i. Ronza- 2008

Hello! This Ronza page is dedicated to Ronza’s first four visits, from August of 2008 to New Years 2008-2009

The First Ronza Visit: The DeathBot (Chrome Edition)

Ronza first came to visit us on August 16, 2008. Little was known about her at this point, and many were surprised at her arrival. She carried only one piece of merchandise, but man- what a piece it is!

Death Bot (Chrome Edition)
Stats: Physical-Type, 2,800 power, 20% power bonus, 15% attraction bonus, 30 luck, Very Stale Cheese Effect
Cost: 512,800, Points Required: 136,500

As you can see, this is a beast of a trap. The wiki page correctly points out that it’s easily one of the best traps in the game. Of course, chances are that you don’t have this trap. Neither do I, actually. Don’t I wish! With the highest luck in the game, it’s an incredibly useful all-purpose trap. You can use it in all of the normal regions early on, even use it in the mousoleum and in Furoma (though not particularly well).

So if you were to have it, how would you use it? Well, it’s pretty simple. The Chrome DeathBot (as it is also known) replaces all other physical traps in the game, so up through and including the lab, you need nothing else. Same goes for the far-reaching Derr Dunes- the Chrome Deathbot is unmatched. In the mousoleum, it will outdo both the sinister portal and the ambrosial portal because of the high catch rate of zombies and bats (as well as a higher catch rate of lycans and monsters than the portals have). For those of you who have the partybot (which is explained further down), this trap is comparable (and even better). However, as with the partybot, it can’t compete in the higher Furoma levels (such as the Dojo), nor can it effectively hunt in the Bristlewoods areas. In those cases, you need to rely upon the standard traps just like everyone else.

The Second Ronza Visit: Moon Cheese

Well, the first visit from Ronza was a smashing success with a really sweet new trap for players to use. It left us wanting more, and so she returned! On October 18, just over 2 months after her first visit, Ronza returned! This time she bore no new trap but instead carried a new cheese: Moon Cheese. It sold for 2,500 gold apiece.

Now, for those of you who perhaps are not as well-studied on things, the moon is made of cheese. Well, not really, although I’m pretty sure some people honestly used to believe that. I guess the resemblance to Swiss cheese from their view here on earth got them hoping.

ANYWAY, what’s the purpose of this cheese? Well, once more we have to think a little bit… or just read the description of the cheese. Yes, Moon cheese increases the chance of attracting a Lycan mouse to your trap (if you didn’t realize, lycan is short for “lycanthrope,” which means werewolf)

So if you’re hunting in the mousoleum and DESPERATELY want a lycan mouse, use moon cheese. Granted, it doesn’t help you catch them, but it does help you attract them! However, at 2,500 gold a pop, it was never intended for every day use, but instead for those die-hard lycan fans who absolutely feel the need to catch them.

If you read up on it on the link I gave above, you’ll see that moon cheese is now craftable. You can get more info on that in either the crafting guide or the walkthrough portion about the mousoleum.

Christmas and the Snow Barrage

Ronza came once more in the early stages of the Christmas season. This was a very hyped-up event, with the developers hinting at her arrival several times before she eventually showed up on December 15. This time she carried a few different items. First, she had Swiss cheese so that you could hunt nearby without having to shop elsewhere. Second, she carried splintered wood so that hunters could get it for the newly-released Dehydration Base. And finally, she had a new trap!

Snow Barrage
Stats: Tactical-Type, 1,400 power, 20% power bonus, 20% attraction bonus, 28 luck, Very Fresh Cheese Effect
Cost: 140,600, Points Required: 68,000(Commonly called the SnoB)

Yet another trap that is quite impressive. The power isn’t that great, but look at the other stats. 20% attraction bonus, 28 luck, very fresh cheese, AND it’s tactical and so it works well in Furoma! Hunters lucky enough to get this trap were really getting their money’s worth here.

Basically, if you got the Snow Barrage (and again, I’m guessing many of you did not), it allows you to skip out on most of the game’s early traps.

• It works GREAT all the way up to the lab.
• Now, in the mousoleum, you CAN choose to use the Snow Barrage. Indeed, the results are good- hunters who use the snow barrage do almost just as well as those who use the portals. However, they don’t do quite as well, either. So when it comes to whether or not you want to use the Snow Barrage in the mousoleum: I recommend you don’t. While you can save yourself 140,000 gold by not having to buy the sinister portal, the Snow Barrage does just as well as the other tactical traps, which means that there is no reason to buy them. That saves you 415,000 gold, which means you can MORE than afford the measly 140 for a portal.
• And yeah, then come Furoma. Here you can use this trap instead of using Zugzwang’s Last Move or the Mutated Venus Mouse Trap. According to the research that we’ve done, the traps do pretty close to exactly the same in Furoma, especially against student and master mice, which are the most significant mice in Furoma. Since the other traps cost a pretty penny, save yourself a lot of gold and just skip it. Wait for the Ambush instead.
• Lastly, from the catacombs onwards, it’s not of much use.

The Polar Base- Come Back, Ronza!

At the end of the year in 2008, all mousehunters got a chance to get some really cool presents from the Elf Mouse and from the Abominable Snow Mouse. On Christmas, we got to open said presents. The gifts were varied, from pieces of SB+ to lumps of coal. However, one gift stood out amongst them all: the Polar Base.

Well, the problem was that the polar base is awesome, but not everyone got one. Many people caught plenty of these mice and got plenty of presents, but none of them yielded the polar base. Well, complaints rang loud, and everyone without one was quite upset (and those of us who had one gleefully relished in it.) The developers heard the cries of the people, and they showed pity upon them. They called Ronza, and she made a quick U-turn before she’d even gotten home. A mere week and a half after she had left, Ronza returned to Gnawnia selling that very base

Polar Base
Stats: 200 power, 10% power bonus, 0% attraction bonus, 4 luck, Insanely Fresh Cheese Effect
Cost: 59,550, Points Required: 90,000

As you can see, a pretty awesome trap. It has the 4 luck of the dehydration base, while also having more power than the dehydration base by quite a lot thanks to the 10% bonus it gives to power. However, it doesn’t have the 5% attraction bonus of either the explosive base OR the dehydration base.

So how best to use this thing? Well, we used to just say “Use it always- never stop using it!” However, owing to the nature of Stale Cheese, which was implemented a few months after the release of the polar base, we have to tweak our methods a little bit. (The following strategies do not assume you have the birthday cake base, so keep that in mind).

• For the basic hunter (that is, one hunting in Gnawnia or in the lab), the polar base is actually not what I’d recommend. At least, not if you have the explosive base. Owing to the fact that most hunters in these areas won’t have access to a NVMRC or a partybot (due to the overwhelming cost of it), the explosive base is the superior base in power. Plus, getting stale cheese early isn’t a bad idea, and so you actually kind of benefit from having stale cheese.
  Now, if you’ve got either the NVMRC or the Partybot (lucky you!) then go ahead and use the polar base.

• In the mousoleum, use it. You won’t get quite as much power as with the explosive base, but you get 4 luck. Up against the Lycan and Monster mouse, luck will be CRUCIAL, and you’ll do best with the polar base. It’s also got more power than the dehydration base, while as you know from reading about the portals, you don’t need attraction in the mousoleum anyway.
• Once you get to Furoma, use it again. The Furoma mice are tough and the extra power/luck from the polar base helps a bunch.
• Lastly, in the catacombs use the polar base except in cases where you want to make stale cheese. So basically whenever you’re actually hunting, use it. Unless you use the Obelisk of Incineration; in that case, use the Dehydration Base.