The Buried City

[samidodamage]

I spent my first event wondering what the heck is even happening.

I started playing the game near the end of the Phoenix 2017 event. I was totally clueless! There were several quest givers on the right of my screen and I figured out if I did what they asked, they'd give me 'rewards', many of which I had no idea what they were. I figured out how to spend the stuff I picked up off the ground. I remember getting a unicorn (hooked me right off the bat, they did!) and an observatory. Back then, we had large phoenix eggs all around the outskirts of our city and the broken ones gave the event currency. You can see a pic showing one of the eggs and one of the EC drops next to it in the Wiki here. I logged on the morning after the event ended and thought something was wrong with my game! The eggs were missing, the quest giver was missing, the phoenix icon was missing...gone; everything was just gone.
That's the day I mastered the search feature on the forums, lol!

 

[crackie]

I must say I appreciate the devs keeping the events within the Elvenar world/theme. In Forge of Empires, I was equally as confused with my first event, but it was like why the hell is my Medieval city suddenly playing football or making party hats for St. Patrick’s Day??? It felt so so so random! This is not the pillage and plunder I signed up for!

 

[InfinitiQX80]

You can see a pic showing one of the eggs and one of the EC drops next to it in the Wiki here.

Wow! those eggs were as big as trees! lol, Thanks for the link.

 

[AnselSkye]

I have zero provisions left and the next task reward is 63 points, (not 65). I can get 6 shovels but with just 2 more points to make it 65 I would've been able to get 3 shovels and 1 bottled wind, which would've been much more useful. I'm thinking the 63 instead of 65 points is by design in order to make a player either use diamonds or other means to get the extra points.

Don't forget to pick up provisions around your city. You're guaranteed to get a lot more than 2 before the event is over!

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

First, to the developers, thank you for this game. It's fun and interesting and I think the learning curve is adjustable to just about any level of player.

Just a thought though, ("Ok, here it comes." Dev's probably). It's the end of the Buried City tourney, with 16+ hours left I wanted to take one last effort at gaining provision points. I have zero provisions left and the next task reward is 63 points, (not 65). I can get 6 shovels but with just 2 more points to make it 65 I would've been able to get 3 shovels and 1 bottled wind, which would've been much more useful. I'm thinking the 63 instead of 65 points is by design in order to make a player either use diamonds or other means to get the extra points.

Making the numbers not quite add up so they're more flexible for the purchase of, in this case, 'digging tools', just seems trivial and disingenuous to me.
But, I also know this isn't just a game, it's a business, so I understand.

Thanks for letting me vent.

If you were caught up on the quests, you would be getting 70+, not 63.

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

I'm not sure I understand what you mean by 'caught up on the quests'? To be caught up implies that if a player isn't close to the end of the quests in the Buried City event, they should've played better, more often, etc.

Regardless, my comment is about the logistics of the game. It's understandable why it is the way it is, it's just my take on it.

If your current quest is only giving you 63 provisions, then you are not caught up. There are 79 total quests and the final quest is worth 73 provisions, I think, so you are about 15 quests behind. And if you were moving more slowly, your current quest would only be giving you 60 or 55, etc. The amount rewarded from the quests has always slowly increased from the first quest to the final quest.

 

[Lelanya]

I've completed 54 of the quests. I'll try to play better and more often. (I hope my fellowship doesn't consider me a slacker)

I am sure that you are doing well. My smallest city is also in that vicinity as well

 

[InfinitiQX80]

I am sure that you are doing well. My smallest city is also in that vicinity as well

Thanks.

 

[The Unbeliever]

Spent all my provisions finally and just did my whole digging game in one huge run.
Ended up throwing 500 dias to top up and get 1 more large tool pack and finished with 292 tablets collected, so I managed my goal of scooping up a 2nd Lv1 building.

I have a feeling that the next event will be a big one for dropping diamonds, so I'm not fussed about missing out on Gold League by a dozen or so pts. (...that Gold League exclusive portrait is ugly as gak anyways! )

 

[iamthouth]

I finished all the quests, had no extra buildings or purchases, online significant hours most days, but will finish 251/260.

 

[Moho]

but will finish 251/260.

I think it is a matter of luck too. I have three chapter 5 cities and I have obtained a second base in each one. I used the Ashen Phoenix in the oldest. The second city benefited from the 100 event currency I received in the mail. For the last one, however, I had to purchase 250 provisions to reach the same goal.

 

[Tehya1]

I am finishng in silver in 4 out of five cities. I got a second base in two cities and 9 artifacts in 3. I am finishing bronze in one of five, and it is just luck that made the difference between it and my other small city. I bought stash outposts in the three big cities that got all 9 artifacts.

I like the event format. I did pretty well in the misty forest event as well. The stash outposts were a good choice, but i might reserve those for my smaller cities next time.

 

[BrinDarby]

282, 261, 258 respectfully.... no 100 from email, no S.outpost,
no $$ spent, all 3 in Silver, only 1 w/xtra base..... I can live with it.

 

[The Unbeliever]

I think it is a matter of luck too. I have three chapter 5 cities and I have obtained a second base in each one. I used the Ashen Phoenix in the oldest. The second city benefited from the 100 event currency I received in the mail. For the last one, however, I had to purchase 250 provisions to reach the same goal.

The only real RNG factor in this one is the maze generation. And even then, it's not nearly as brutal as during the 3 rotating chest style events, since you can simply ignore the more maze-like areas vs. wasting tools on them.

On the other hand, if you get 4, 5, 6+ awful chest rotations in a row, your whole event is basically blown up and you'll be completely screwed up for the rest of the event!
That happens to me pretty much every single event with the stupid rotating chest gak! Horrible RNG then means you become 100% reliant on either winning back an above average amount of bonus event currency (yeah right!), and/or you're forced to shell out dias to grab the 1-2 GP's the RNG screwed you out of.

Even worse when they attach a League competition to it all, since skill is all but non-existent in the 3 chest events, and it only matters how much sheer dumb luck you get and/or how many dias you can throw at things!
Call me old fashioned or "elitist" or whatever you want, but if competition is involved, then let me win or lose based on my own decisions and how much work & skill I put into it! I HATE losing to nothing more than a poorly programed, gak-awful RNG.

In this event, my secondary city ended 9 tablets short of the 2nd base building, mainly because I made a couple really stupid moves. (I was paying more attention to my kitty than the computer screen!)
My main city spent 500 dias to top up the provisions, (really only needed about 25 more for a final big pack, but it was the final 8hrs or so), and easily made the 2nd Lv1 base building.
Both cities finished in Silver tier, with my main city being only 10 tablets out of Gold League! (in a 3 chest event, event with Ashen + constant daily collection, it still takes me on average at least 4k+ dias to attempt Gold league...)

Please give us more skill based mini games in League events - it makes the game far more enjoyable!

 

[hoopity]

My results for The Buried City, tldr: it was very easy to hit 260 with a GP focused strategy. This is because despite having the same conversion rate from Provisions to GP Currency as the Forbidden Ruins, Inno offered 800 more Provisions, and the RNG is less swingy given the nature of the mini-game.

Setup

I completed the event across each of the 8 main worlds.

• The quests reward a total of 4,469 Provisions
• The daily log-in quest rewards 805 Provisions (23 days x 35)
• The quest milestone rewards give a combined 400 Provisions
• The ground-spawn objects can be expected to give around 25-30 SK a day, depending on your activity and luck so 575-690 Provisions total (23 days x 25-30)
• This totals roughly 6,300 Provisions for the event, not including email bonus or Ashen Phoenix

Provisions	A	W	F	K	E	S	C	H	Average
Total Provisions	6,315	6,335	6,316	6,311	6,298	6,314	6,300	6,311	6,313
Ground Spawn	641	661	642	637	624	640	626	637	639

Results

I spent my tools mostly in pursuit of uncovering grand prize (GP) currency, I skipped most other prizes unless there was good return on value with uncovering new spaces or it had a good chance of unit boosts. Here are the results:

Outcome	A	W	F	K	E	S	C	H	Average
Provisions Spent	6,310	6,330	6,310	6,290	6,310	6,310	6,300	6,310	6,309
GP Currency Earned	295	304	286	290	285	297	289	288	292
League	Silver	Gold	Silver	Silver	Silver	Silver	Silver	Silver
Daily Prizes Won	20	20	10	10	12	20	13	15	15

I was surprised by how easy it was to hit the 260 mark, and even more surprised by how close most of these cities were to the Gold League threshold, I suspect most people either didn't play to maximize GP, or perhaps didn't really play much at all.

I'm curious how this compares to past and future events, specifically The Forbidden Ruins (as I have the same data for that). Let's take a look at some of the rates:

Rates per 100 Provisions	A	W	F	K	E	S	C	H	Average
GP Currency	4.68	4.80	4.53	4.60	4.53	4.71	4.59	4.56	4.62
Bonus Tools*	2.22	2.58	2.33	2.41	2.27	2.42	2.48	2.33	2.38
Daily Prizes Won per	0.32	0.32	0.16	0.16	0.19	0.32	0.21	0.24	0.24

*bonus tools found came in at an almost exact 4/1/1 ratio of shovels/bottles/vials


Comparison to The Forbidden Ruins

In TFR, I earned an average of 4.66 GP currency per 100 starting SK -- that's very close to the value I got from this even, TBC, which came in at 4.62 GP currency per 100 Provisions. That's a fairly meaningless difference. Notable, though, is that the standard deviation in this number from TFR was 0.341, whereas it was significantly smaller, 0.089 in TBC. I think the nature of the game mechanic of revealing spaces in TBC is just inherently less swingy than hoping for a big bonus SK payout from the TFR game.

The biggest distinction is that TBC offered 800 more provisions than TFR offered SK, or by estimates with my strategy, the equivalent of 37 extra GP currency! These extra provisions were spread across a higher daily bonus (35 vs 30), bigger quest milestone awards (200 vs 150), and higher individually valued quest rewards. Thanks, Inno!

 

[Linnea Shadowwalker]

I noticed the difference in amount of currency for this event, too. For the Forbidden Ruins, out of 8 cities, only 1 got the full set, and I spent diamonds to get 2 more full sets.

In this event, all 8 got all the evolves and silver league, and 3 got the second base. No diamonds spent.

I didn't have the ashen phoenix or stash outposts for either event.

 

[Deborah M]

Just for feedback. Not trying to start a debate. In my Fellowship at least 12 did not participate in this event. That includes me. Seems pretty prevalent that this format is viewed as a waste of time and frustration since you can waste a bunch of event currency and not get anything of value. It is seen as just too blind with no choice on what to try for.

 

[Iyapo1]

I finished the event and ended up short of the final artifacts in all three cities 259, 248, and 255. Not a big deal as there is an FA coming up. If there had been no FA planned I would have needed to spend diamonds to get the final artifacts...I forgot about the free currency email but I did feed an ashen in all cities. Strangely I got a ton of daily prizes which, for me, is generally rare in this type of event. The RNG put more chests than currency in my path forward.

 

[hoopity]

Just for feedback. Not trying to start a debate. In my Fellowship at least 12 did not participate in this event. That includes me. Seems pretty prevalent that this format is viewed as a waste of time and frustration since you can waste a bunch of event currency and not get anything of value. It is seen as just too blind with no choice on what to try for.

Can you go into detail? I'm not sure I understand what you mean when you say no choice on what to try for. Progress towards the grand prize is pretty straight forward, and the reroll mechanic lets you target daily prizes...

 

[Iyapo1]

@hoopity
In this event you dont get to select which chests you uncover you just get whatever is revealed. In the chest events you can pick chests that have prizes/percentages you want.

Edit to add: I really like this kind of event. It is not my favorite(post office), but it is fun.