- Mar 17, 2012
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OK, so most of you know by now how these threads generally go. Insert the usual introduction here about how this is not the One True Way to play a game of Cirqus Voltaire; I'm not trying to pass myself off as the Bowen Kerins of TPA, yada yada yada. 
That being said, on to the...
General strategy: Shoot the Ringmaster! That's it. No, really. OK, there are a few exceptions, but 95% of the time you shoot the Ringmaster. OK, but why? Because it's an extremely safe shot (compared to ToM's Trunk or MM's Gate) and because the Ringmaster Battle can eventually be milked for tens of millions each time through. At some point during your extreme prejudice of the Ringmaster, the other 7 marvels will take care of themselves through lucky bounces and errant shots, at which point you play through the wizard mode and hopefully have a good Party Multiball.
Wrecking the Ringmaster's face: Trap up, launch ball into WOW targets. Now, right when the magnet releases the ball, quickly determine where it's going. You want to nudge such that the ball lands on a flipper, not the center drain (obviously!), but also not the slingshots, which will launch the ball into the Menagerie or the bumpers, both of which are risky places for the ball to be. You want as little side-to-side motion as possible. Ideally the ball is going straight up and down from the right flipper to the Ringmaster and back.
Do the same thing 5 more times when the actual Ringmaster appears, then shove the ball down his throat. (Actually, use a light touch, a full-power shot sometimes circles around the opening and flies back out.) Repeat ad nauseum.
Ringmaster Frenzie, Ringmaster Razz and Ringmaster Special: Go ahead and play these carefully - which means keeping one ball on a flipper so that you don't double drain. When Razz starts, you get your first exception: shoot up the Juggler for an extra ball.
Ringmaster Battle: More Ringmaster face-pounding! But this time for 1M per hit! And with unlimited balls! Here's the catch: You don't want to actually win the Ringmaster Battle. Yes, there's 10M and light extra ball for winning, but if you win the Battle, the Ringmaster is locked out until you finish the wizard mode. This means you're locked out of unlimited millions. Also, each additional Ringmaster you defeat outside of the battle is worth 6M+1M (so starting your second Battle scores an instant 6M, your third scores 7M, etc.) Eventually, you'll be getting the same amount for starting RB as you would for finishing it - but you can start it any number of times and only finish it once.
Don't bother trapping any longer than you need to aim your shots - the Ringmaster starts off slowly, but after about half a minute you'll need to shoot him every 3 seconds to keep up. You want to aim for about 15 to 20 hits on the Ringmaster. Depending on your skill and luck, you may only get 4 or 5 in - fear not, just avenge yourself by raising the next Ringmaster. You want to stop before 25 hits. Around that point, the Ringmaster stops fighting back and you have no choice but to win - which you don't want. You also want to slow down if you see the 4th collar light illuminate, which means you're 2 shots from winning.
You can keep up this cycle of raising the Ringmaster and Battling him almost endlessly. With proper patience and discipline, your score will be determined almost solely by your luck - when the ball goes screaming into the outlanes too fast to save - and it eventually will - will it bounce out on its own or not? On iOS the answer is almost certainly no; on the 360 you have about a 40% chance of keeping the ball even without action on your part. But what your out-of-control balls will also do is start completing marvels on...
The rest of the table: Your control will not be perfect, and so sometimes the ball will get out of control. Between that and your subsequent saves, it will wander into the targets, up ramps, around orbits, etc., for the 7 non-Ringmaster marvels. Boom! tends to start right away as there are Volt rollovers near the Ringmaster; ignore it and wait for the bumper to go back down. Spin will eventually take care of itself; watch out for SDTM drains and nudge defensively. Menagerie also self-completes; but keep an eye on the ball and nudge to keep it out of the left outlane area. Acrobats will usually self-complete by the 4th or 5th Battle. Sideshow is trivial, but when you see it activate, pray for Neon Multiball (more on this later).
Juggler Multiball and Highwire Multiball are the two that generally activate last. The Ringmaster occasionally throws the ball onto the Highwire rail, so you'll eventually see Highwire MB even if you never shoot the left ramp. Juggler is 6 shots that generally don't make themselves, and is most often completed accidentally by Spot Marvel.
Once all 9 marvels are lit, your Ringmaster Battle fun is over for a bit. It's instead time to...
(Gratuitous interruption: If you see you're at 8 marvels, it is then worthwhile to try to win Ringmaster Battle outright for the extra 10M and the light extra ball. The EB is helpful if the wizard mode doesn't go completely according to plan.)
Join the Cirqus: The table instructions contain the detailed procedure for progressing through Cameron Silver's multi-level wizard mode, so just a few tips here.
Once the party's over, start again on demolishing Ringmasters.
Sideshow modes: Depending on how many times you hit the standups next to the Ringmaster instead of his actual face, you may go through the Sideshow multiple times. A few comments on some of the modes there.
Strike-an-Arc Multiball: If for some reason this starts - perhaps you're bored of beaning Mr. Ringmaster all the time and are just playing for entertainment value only (which is perfectly fine!) - keep in mind you do not need to play this as a frenzy. Strike-an-Arc is not on a timer. Careful controlled play that gets you 50 switch hits over 5 minutes is preferable to 25 switch hits the first minute followed by a drain. Note that if you can stack this with Highwire MB (only possible by having the fifth ramp shot also lock the third ball), this scores much better. Looks much nicer, too.
Skill shot: Don't forget about this. You plunge a fresh ball after each Battle, and the skill shot builds to 1M each. The plunger is nice and consistent, unlike TotAN or BoP, the shot isn't going anywhere once you find it. (It's about two-thirds of the way back.)
Extra balls and specials: Besides the obvious ones at Ringmaster Razz and 25M points, extra balls are available by shooting the Menagerie 50 times (not going to happen!), winning Ringmaster Battle (should only happen if you notice you're one marvel away from wizard mode), and 15 Boom! balloon hits (will happen eventually in a good game - you do enough spelling of Volt to raise the balloon several times).
Strangely enough, CV has no specials.
Fun with bonus: Bonus is not all that exciting on CV. All that horsing around with the Ringmaster pretty much guarantees you a perfect 10 on that part, and defeating the Ringmaster also fires the cannon, so you'll have quite the stack of cannonballs near the end. Otherwise, bonus is pretty mediocre. Think of it as a million-point-or-so cherry on top.
Entertainment value: While playing CV focused on the Ringmaster will get you a consistent score (even my "bad" games are usually 60M or so), it can get incredibly mind-numbing after a while. Be sure to play some wild and crazy games of CV every now and then, not worried about score, so that you don't start to hate the table. If it's not fun, it's not pinball!
Good luck!
P.S. It's been ten years since I've played a real Cirqus Voltaire, but I'm fairly certain that the real table dumped you back to Ringmaster Frenzie if you lost Ringmaster Battle - that you weren't able to re-attempt RB back-to-back until you won. Can anyone shed some light on this? Was it changed at some point? I know Ringmaster Battle itself was made much harder to win as of ROM v1.3...
That being said, on to the...General strategy: Shoot the Ringmaster! That's it. No, really. OK, there are a few exceptions, but 95% of the time you shoot the Ringmaster. OK, but why? Because it's an extremely safe shot (compared to ToM's Trunk or MM's Gate) and because the Ringmaster Battle can eventually be milked for tens of millions each time through. At some point during your extreme prejudice of the Ringmaster, the other 7 marvels will take care of themselves through lucky bounces and errant shots, at which point you play through the wizard mode and hopefully have a good Party Multiball.
Wrecking the Ringmaster's face: Trap up, launch ball into WOW targets. Now, right when the magnet releases the ball, quickly determine where it's going. You want to nudge such that the ball lands on a flipper, not the center drain (obviously!), but also not the slingshots, which will launch the ball into the Menagerie or the bumpers, both of which are risky places for the ball to be. You want as little side-to-side motion as possible. Ideally the ball is going straight up and down from the right flipper to the Ringmaster and back.
Do the same thing 5 more times when the actual Ringmaster appears, then shove the ball down his throat. (Actually, use a light touch, a full-power shot sometimes circles around the opening and flies back out.) Repeat ad nauseum.
Ringmaster Frenzie, Ringmaster Razz and Ringmaster Special: Go ahead and play these carefully - which means keeping one ball on a flipper so that you don't double drain. When Razz starts, you get your first exception: shoot up the Juggler for an extra ball.
Ringmaster Battle: More Ringmaster face-pounding! But this time for 1M per hit! And with unlimited balls! Here's the catch: You don't want to actually win the Ringmaster Battle. Yes, there's 10M and light extra ball for winning, but if you win the Battle, the Ringmaster is locked out until you finish the wizard mode. This means you're locked out of unlimited millions. Also, each additional Ringmaster you defeat outside of the battle is worth 6M+1M (so starting your second Battle scores an instant 6M, your third scores 7M, etc.) Eventually, you'll be getting the same amount for starting RB as you would for finishing it - but you can start it any number of times and only finish it once.
Don't bother trapping any longer than you need to aim your shots - the Ringmaster starts off slowly, but after about half a minute you'll need to shoot him every 3 seconds to keep up. You want to aim for about 15 to 20 hits on the Ringmaster. Depending on your skill and luck, you may only get 4 or 5 in - fear not, just avenge yourself by raising the next Ringmaster. You want to stop before 25 hits. Around that point, the Ringmaster stops fighting back and you have no choice but to win - which you don't want. You also want to slow down if you see the 4th collar light illuminate, which means you're 2 shots from winning.
You can keep up this cycle of raising the Ringmaster and Battling him almost endlessly. With proper patience and discipline, your score will be determined almost solely by your luck - when the ball goes screaming into the outlanes too fast to save - and it eventually will - will it bounce out on its own or not? On iOS the answer is almost certainly no; on the 360 you have about a 40% chance of keeping the ball even without action on your part. But what your out-of-control balls will also do is start completing marvels on...
The rest of the table: Your control will not be perfect, and so sometimes the ball will get out of control. Between that and your subsequent saves, it will wander into the targets, up ramps, around orbits, etc., for the 7 non-Ringmaster marvels. Boom! tends to start right away as there are Volt rollovers near the Ringmaster; ignore it and wait for the bumper to go back down. Spin will eventually take care of itself; watch out for SDTM drains and nudge defensively. Menagerie also self-completes; but keep an eye on the ball and nudge to keep it out of the left outlane area. Acrobats will usually self-complete by the 4th or 5th Battle. Sideshow is trivial, but when you see it activate, pray for Neon Multiball (more on this later).
Juggler Multiball and Highwire Multiball are the two that generally activate last. The Ringmaster occasionally throws the ball onto the Highwire rail, so you'll eventually see Highwire MB even if you never shoot the left ramp. Juggler is 6 shots that generally don't make themselves, and is most often completed accidentally by Spot Marvel.
Once all 9 marvels are lit, your Ringmaster Battle fun is over for a bit. It's instead time to...
(Gratuitous interruption: If you see you're at 8 marvels, it is then worthwhile to try to win Ringmaster Battle outright for the extra 10M and the light extra ball. The EB is helpful if the wizard mode doesn't go completely according to plan.)
Join the Cirqus: The table instructions contain the detailed procedure for progressing through Cameron Silver's multi-level wizard mode, so just a few tips here.
- Step 1 - Spell Cirqus: Go for "R" (Highwire ramp) and "S" (Acrobat orbit) quickly, while the ball saver is still running. These are the most dangerous shots. The other four will take care of themselves, and if you can't hit "U" (the WOW targets) after all that Ringmaster bashing, you deserve a pie in the face!
- Step 2 - Unmask Voltaire: This is the hardest step. The Ringmaster part again should be cakewalk for you by now, but that ramp is not fun. Do as you will while the ball saver runs; once it's about to expire, trap up. Your aim is the Elwin pose (two balls on the left, one on the right). Take the right-hand ball and do the straight-up-and-down shot to the Ringmaster (nudge gently so as not to tip the second ball on the left off the edge), get control, shoot the ramp, when it comes around aim for the loop to the left of the Ringmaster (it will be going too fast for a vertical shot straight to Ringmaster) and nudge to kill the momentum so it comes gently down to a trap. Repeat until Madame Voltaire is unmasked. If the ball drains, pass one over to the right off the Ringmaster. Post transfers are pretty hideous on CV; I don't recommend them.
- Step 3 - Meet the Cirqus: Not much to say strategy-wise. Shoot the lit jackpots. Careful, controlled play is your friend. After this, it's...
Once the party's over, start again on demolishing Ringmasters.
Sideshow modes: Depending on how many times you hit the standups next to the Ringmaster instead of his actual face, you may go through the Sideshow multiple times. A few comments on some of the modes there.
- The Amazing Roonie: Scream. Seriously, this is the worst video mode ever. Just jump as many as you can, it's worth something like a couple hundred thousand an obstacle.
- Cannonball Run: You don't really get a choice about this one. Play it out and see if you can get the cannonball to launch itself out of the backbox.
- Popcorn Mania: This is not worth abandoning your Ringmaster strategy over. The Popcorn Jackpot is only 500K and you make twice that per shot in Ringmaster Battle.
- Hat Trick: Let this time out. The shot itself is not hard, of course, but the eject often puts the ball out of control.
- Neon Multiball: This gets its own section, just because the neon is that damned cool (on the consoles, at least).
Strike-an-Arc Multiball: If for some reason this starts - perhaps you're bored of beaning Mr. Ringmaster all the time and are just playing for entertainment value only (which is perfectly fine!) - keep in mind you do not need to play this as a frenzy. Strike-an-Arc is not on a timer. Careful controlled play that gets you 50 switch hits over 5 minutes is preferable to 25 switch hits the first minute followed by a drain. Note that if you can stack this with Highwire MB (only possible by having the fifth ramp shot also lock the third ball), this scores much better. Looks much nicer, too.
Skill shot: Don't forget about this. You plunge a fresh ball after each Battle, and the skill shot builds to 1M each. The plunger is nice and consistent, unlike TotAN or BoP, the shot isn't going anywhere once you find it. (It's about two-thirds of the way back.)
Extra balls and specials: Besides the obvious ones at Ringmaster Razz and 25M points, extra balls are available by shooting the Menagerie 50 times (not going to happen!), winning Ringmaster Battle (should only happen if you notice you're one marvel away from wizard mode), and 15 Boom! balloon hits (will happen eventually in a good game - you do enough spelling of Volt to raise the balloon several times).
Strangely enough, CV has no specials.
Fun with bonus: Bonus is not all that exciting on CV. All that horsing around with the Ringmaster pretty much guarantees you a perfect 10 on that part, and defeating the Ringmaster also fires the cannon, so you'll have quite the stack of cannonballs near the end. Otherwise, bonus is pretty mediocre. Think of it as a million-point-or-so cherry on top.
Entertainment value: While playing CV focused on the Ringmaster will get you a consistent score (even my "bad" games are usually 60M or so), it can get incredibly mind-numbing after a while. Be sure to play some wild and crazy games of CV every now and then, not worried about score, so that you don't start to hate the table. If it's not fun, it's not pinball!
Good luck!
P.S. It's been ten years since I've played a real Cirqus Voltaire, but I'm fairly certain that the real table dumped you back to Ringmaster Frenzie if you lost Ringmaster Battle - that you weren't able to re-attempt RB back-to-back until you won. Can anyone shed some light on this? Was it changed at some point? I know Ringmaster Battle itself was made much harder to win as of ROM v1.3...
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