Debate Guide

Debates are the final stage of adventuring. Normally adventuring is lonely business, although you can work together to complete quests. Debates offer a way to compete with fellow adventurers.

This forum thread is very useful with a Q&A, screenshots and a large list with combos.

Each card has its own card points, ranging from 1 to 10. These are not the 1-5 diamonds that appear. To see the points of each card, go to Record -> Debate Deck to see your debate menu. There you have 6 sub-menus, which are your current Card Deck, Relics, Treasures, Organisms, Geography and Phenomena. Your discovery cards are organized like this:

Relics: Historic Site, Religious Architecture, Historical Relic, Religious Relic

Treasures: Artwork, Treasure, Fossil

Organisms: Plant, Bird, Small Creature, Medium Sized Creature, Large Creature, Marine Life

Geography: Port/Settlement, Geography, Astronomy

Phenomena: Weather/Phenomena

You can organise these cards by name or by card points (from high to low points). Now back to the first screen; your Card Deck. This should look like this:

You can only change your deck inside cities. You always need 30 cards in your deck in order to debate. The sum of these the points of these 30 cards must be within the limit of the class you select. There are four point classes (No Limit, Under 200, Under 150 and Under 100). If you select Under 100, then your total points cannot exceed 100. You can only debate with other players that have a deck in the same class; so if one has a deck Under 100 and another Under 200, then debate is impossible. So make sure that you agree on the point class. To put a card in your deck go to one of the other sub-menus, for example Relics, select a card and click Register. To remove a card, select it and click Remove. You can also make a random deck, just click Random Deck.

In order to be able to debate you need to go to Community -> Set Status and tick Allow Debate button. You can only debate if you have Allow Debate selected, the same point class and 30 cards in your deck!Other players then see something like this when they click you inside a city.



I will now describe how a debate proceeds. Each debate has 7 sets and you need to win more sets than your opponent. Each set can end in a win, a loss or a draw. In a set you will have 6 cards available that are randomly selected from your deck. The first card is automatically played as you can see below. In this game we are at the fourth set and I won the first 3 sets. After the first card has been played automatically you get some time to select your next card. Click one of your cards from those available to you (it moves from point 3 to 2). The person that has the most points at the end of the set wins the set.



Bonus points

To win not only your card points count, but you can also get bonus points. But first of all! Do not play a card that your opponent has already played. Your card is more or less disqualified, it´s points are not counted and it cannot be used for any combo.

In some rounds a bonus theme applies. A general theme (Relics, Treasures, Organisms or Geography) gives +2 points to each card of that theme that you play in that round, or a specific theme, e.g. Plant or Small Creature, which similarly gives +3 points. Be aware that the bonus theme can change at any time, even just when you play your last card. You can get lucky or unlucky because of this!

There is another way to get extra points on top of your card points. That is by using card combinations. There are several combo types of either two or three cards. Getting a combo of three cards is very rare, but it does happen. The most regular is getting a number of bonus points. Then there are combos that in addition also make your cards have the double points in the next set. There are combos that strengthen a (first, second or third) card, which doubles the points of the card in that position and those that weakening a (first, second or third) card of your opponent. The points of that weakened card do not count, but it can still be used by your opponent to make a combo. There are also combos that apparently strengthen or weaken the (first, second or third) card on both sides.

From the Japanese wiki I understand there are more combos, but I have not seen them used at any time. There used to be a button in your Debate Deck menu with all the combos, but without the type of combo. Here are some examples:



Combinations

Using combos makes the difference between winning and losing. Someone with a deck full of combos will win 9 out of 10 times from someone who doesn't have/uses combos.

I made a list with all the combinations that I know and their effect: List of known combos

You can copy & paste to your own spreadsheet for easy use

A short explanation:

- Combo name: name of the combination

- First, Second and Third card: the discovery cards used to make the combination. Most combinations consist of two cards, but there are quite a few of three cards as well. Remember that making a combination with three cards requires a large amount of luck!

- Total card points: the cummulative number of points from your cards. A lynx and a bobcat both have 1 point, thus together the combo will be 2 points. This is important when you are making a deck. For example, you make a deck for Under 150 Points and you have 28/30 cards selected and 3 points left, then it is easy to find which combo you can still put in your deck. If you just lost a card in the academy debate and you want to replace the combo of that card, then it's easy to find a combo with the same number of points.

- Bonus points: The most popular combo is the one that gives some bonus points.

- Effect type & Card affected: A lot of combos have an effect. Here is an overview of the possible effects and what they mean:

-- x2 next set: Means in the next set the points of your cards are doubled (does not affect bonus points)

-- Change bonus: Changes the bonus of that set to the type of your first card (I do not know if there are combos that change the bonus to another type). This is useful if you have a deck made of only Historical Relics, for example.

-- Reveal hand next set: Shows you a number of your opponents cards in the next set (number is indicated in Card affected)

-- Select 1st card next set: Allows you to select your first card in the next set (normally the first card is played automatically)

-- Shuffle cards and hide: The cards of your opponent are shuffled and hidden so he or she does not know what card they will play. This can disrupt their combo, but it only works if you play this combo with your first 2 cards. If you make the combo with card 2 & 3, then there the set is already finished.

-- Strengthen: Strengthens one of your cards, doubling the points

-- Strengthen both: Strengthens either card 1, 2 or 3 for both you and your opponent, doubling or even quadrupling the points of that card. Only effective if you have higher amount of points on that card (e.g. the combo Africanus gives bonus points based on the points of card nr3. If your third card is Scipio's helmet (7pts) and your opponents third card is White Tiger (9pts), then he/she will benefit more)

-- Weaken: Weakens one of the cards of your opponent, removing all its points (that card can still be part of a combo of your opponent!)

-- Weaken both: Weakens either card 1, 2 or 3 for both of you, or weakens a theme (Relics, Treasures, Organisms or Geography). Weakened cards lose all their points, similar to the normal Weaken.

Here is a list with combo names of which the cards are unknown (? indicates an unknown card): List of unknown debate combinations

Also new cards from future updates might form combos that yet unknown

How to win!

- Always make sure every card in your deck can be used for a combo. The chance of getting a combo is quite low, so you want to make this chance as high as possible.

- Make a mix of high cards and low cards. Then decide per set if you can win or not. If you think your cards are too weak, then just throw in some 1 point cards. The other cards are returned to your deck and you have a chance of getting them available in a next set again.

- As your low cards it is smart to use port/settlement cards. This has two advantages. First, if you lose the card during academy debate, then it is very easy to acquire again. Second, many port cards are used to create combos. For example the combo of Seville, Barcelona and Valencia gives 18 bonus points and next round your points are doubled. Same with Dover, Plymouth and London, or Amsterdam, Antwerp and Groningen.

- The lower the point class (Under 100 is the lowest), the more difficult your choices. You will need to decide which high cards will be worth keeping. When you have so few points, leave out the 10 and 9 point cards as they will hamper the rest of your deck too much.

- If you play a card that has already been played by your opponent, then your card will be void. It can also not be used anymore for a combo. Based on the first card, on which you don’t have any influence, you can suspect that your opponent will make a combo. If he will play the other combo card as his third card, then you can try to neglect the combo by playing that card second. This may sound confusing, but I have no better way to put it. It is not likely to happen anyways, because you need to know the enemy combo, have the second combo card yourself, and your opponent could already play that combo card second him or herself. The same cards played at the same time are not influenced. You are better off playing your own combo, or if your cards are bad, then throw away some low points cards.

- Decide on whether you play your combo with your second or third card. You can make a combo and the first card is already part of the combo. In that case you can play the other combo card next or wait to play it third. Playing as the third card can allow your opponent to ‘waste’ strong cards which he can’t use then later. Second card is safer, no chance of getting your third card becoming void as explained above.

- Playing a card that can be used for a combo can be used as a bluff. For example there is a three card combo of the Ring Tailed Lemur, Black Lemur and Ruffed Lemur. The Black Lemur is my first card and next I play the Ring Tailed Lemur, but I don’t have the Ruffed Lemur available. My opponent may think I can make the combo and not use any high cards. As my third card I play a high card and win the round without a combo. This also does not happen very often.

Academy debate
Academy debate is a monthly event that normally takes place on a weekend (refer to the OGP guide at the start for the official description). There are two academy debates, one on Saturday and the other on Sunday. The location is the adventure guild of a mayor city, for example the Mercatur cup in Amsterdam. The times and locations are posted at the start of each month in the General section of the UWO forum under [Event Schedule].

An hour before it starts you can register at the Adventure Mediator in the adventure guild of the specified city. In this hour it is not allowed to debate inside the city. During the academy debate you can debate in total 15 times, and everyone gets 2 hours. After losing a debate, you lose one of the cards in your deck and you need to add one again to continue playing. When you start playing you have 1 star next to your name. After winning 5 debates you get another star and you can only play against people that have also won at least 5 debates. At 10 wins, the same happens and you get into the 3-star class.

The rewards can be acquired from the chest you get at the end of the academy debate by talking again to the Adventure Mediator. The chest you receive depends on your final class (1, 2 or 3-star), but every class can give you very good rewards so you do not need to be one of the top players to get something valuable. Rewards range from crowns and clothes, to pet deeds and ornaments. You also get a good amount of adventure experience, I got around 3000 experience in an adventure job. The top 5 players with the most wins have their names recorded at the adventure guild, which can be reviewed at any guild master.

An example of academy debate: