a. Welcome to Mousehunt- The Early Ranks

Welcome to the walkthrough for Mousehunt, and since this is the first section of the walkthrough, welcome to mousehunt! The game seems a bit confusing at first, so we’re going to do what we can to mitigate that confusion with the guide. Hopefully you’ll come out a bit wiser for the wear.

NOVICE

HUMBLE BEGINNINGS- PICKING YOUR FIRST TRAP

To start, let Larry walk you through the introductory stages. Let’s go back to your trap and check out the stats on it; introduce you to the game.

• POWER- the more power you have, the more mice you catch. Pretty simple, right?
• POWER TYPE- Don’t worry about this right now. We’ll talk about this MUCH later on, when you’ve reached the title of master
• POWER BONUS- Kind of a pointless stat in and of itself, because all it does is increase your power. If you know your power, you don’t care what the power bonus is.
• ATTRACTION BONUS- Obviously since you’ve got a trap with cheese on it, your cheese needs to smell good to attract the mice to the trap. Attraction bonus increases the chance that a mouse will come to you trap.
• LUCK- Luck is an interesting stat. Basically, the more luck you have, the greater the chance that you will catch a really powerful mouse. Mousehunt has a LOT of different kinds of mice, and while some of them are pretty simple, a lot of them are rather exotic and are therefore really tough to catch. As you get better traps they will get easier for you to catch. However, until then, you have luck. If your trap has luck, you have a chance to catch even the toughest mice.
  Luck also increases the chance of loot drops- not by much, but a little luck never hurt anybody!
• CHEESE EFFECT- As we all know, food goes stale, especially cheese that’s left sitting on the counter for a while. Same with cheese in this game. When you fail to attract a mouse to your trap, there is a chance that the cheese will go stale. Whether or not it goes stale has NOTHING to do with how long you have had the cheese- it’s merely a random thing that can happen when you don’t attract a mouse. So, the more fresh your trap keeps the cheese, the less this happens.

(There’s a lot more to these stats than that; if you want to learn more, there’s a full explanation on MH Analytics.)

You’ll notice that having caught those mice, you earned gold and points (which I mentioned just a moment ago). What do these things do? Well, what do points do anyway- I’m sure you get the purpose of gold.

• Gold allows you to buy better traps and to buy more cheese. It’s definitely the more important of the two stats for most hunters.
• Points serve two purposes: One, you need to have a certain number of points to buy certain traps (That way your rich boyfriend can’t just buy you everything you want- sorry!)
  Second, points determine where you’re ranked on the scoreboard. So if you want to be the absolute best, you need to get more points.

From there it’s time to start the game proper.

Before you leave, though: I have a piece of literature for you to read- The Mousehunt Menu. It explains most of the fundamentals of the game and should clear up any future confusions you might have about where to find things.

TO THE MEADOW

Now it’s time to head to do some hunting. The meadow mostly houses white, grey and brown mice. If you go to the “Mice” tab, you can read about the white, grey and brown mice. You’ll notice that they have a few stats of their own. Let’s look at them for a second:

Sorry if I spoiled the white mouse’s appearance for you! Promise I won’t do it for any others unless otherwise specified.
Anyway, this page lists the name of the mouse, and then it lists the amount of gold that you will receive if you catch this mouse.

Mice come in all different sizes and shapes. As you probably saw when you blew your horn those few times, the mice that you catch have a weight assigned to them.
This weight is generally meaningless, although you get bragging rights if you can catch a really heavy one!

“Moderate” refers to the difficulty rating of the mouse. There are 8 difficulty ratings that a mouse can have. They are, from easiest to hardest:

• Effortless- You should always catch this mouse
• Easy- You’ll rarely miss these ones
• Moderate- You’ll catch more than you miss
• Challenging- Not the easiest thing, but not too hard, either
• Very Difficult- Expect to see a few of these mice walk away with your cheese
• Overpowering- You’ll have a hard time catching this mouse at all
• Near Impossible- Well, the name speaks for itself
• Impossible- This name too speaks for itself; you won’t catch it.

As you get stronger traps, the difficulty rating for the mice will go down. For a complete list of what traps will make mice more or less difficult, check out the Catch Rate Estimates tool.

Lastly, the boxes show how many mice you have caught and how many mice other people have caught. Your research in Gnawnia relative to your global research means nothing to you yet- you won’t leave the “Gnawnia” region until later.

SO, hunting in the Meadow

Well, there’s really not much to it. Sound the hunter’s horn every 15 minutes and hope that you catch some mice! You get to hunt there for a little while now- your next target is 2,100 points and 3,450 gold. This seems daunting at first, but the money and points should come pretty quickly if you stay active in the game.

THE NEXT TRAP AND HUNTING IN GNAWNIA

As you purchased your wooden base, you probably noticed that there are MANY traps available in the trap smith. The next trap on the list is the 500lb Spike Crusher, followed by the Mouse Mary O’Nette. One of them is 3,450 gold, and the other one is 6,250. Why is the Mary O’Nette so much more expensive? And which one do we want to buy?

Again, how about a statistical comparison, shall we?

These are the stats of the trap when used with the wooden base w/ target. The spiked crusher has 33 more power (an 8% increase over the Mary O’Nette), but loses out on 6% attraction, 4 luck and cheese effect.

The Mouse Mary O’Nette is unarguably the better trap, giving a high return on gold and points than the 500 pound spiked crusher. However, you also have to consider that at this point in the game, the 3000 gold you save by buying the crusher might offset the cost.

And in the end, the surprising answer is buy the 500 pound spiked crusher. Most people on the forums will tell you to skip it and to buy the mouse Mary O’Nette. However, that 3000 gold really adds up. When you look at the amount of time you’re going to use this trap (You’ll be buying a stronger trap pretty soon), it’s better to just grab the crusher and sit on that extra 3000 gold. You’ll get to the next Trap, the Mouse Trebuchet, faster by using the crusher instead of the Mary O’Nette.

There’s not much else to the Novice rank- enjoy yourself in the meadow until you finally rank up to the rank of Recruit!

The Recruit Goes to Gnawnia

Congrats on becoming a recruit! You’ve moved on to a new area- your first of the game! The Town of Gnawnia is full of all kinds of mice, some of them easy and some of them tough. I hope you’re ready!

There’s really only one important question, and that’s what kind of cheese do you use? Cheddar cheese was great for the meadow, and all, but now you’re in Gnawnia- do you switch to marble cheese?

There are definitely pros and cons to both. At 50 gold per piece, marble is a steep increase from cheddar. You also don’t have the absolute strongest trap yet, and so you’ll miss quite a few mice. However, once again you’re not in the meadow, and so cheddar cheese is pretty ineffective at attracting mice here.

Ultimately you’ll find that as expensive as Marble cheese is, that attraction REALLY pays off- you’ll see higher payouts using marble than you ever did while using cheddar.

(It’s worth noting that you might not have a whole lot of gold right now, and that’s OK- if you don’t, use cheddar for a while and slowly start using marble.)

Once again you’ll find yourself in a lull as you attempt to accumulate some gold and some points. Many people see that Stone Base and at just over 6000 gold, it’s a bargain… isn’t it?

The answer is no, it’s not. The stone base provides a power boost, but it also loses ALL of that attraction bonus given by the wooden base with target. That attraction bonus does more than you’d think, particularly since you’re using marble cheese. You actually never need to buy the stone base- there’s really no use for it. Later on you’ll buy an explosive base, but you can and should skip the stone base. Save yourself some money.

Money for what? Well, your next goal is the next set of traps, so let’s look at them!

So which will it be: the Mouse Trebuchet or the Mouse Rocketine? Once again, we’ve got a choice between power and basically every other stat. There’s also a price difference of about 3,000 gold this time, only now it’s in the other direction- the strong trap is no longer cheaper, but more expensive. The rocketine DOES have a good one-up on the trebuchet in power: about 10%. However, then the trebuchet’s got a nice set of well-rounded stats that includes at least 1 luck as well as having a REALLY good cheese effect.

And once again, we’re going to go with the less-expensive trap. Yeah, the power is nice, but it’s got NO attraction bonus and NO luck. Even the small amount that the trebuchet gives is worth the trap. Not to mention that having extremely fresh cheese instead of stale cheese is a noticeable difference that you will definitely appreciate. Most rocketine users are constantly losing their cheese becase it went stale.

Here’s some great news: the trebuchet is a VERY popular trap for new players. So much so that more experienced players will help you raise money to buy it for yourself. All you need to do is know where to look.

So let’s take a moment now to look for such a program, and at the same time introduce you to a really great mousehunt community. It’s called the Adopt a Novice/Apprentice Mousehunter program. This is a really great program, and one that you should definitely look into if you haven’t already. Basically, their job is to pair you up with an adopter, who will provide you with all kinds of advice about the game (and maybe even some gold to help you along if they’re REALLY generous). Now, with a guide like this, one might wonder why you need an adopter. I suppose you really don’t NEED one. However, it’s really a nice thing to have one. It helps to have someone actually talking you through the game and giving you specific advice, and it also fosters a stronger feeling of community. One of the best parts about mousehunt is having friends playing with you so you can do well (and not do well) together.

From here, you’re about done! Your recruit bar should be creeping up quite nicely by now. There’s really not much else to it except to wait for the next level.

For your own interest, go to the forums tab on the main page and check out the “Events and Competitions” forum. If you get lucky, you could win a LOT of gold or SB+ (Which can be sold to other players for gold) to help get you started!

APPRENTICE

You’ve finally leveled up once. Feels exciting, doesn’t it? You get to go to your first new area! You also get access to some new features:

1. You can now get involved in the exchange of SB+ with other players! Read up on how to do that in the menu guide if you haven’t done so already.
2. You also get to start collecting stale cheese! You know all those cheese pieces that went stale? Well now when that happens, they collect in your inventory. You’ll learn more about this MUCH later on. Just know that there is a reason that you’re getting that stale cheese.

We need to head to the new area, the Windmill. Before you do, buy a whole LOT of marble cheese. I recommend at least 100 pieces. The reason for this is that going back and forth from the windmill is expensive at this point and so you want to avoid making the trip any more often than you have to. Once you’ve done that, do any last-minute things you want to do, and then let’s go!

THE WINDMILL

Welcome to the windmill! There’s not much to say about this area, except to say that there’s a bunch of mice to catch! The mice here are tougher than they were in the Town of Gnawnia, but you can handle it! And if you can’t, well… There’s not too much to do except to save up for your next trap!

The Swiss Army Mouse Trap

Your goal is lofty- you need to buy the Swiss Army Mouse Trap.

Yeah, I know- whoa. 70,300 gold and 45,500 points. You probably aren’t even close to either of those yet. However, you’ll get there much quicker than you think, and if you find yourself short, there are ways to help:

1. I’ve said it before, and I will say it again- go to the events and competitions forum. There are a LOT of competitions on there every day, and some of them have prizes as high as 100,000. That would pay for the entire trap all by itself! Yeah, you don’t always win, but when you do, it’s like your birthday came early.
2. You may remember my reference to the Adopt a Novice/Apprentice Mousehunter program in the first part of the walkthrough. I mentioned that they have a program to fund the trebuchet mouse trap. Well, they’ve got a program to help fund your swiss army trap, too! Again, the group is found here, and you can find their Swiss Army program in the forums.

I would like to bring your attention to another appendix to my guide right now: the Ronza section. As you will learn from reading in there, you can get a different trap instead of the Swiss Army Mouse Trap, if you’re lucky. The HitGrab Horsey works as a great substitute for this trap and if you have it, you don’t need the Swiss army. That said, I will assume you don’t have this trap because it’d be unfair to those people who do if I didn’t make such an assumption.

With the swiss army mouse trap you get another HUGE boost in stats. 1,212 power and 10 luck! It makes a HUGE difference in your catch rate. These mice don’t even stand a chance, and before you know it, you’ll be ranking up again. Time for your last rank of the beginner’s classes: the Initiate.

(If you haven’t gotten the Swiss Army Mouse Trap by this point, that’s OK- just keep working towards it!)

THE INITIATE GONE FISHIN’

Welcome to the Harbour! I want to bring to your IMMEDIATE attention the bolded line in red just above- mice may steal supplies. Yes, you’re now going to experience something entirely new that you have never seen before. Sometimes, when a mouse steals a piece of cheese from your trap, it will ALSO steal points, gold, or more cheese! This is a whole new kind of danger, one that sends many a hunter scrambling back to Gnawnia or the windmill with their tail firmly between their legs. However, you are not going to be one of those hunters and you are not going to run away from the Harbour. Because here’s the thing- mice do steal your points and gold, yes. However, the mice in the harbour are worth more gold and points overall, and so it is worth being in the harbour because overall, you will walk away a wealthier hunter than you would be if you hunted in Gnawnia.

Let’s stress that- Do Not go back to Gnawnia because you are overwhelmed by theft. You will be fine and things will get better- your trap is not too weak for the harbour.
And so you know, from now on you can assume that mice will steal from you; fact of life!

OK, we’ve gotten that out of the way, then! Now, there’s only one new mouse in the harbour, while the rest are familiar to you. (Technically it isn’t new. However, it’s much more common in the harbour, so you may not have ever seen it before, and you will see MANY more while you’re here) Most of the others are certainly catchable. However, this new mouse is much tougher to catch, and the reward for doing so is great. Yes, this is the pirate mouse.

Pirate mice are tricky little buggers that can sometimes steal as much as 1,000 gold from you. Yeah, I know- it’s painful. However, when you catch one, you get 2,700 gold! You make bank on this guy, and for that reason alone it is worth staying in the harbour.

Thanks to the Swiss Army Mouse Trap, even the lofty pirate mouse is rendered a mere “Challenging”. However, it’s far from perfect- there is only a 2% attraction rate, and you’re gonna have only fresh cheese. So what do we do?

It’s that time again- time to switch cheese… or are we? This is one of the rare occasions where there is actually a few different strategies that are all legitimate options to consider. Which one you pick is up to you.

1. The first option is to use Swiss cheese. You get a HUGE bonus in attraction with Swiss cheese, which effectively negates the lack of an attraction bonus on the trap, and as you well know, the more mice you attract, the less the cheese effect matters anyway! However, this does not come without drawbacks. Swiss cheese, at 100 gold apiece, is going to yield a lower profit than marble cheese did, on average. The reason for this is that there are still a lot of white, grey and brown mice, all of which are worth very little gold, and in the case of the white mouse, you make an average of 3 gold per catch using Swiss cheese… yikes. You still make profit, but it’s slowed down a bit by the use of Swiss cheese.
2. The second choice is using marble. At 50 gold apiece, the profit margin is MUCH higher. However, you lose out on some attraction. It’s up to you to decide if the profit margin offsets that lack of attraction.
3. The other choice is that you can try white cheddar. Now, I know I recommended that you not bother crafting until a journeyman and I don’t really recommend this strategy, but it works pretty well. Use the Swiss Army and the Wooden Base with Target along with the White Cheddar. White Cheddar makes the white, grey and brown mice disappear completely. Since you aren’t attracting ANY of the cheap mice, you get a LOT of profit per mouse you catch. The flip side is that you have a lowered power, and you also have a MUCH lower attraction rate, to the point that it may frustrate you how many times you fail to attract.

Of the three, I prefer using swiss cheese. I’ve not seen the literature about how much gold you make using each of these strategies, but personally I’m a fan of making a bit less gold, so long as I’m catching lots of mice, and you will do plenty of that using that setup. If you DO choose to use some other setups, let us know how it goes.

Actually, let me take a moment to point out another GREAT mousehunt tool for your use: the log summarizer. This thing is a great tool. You copy/paste your hunter’s log into it and it will churn out ALL KINDS of stats about your hunting progress. It also has a feature where you can send in your results to us for some analysis.

So seriously- if you want to try out marble or try out white cheddar, please feel free! Just make sure to submit it to the tool. If we find that using white cheddar or marble is actually a WAY better option, I will happily change it here! But we need your input to figure these things out.

The Explosive Base

Hopefully everything is going wonderfully at this point and you are just cruising along through the harbour, catching lots of mice. Once again it is time for us to look to the future, to bigger and better mousetraps. Back to the bases. As an apprentice, there’s only one base left to purchase: The Explosive Base.

This base is awesome- tons of power and even a little attraction bonus (those never hurt!) However, it makes cheese go stale. Now, there was a time when this was bad. Now is not such a time, though! Due to the nature of the stale cheese that you can collect, it’s actually an OK thing to get stale cheese now because you’ll be using it later. So go ahead and grab it!

You have to take into account the bases you could have gotten from Ronza. Head over to the Ronza Page and read about the Polar Base and the Birthday Cake Base to make your decisions about that. (I still recommend having the explosive base, but you can substitute either one of those bases in for the explosive base if you want)

MOVING ON

During your stay in the harbour, you have probably seen a lot of granite mice (at least, I hope you have!) Now, if you’re lucky, one of them will have dropped a map called the “Whisker Woods Clearing Map.” Congratulations, this is your first map! Now that you have it, a new area will open up to you. As a matter of fact, a whole new REGION will open up to you! You may recall I mentioned that you’re in the Gnawnia region earlier- well, now you get to go to the next region; it’s known as “Whisker Woods.” Unfortunately, you aren’t allowed to go there until you’re a journeyman, so you’ll have to impatiently watch that bar creep up towards 100% before you can go there.

Once you DO reach 100%, two new areas open up to you: the mountain, and the calm clearing (provided you have the map piece). The question arises: which way do you go?

It’s really up to you. You’ll want to do both of them eventually because of what they offer. So pick one! And when you’re done getting the requirements taken care of, go to the other one! Either way, head to the corresponding part of the guide!