2022 Archaeology Event Guide!
Hello! My name is MooingCat and welcome to my guide for the 2022 Archaeology Event! In this guide I will go through the mechanics of the event, the different rewards, and my thoughts on which are best, as well as how to get the most out of this event!
I also have a video version of this guide, as well as a video guide on the new Butterfly Sanctuary set, check them out below!
Table of Contents
Event Rewards
Before we get into the mechanics and strategies, let's have a quick look at the rewards you can get from this event!
Main Buildings: Butterfly Sanctuary Set!
The main building for this event is a brand new event set! The layout might look a bit familiar, and that's because it has the same layout as the Harvest Barn (Fall) set, except rotated 90 degrees. In case you are unfamiliar with sets, each building gets bonus rewards when connected to other unique set buildings. So if a building has 2 bonuses, it must be connected to 2 other unique set buildings to get both bonuses.
Below I'll describe all the pieces and their rewards, but if you want more information on the best layouts please check out my video guide on the set!
- Main Building: Butterfly House Lv5
- Size: 3x4 (road required)
- Base: Population, Happiness, Coins (depending on age)
- Bonus 1: Supplies (depending on age)
- Bonus 2: 10 Goods
- Bonus 3: Medals (depending on age)
- Bonus 4: 4 Forge Points
- Bonus 5: 30 Goods
- Bonus 6: 10 Forge Points
- Garden: Wildflower Meadow Lv1
- Size: 2x3 (road required)
- Base: Happiness (depending on age)
- Bonus 1: 10% Supply Boost
- Bonus 2: 10% Attack Boost
- Garden: Marigold Patch Lv1
- Size: 2x3 (no road required)
- Base: Happiness (depending on age)
- Bonus 1: 5% Supply Boost
- Bonus 2: 3% Defense Boost for Attacking Army
- Bonus 3: 3% Attack Boost for Attacking Army
- Garden: Snapdragon Bloom Lv1
- Size: 2x3 (no road required)
- Base: Happiness (depending on age)
- Bonus 1: 5% Coin Boost
- Bonus 2: 8% Defense Boost for City Defense
- Bonus 3: 5% Attack Boost for Attacking Army
- Garden: Daylily Flowerbed Lv1
- Size: 2x2 (no road required)
- Base: Happiness (depending on age)
- Bonus 1: 10% Coin Boost
- Bonus 2: 7% Defense Boost for Attacking Army
- Garden: Sapphire Arch Lv1
- Size: 3x1 (no road required)
- Base: Medals (depending on age)
- Bonus 1: 4 Goods
- Bonus 2: 4 Forge Points
- Garden: Magenta Arch Lv1
- Size: 3x1 (road required)
- Base: Medals (depending on age)
- Bonus 1: 2 Forge Points
- Bonus 2: 9 Goods
Grand Prizes: How many Set Buildings can you get?
The Grand Prizes this year alternate between upgrades for the Butterfly House and Garden Selection kits. This means that after you have gotten Grand Prize 17, you have to complete a further 11 Grand Prizes before you can get more Garden Pieces. This means that for free, you will be able to get up to:
- 5 Butterfly House Levels (2 from Milestones, 3 from Grand Prizes)
- 8 Butterfly Garden Selection Kits (2 from Milestones, 6 from Grand Prizes)
- 3 Butterfly Set Selection Kits (2 from Calendar, 1 from Event Surprise Box)
Or in other words, up to 11 Butterfly Garden buildings if you use the selection kits on them. You might get another level or 2 for a second Butterfly House, but not enough to really use it. UPDATE 02/05: The number of scrolls you can get have been nerfed significantly from beta, so you might not be able to get 17 Grand Prizes for free anymore. I go over it in details in the strategy section of this guide
Grand Prizes:
- Butterfly House Upgrade Kit
- 50 Forge Points
- Butterfly House Upgrade Kit
- Store Building
- Butterfly House Upgrade Kit
- Renovation Kit
- Butterfly Garden Selection Kit
- 6h Mass Supply Rush
- Butterfly Garden Selection Kit
- Gigantic Medals Pack
- Butterfly Garden Selection Kit
- Tactician's Tower Lv1
- Butterfly Garden Selection Kit
- Rogue Hideout
- Butterfly Garden Selection Kit
- Rogue Hideout Shrink Kit
- Butterfly Garden Selection Kit
- Shrine of Knowledge
- Butterfly House Level 1
- 50 Forge Points
- Butterfly House Upgrade Kit
- Store Building
Daily Specials
Below you'll find a select list of daily specials from this event. This is not complete, so to see the complete list of daily specials (as they appeared on beta) you can check out the fandom wiki. I've split the daily specials into three sections: attack, forge points, and other (situational).
Attack Buildings (for attacking army):
- Ferris Wheel Lv10: Great Wheel
- Reasons to get: Good Attack Values, good additional rewards
- Size: 6x4 (road required)
- Boost: 15-26% Attack | 1.5-2.6 per DS | 0.58-1.00 per Tile (including roads)
- Other: 30 Goods, 10 FPs, Population, Happiness, Coins, Supplies
- Ferris Wheel Lv10: Wonder Wheel
- Reasons to get: Good Defense Values, good additional rewards
- Size: 6x4 (road required)
- Boost: 18-32% Defense | 1.8-3.2 per DS | 0.69 - 1.23 per Tile (including roads)
- Other: 20 Goods, 12 FPs, Population, Happiness, Coins, Supplies
- Botanical Rotunda Lv1
- Reasons to get: Decent efficiency and very good boost per daily special.
- Size: 3x3 (road required)
- Boost: 5-10% Attack | 5-10 per DS | 0.48-0.95 per Tile (including roads)
- Other: Happiness
- Carousel Lv1
- Reasons to get: Good boost / daily special
- Size: 3x3 (road required)
- Boost: 4-8% Attack | 4-8 per DS | 0.38-0.76 per Tile (including roads)
- Other: 4-8% City Defense, Happiness
- Sentinel Outpost Lv. 1 + Up.
- Reasons to get: Highest defense efficiency (in event & game), very small and easy to place, you know why it's good!
- Size: 1x1 (no road required)
- Boost: 2% / 4% Defense for Level 1 / 2
My recommendations: If you need defense for your attacking army you should go for the Sentinel Outpost! If you're looking for attack, your best option is probably the Botanical Rotunda. The Ferris Wheel is more efficient and has better secondary rewards, but you will probably not get all the 10 pieces you need. If you have some from last year, or if you're ok waiting for them to appear in the Antiques Dealer, it's a good choice, if not I'd go for Botanical Rotunda and/or just Sentinels. Botanical Rotunda also gives a lot more per daily special.
Forge Points:
- Ferris Wheel Lv10: Wonder Wheel
- Reasons to get: Decent FP Value, good additional rewards
- Size: 6x4 (road required)
- Boost: 12 FPs | 1.2 FPs per DS | 0.46 per Tile (including roads)
- Other: 18-32% Defense, 20 Goods, Population, Happiness, Coins, Supplies
- World's Fair Lv10
- Reasons to get: Just get Wonder Wheel instead ;)
- Size: 6x4 (road required)
- Forge Points: 10 FPs | 1 per DS | 0.38 per Tile (including roads)
- Other: 10 Goods, Population
- Airship Lv11
- Reasons to get: Just get Wonder Wheel instead ;)
- Size: 7x3 (road required)
- Forge Points: 9 FPs | 0.82 per DS | 0.4 per Tile (including roads)
- Other: 20 Goods, 20 Guild Goods, Population, Happiness, Coins, Supplies
- The Lord's Manor Lv1
- Reasons to get: Best FP per DS and good population stats ... but probably just get Wonder Wheel instead ;)
- Size: 4x4 (road required)
- Forge Points: 2 FPs | 2 per DS | 0.11 per Tile (including roads)
- Other: Population, Coins
- Shrine of Knowledge
- Reasons to get: Quite outdated at this point ... so just get Wonder Wheel instead ;)
- Size: 2x2 (road required)
- Forge Points: 1 FP | 1 per DS | 0.2 per Tile (including roads)
- Other: Population, Coins
My Recommendations: I think it's quite obvious from the above what my recommendation is: the Wonder Wheel! That said, you might not be able to get all pieces, so if you don't want to wait for those ... I'd perhaps just ignore daily specials and go all out for Grand Prizes (I go over this below).
If none of the buildings above interest you, there are always some situational / nice-to-have items like the Rogue Hideout / Shrink Kit, Reno Kit, 6h Mass Supply Rush, Globe Fountain (for AD), and/or Wishing Well Shrink Kit. Notably, the WW Shrink Kit was an option on Beta, so unless there are changes you should be able to get that.
Quest "Cheat List"
Below you'll find my "cheat list" for the quests in this event. This is not a complete list of quests, that you can find here. This is a list of quests you might need to plan ahead for, but I always recommend that you check out the complete list yourself to see if there are any other quests you might find challenging. Also, only the "difficult" part of a quest will be shown. For example, a part like "pay X coins" will not be included.
Event Mechanics
The event mechanics should be quite familiar to most players, they're pretty much exactly the same as last year's Archaeology Event, or last Halloween Event. In fact, because it's exactly the same, instead of making a new video on the mechanic, I'll just link my video from last year, it's just as accurate this year except the rewards are different! I do have some different recommendations this year, so keep on reading :)
Currency: Scrolls & Tools
The main currency of this event is Scrolls, with can be used to buy Tools to use in the minigame. UPDATE 02/05: The amount of Scrolls was heavily nerfed from Beta to Live. You could get 6769 on Beta, but with the new values you can only get 5110 for free. The values below have been updated.
Scrolls:
- Starting: 120
- Daily Logins: 22*50 = 1100
- Rush Quests: 39*40 = 1560
- Daily Quests: 21*80 = 1680
- Milestone: 650 = 650
- Total: 5110
Tool Costs:
- Starting: 7 Brushes, 3 Shovels, 1 Dynamite
- Individual Costs: Brush = 10 Scrolls, Shovel = 35 Scrolls, Dynamite = 50 Scrolls
- Small Bundle: 195 Scrolls for 7 Brushes, 3 Shovels, 2 Dynamite
- Big Bundle: 395 Scrolls for 20 Brushes, 8 Shovels, 8 Dynamite
Minigame Basics
The minigame itself might look a bit confusing, but once you understand it it's quite simple. Your goal is to use your Tools to find hidden treasures in the sand, and to do so as efficiently as possible. You should not dig every sand tile, rather you should use your tools strategically to either 1) dig out visible rewards, 2) reveal as many hidden tiles, or 3) move ahead as much as possible. Regarding 3), you dig out tiles from the left to right, and when you hit the right edge the entire board shifts to the left to uncover new tiles. If you have no clear vision of a tile, ie it's hidden behind other tiles, you will not be able to see if it contains any rewards. To reveal that information you have to clear out any of the tiles surrounding that tile.
Tip: You don't actually have to pick up rewards that you have dug out, they will automatically be picked up when they hit the left edge of the board :)
If you're new to this, you'll understand once you give it a go :) Let's first go over the different rewards, then I'll go over some of the additional mechanics of the event, as well as some tips and tricks :)
Hidden Rewards
There are 6 types of hidden rewards in the minigame, so let's go through them!
- Golden Idols: Unlocks Grand Prizes. You need 20 Golden Idols per Grand Prize.
- Vases: These are like the chests in most events, giving you a reward, including a small chance of getting the daily special.
- Tools: You can find tools hidden in the sand! It's almost always worth digging these up.
- Tablets: Can be used to start a mini questline for more rewards. See chapter below for more info :)
- Gem (shards): Gems for the Calendar. See chapter below for more info :)
- Avatars/Icons: Make yourself look pretty!
Tools
There are three different Tools: brushes, shovels, and dynamite. When using your Tools, you want to keep the number of each tool type roughly balanced in a ratio of 2:1:1. So for every shovel and dynamite you have, you should have roughly 2 brushes. If you deviate a bit that's absolutely fine, but you should try staying around 2:1:1. When it comes to how to use the tools:
Brushes can dig out 1 sand tile. This should be used to either pick up rewards you haven't picked up with the other tools, to prepare the use of other tools, or to move ahead on the board.
Shovels can dig out all tiles in a column, but can only be used on an empty tile. This should be used when there either are a lot of rewards in a column, or to uncover a lot of hidden tiles.
Dynamite can dig out all 8 tiles surrounding it, but can only be used on an empty tile. This should be used when there is either a lot of rewards close together spread over multiple columns, to uncover a lot of hidden tiles, or to move ahead on the board.
Check out my video from last year for some examples of how to use tools :)
Tablets
There are a total of 8 different Tablets that can be found in the sand. Each Tablet starts a small questline of 5 quests, that will give 4*5=20 Scrolls and 1 final reward. These rewards are: Wisteria Topiary (decoration), 2 Blueprints, Large Medals Package, 2 WW Shrink Fragments, 2h Mass Supply Rush, Stranded Boat, Witch Doctor, and Royal Marble Gateway. The first 4 tablets are "common", and are the most ... common :P Then you have 3 "silver" tablets, and finally a "gold" tablet. You can get multiples of each tablet, meaning you can complete each tablet multiple times. You can have all individual tablet questlines activated at the same time, but you have to finish a tablet's questline before restarting it.
You can find all the tablet quests here: https://forgeofempires.fandom.com/wiki/2022_Archaeology_Event#Clay_Tablet_Quest_Lines
If you complete all 8 unique tablets you get the Historian Reward. This gives 30 Brushes, 10 Shovels, 10 Dynamite, and an Avatar. If you complete 8 more unique tablets, you get the rewards again (excluding the avatar).
In terms of "value", each Historian Reward is worth roughly 570 Scrolls, so if we also include the questline scrolls it's worth around 570 + 8*20 = 730 scrolls.
How many tablets can you expect to get?. Based on my testing, I had to spend around 150-200 scrolls per tablet, using those numbers you should expect to get around 25-35 tablets. So if you complete all of those, you are looking at 500-600 additional scrolls, plus 570 for each Historian Reward you get (you are not guaranteed to get any, sadly).
Calendar
The Calendar is an additional way to get rewards in this event. It's the same as last year's Calendar, so if you're familiar with that you know how it works! To complete the Calendar, you have to get 21 Daily Gems. The first time you pick up a Gem on a given day, you will complete that day's slot, and get a small reward. Any subsequent Gems you pick up that day will instead be Gem Shards. With 5 Shards you can fill in any slots you haven't completed, so if you miss a day it's not the end of the world.
Calendar Main Reward:
- 2 Butterfly Sanctuary Selection Kits
- 200 Forge Points
- 100 Goods
- Scarab King's Avatar
To see the rewards as they appeared on beta, check out the fandom wiki: https://forgeofempires.fandom.com/wiki/2022_Archaeology_Event/Beta#Calendar
Based on my testing I got a gem every 180-190 Scrolls, which means you should be able to get around 25-30 gems from the free scrolls, with a few more if you also get scrolls from tablets / incidents. In other words, you'll get more than you need. Each day you can also get 1 gem shard from one of the daily challenges, for an additional (up to) 20/5 = 4 daily gems. ~~So one possible strategy is to get a daily gem as few as 13 days, and use gem shards for the remaining (up to) 8 gems. ~~
Update: With the updated values, you probably have to get the daily gem at least 14-15 days, with the remaining 6-7 from shards (20 shards from daily challenge, 10-15 shards from minigame)
That means that you can still get a decent amount of the daily specials you want while going for the Calendar. I go over it in more detail in my event guide from last year.
Event Strategies
Alright, let's talk about strategies! There are three main strategies: 1) Focusing on Grand Prizes, 2) Focusing on Daily Specials, 3) Going for Everything. And all of these can either be done with or without going for the Calendar, which doesn't impact how you play, only when you play.
The difference between these is which rewards you pick up as you progress on the board. Before I go into that, all of them have some things in common:
- You should always pick up tools.
- You should always pick up tablets (if you plan to do them).
- If going for the Calendar, you should pick up most if not all gems.
So, what are the differences?
- Grand Prizes: Focus on Golden Idols by ignoring Vases (only pick up incidental ones)
- Daily Specials: Focus on Vases by ignoring Golden Idols (only pick up incidental ones)
- Everything: Dig up every treasure! (Perhaps excluding Avatars and/or Tablets/Gemstones if you're not doing Tablets/Calendar).
It's difficult to put numbers on which is best, but based on my testing I got these numbers:
- Grand Prizes: 18.2 Scrolls / Golden Idol, 60.8 Scrolls / Vase
- Daily Specials: 24.9 Scrolls / Golden Idol, 43.0 Scrolls / Vase
- Everything: 19.1 Scrolls / Golden Idol, 45.1 Scrolls / Vase
So as you can see, I actually got very similar amount of Vases going for strategies 2 and 3. I'm not entirely convinced that's accurate, I might just have been unlucky / lucky on one of those. For Halloween my numbers were 61 "Scrolls" per "Vase" going for everything, and 37 "Scrolls" per "Vase" going for vases, so if I were to guess I was lucky during my test of strategy 3, unlucky on my test going for strategy 2.I think the numbers for Golden Idols are quite accurate, showing what the main difference is.
UPDATE 02/05: The original estimates here were done using the beta numbers, but as mentioned above they were nerfed quite significantly. Below you'll find numbers updated with new values. For free you can get 5110 Scrolls, so let's look at the differences using that number first:
- Grand Prizes: 5110/18.2 = 281 Idols = 14 + 1/20 Grand Prizes
- Daily Specials: 5110/24.9 = 205 Idols = 10 + 5/20 Grand Prizes
- Everything: 5110/19.1 = 268 Idols = 13 + 8/20 Grand Prizes
That is without counting scrolls from additional tablets or incidents, so let's say you can get around 5800 total with those, which I think is quite a reasonable number:
- Grand Prizes: 5800/18.2 = 319 Idols = 15 + 19/20 Grand Prizes
- Daily Specials: 5800/24.9 = 233 Idols = 11 + 13/20 Grand Prizes
- Everything: 5800/19.1 = 304 Idols = 15 + 4/20 Grand Prizes
You need 340 Idols / 17 Grand Prizes to get all the Garden Selection Kits on the first round through the Grand Prizes, so based on my testing and the new number of scrolls, you will probably be a bit short. (Quick note: when I say "up to" in the paragraphs below, I am including 2 Gardens from Calendar and 1 from Surprise Box in the number shown)
For strategies 1 & 3: If you don't do the tablets you will probably get 13-14 Grand Prizes, which means at most you will get 9 Garden Buildings. If you do tablets and incidents, you should be able to get Grand Prize 15 as well, for a total of up to 10 Garden Buildings. I didn't show it in my numbers above, but if you also complete a full tablet set for the Historian Reward, that should be enough to get you to Grand Prize 17 with strategy 1, and quite close with strategy 3. This is of course not guaranteed, but it does mean it's still possible to get 11 Garden Buildings for free, if you're lucky.
For strategy 2: If you don't do tablets or incidents you will only get 10 Grand Prizes (with my numbers), so only up to 7 Garden Buildings. If you do some tablets or incidents you should be able to get Grand Prize 11 as well, for up to 8 Garden Buildings. If you complete a tablet set, you should be able to get Grand Prize 13 as well, for up to 9 Garden Buildings.
So my recommendation is to go for Strategy 1, focusing on Golden Idols, while also making sure to do all Tablets and pick up as many Incidents as possible. Doing all that means you might be able to still get 11 Garden Buildings for free, but definitely not guaranteed.
Should you go for the Calendar?
In my opinion you should definitely go for the Calendar. I don't think the daily specials in this event are anything special, and considering you can get 2 additional Garden pieces I think it's worth going for the Calendar at the expense of a few daily specials. Or, control over which daily specials you get, you don't actually get fewer.
How many Daily Specials can you expect?
There are three different types of Vases, with between 5% and 10% chance of giving the daily special. If we assume the distribution is similar to the Halloween Event, that gives an average of around 6.76% chance per vase.
I've written a small simulation down below to create a distribution of daily specials, but if we use my numbers from above (with 5110 / 5800 Scrolls), the average number of daily specials is:
- Focusing on Grand Prizes: 5.7 / 6.4 Daily Specials (with 5110 / 5800 Scrolls)
- Focusing on Daily Specials: 8.0 / 9.1 Daily Specials (with 5110 / 5800 Scrolls)
- Going for Everything: 7.6 / 8.6 Daily Specials (with 5110 / 5800 Scrolls)
(Again, my numbers for daily specials are probably not quite accurate, but I think the difference between going for vases or not should be around 3-4 daily specials)
Diamond Spending Costs
There are three Scroll Packages you can buy:
- 200 Diamonds: 40 Scrolls | 5 Diamonds / Scroll
- 700 Diamonds: 150 Scrolls | 4.67 Diamonds / Scroll
- 1995 Diamonds: 500 Scrolls | 3.99 Diamonds / Scrolls
For simplicity's sake, let's use 20 Scrolls / Grand Prize:
- Cost per Grand Prize: 20*20 = 400*3.99 = 1596 Diamonds per Grand Prize
- Cost for each additional set: 22*1596 = 35112
So around 35k per additional full set. If you only care about Garden buildings, you still have to pay that to get an additional 6 Gardens. That said, this is excluding tablets, so if you do those the actual price will be lower.
You need 22*400 = 8800 Scrolls, so if we use my number of 150 scrolls per tablet, that means we can expect around 60 tablets. That is 1200 scrolls, plus an additional 570 for each full tablet set you complete. I would expect 2-3 sets to be average, so let's say you can save around 2000-2500 scrolls from tablets, which is 8-10k diamonds saved.
As for Daily Specials, if we use the 6.76% average chance of daily special per vase, you need around 15 vases per daily special. So using my two numbers for scrolls per vase from above:
- Ignoring Vases: 61*15 = 915 Scrolls = 915*3.99 = 3650 Diamonds per Daily Special
- Going for Vases: 43*15 = 645 Scrolls = 645*3.99 = 2574 Diamonds per Daily Special
In other words, terrible!
So honestly speaking, because the cost for both additional Garden buildings and Daily Specials are really high, I do not recommend spending diamonds on this event.
And that's it for this guide! I hope you found it helpful, and please let me know in the comments if you have any questions!