anyway.
  • And in the catacombs, the answer is obvious: just get the obelisk traps instead. It won’t do well in the catacombs.