Guild Expedition - a full overview

*** OVERVIEW ***

The GE starts on Tuesdays and ends on Mondays. It is made of for levels : I, II, III and IV.  Each level has 16 encounters you need to win, either by fighting or by negotiating. 

To fight, you need troops and a good attack / defense level. 
To negotiate, you need goods. I will address each of those separately. 

You can decide to fight only or negotiate only, or do a little bit of both. I do the latter…
Every time you win an encounter, you get a prize : coins, supplies, goods, forge points, blueprints, special or regular buildings, game helpers, diamonds.

You can get even more prizes by building the GB called Temple of Relics (ToR). It gives you, depending on its level, a certain percentage of chance to have a relic appear every time you solve an encounter. 

There are three types of relics : silver, gold and jade, the latter being the rarest. Relics give you various items : special buildings, forge points (up to 200 !), goods (up to 200 !). This week I was super lucky : twice the same day I had a relic giving me 100 FPs… Very worth it !

In order to win the GE, we need to be the guild that achieves the highest percentage of completion. The calculation is a bit weird as, if we all do all 64 encounters (16 x 4), our score is 133%. Basically FoE considers hitting end of level III is a 100% accomplishment. In case of a draw (two guilds reaching the same percentage), I’ve been told it’s the one hitting it FIRST that wins.

What’s at stake for the guild ? Once the GE is finished, FoE converts the GE points into crowns. Crowns help the Guild advance in levels. The higher level the guild is, the more perks we have. You can see all the perks by going to the guild section and check the level… scroll through the levels and see the perks earned at each level… Motivating ! 

We will earn crowns even if we don’t reach 1st position. BUT, if we are 1st, our crowns are increased 25% and every crown we earn the coming week will be increased by 25%... Our Halls of Fame (HoF) in our town will give 25% more crowns (you won’t see it when you collect). More crowns = levelling up faster ! Also, people like me join guilds easier when they see a good collection of gold medals 😊

*** UNLOCKING LEVELS = GUILD TREASURY ***

When the GE starts, level I is open at no cost. However, each new level needs goods from the Guild’s treasury to be unlocked. The quantity of goods and their nature depends on each player’s age. If you are in Iron Age, the goods needed to unlock your share of the level are Iron Age goods. And so on. 

This is why ageing up has serious consequences, especially if you don’t have treasury goods producing GBs : The Arc / Observatory. Those two GBs produce daily (if you collect daily, of course) goods from your Age and give them to the Guild’s treasury directly. The higher the level of those GBs, the more goods are given to the Guild’s treasury, which covers your costs for unlocking the GE, even at very low levels (level 3 OBS does the job, level 1 ARC does the job too !). This is why you should set a priority in having an OBS and/or an ARC and help guildies get them too… 

*** WINNING ENCOUNTERS ***

As you can imagine, the more you advance, the tougher it gets. But also, there are different stages : basically, each level has 16 encounters but you can also divide it as 4 x 4 encounters. 

• 1 is super easy, like 5, 9, 13. It brings simple rewards : FPs, coins, supplies, BPs
• 2 is easy, like 6, 10, 14. Same kinds of rewards.
• 3 is a bit harder, like 7, 11, 15. It brings troops.
• 4 is tough, like 8, 12, 16. It brings the best rewards.

Level 2 will bring twice as many rewards as level 1. 
Level 3 will bring three times as many, level IV 4 times as many. 
This is only valid for prizes, not relics !
That is also the reason why I do not have any military building in my town : I get all my troops from the GE (OK and my Traz, OK) !!

*** FIGHTING : ATTACK & DEFENSE BOOST***

In order to fight and win, the first things you need to consider is your attack and defense levels. The faster you moved through the ages, the more chances you have of being really weak… This is why I always say : stay in an age really really long ! It gives you the chance to upgrade your GBs, and in particular your attack / defense ones ! 

• Statue of Zeus : each level up to level 10 gives you 3% additional defense & attack. Great GB !
• Cathedral of Aachen : like SoZ + coins !
• Castel del Monte : each level gives you 3% additional attack + FPs !

There are more… and also special buildings, event buildings… 
You will find a lot of info here regarding defense boost and here regarding attack.

*** FIGHTING : TROOPS ***

You have several kinds of troops and troops change completely from one age to the next… If you age up, chances are your troops from the previous age are going to be wiped out by the new age troops.

Troops are light / heavy / fast / ranged. 

The rules are simple, a bit like rock/paper/scissors : Light beat fast beat ranged beat heavy beat light. This is basically all you need to remember ! If you see you are going to fight heavy troops only, put only ranged units ! If you see only fast units are coming at you, put only light units ! Of course, it’s never that simple as, as it gets harder, there is a combination of troops and you need to think 😊

There is one category of troops that is absolutely amazing though : rogues. They don't belong to a particular category. However :
- They will take ZERO hit when attacked for the first time. They will retaliate badly (strong attack) and take the form of whatever troop you sent them with. If you sent a legionnaire, they will transform into a legionnaire. If you sent two different units with rogues, they will randomly transform into one of those.
- BEWARE : if Rogues have not transformed yet (because they were not attacked) and your main unit is dead, Rogues will have nothing to transform into and since their defense level is almost 0, they will die at the first hit of the other side… 
So, 
1) NEVER send rogues alone
2) ALWAYS protect the regular troop so it survives… 
3) Not GE, but while I’m talking about rogues : NEVER put Rogues to defend your city… A good player will kill the regular troops first and then finish off your Rogues with one hit. That’s what I do all the time.

If you are a low level player or simply have aged way too fast, there are basically only the first three encounters of Level 1 you will manage without loss… I’m afraid you’ll have to negotiate the whole GE after that… or be prepared to lose a lot of troops. But each week, as you increase your D&A levels, try more and see how far you can get without negotiating : every fought encounter is goods, supplies and money saved !

*** NEGOTIATING : GOODS ARE THE KEY ***

If you are going to do mostly negotiations (like I used to until recently), then you need a lot of goods if you want to finish level IV without being completely depleted.

The very VERY minimum you need is : two buildings for each boosted good of your current age. For example, in Iron Age, my boosted goods were Ebony and Jewelry. I had two of each. The reason why it was enough for me back then is because I also have a Lighthouse of Alexandria (LoA) and I had a Tower of Babel (ToB), several Tribal Squares, and many wishing wells… So I was additional goods every day thanks to those ! But if you don’t have those, you have to plan on having 3 of each, i.e. 6 goods producing buildings. ONLY your boosted goods. Others are a waste of time and money and space : you get them by trading.

The IDEAL situation is : 3 of each boosted goods buildings of your current age and 2 of each boosted goods buildings of the previous age. Indeed, the GE makes you use previous and current age goods for negotiation.

In order to be relaxed, aim at having an inventory that always has AT LEAST 1000 goods of each type. Yes, I know it sounds like a lot but it’s not. You’ll get there quickly if you do what I recommend above.

*** NEGOTIATING : TECHNIQUES ***

When you negotiate an encounter, you get three attempts, by default. However, know that you can get an extra turn by buying it in the tavern : for 15 minutes (and 1500 silver), you get an extra turn, i.e. 4 attempts to solve the encounter --> Which is why you should make sure you get your Tavern goodies maxed out ASAP...

The principle is quite simple : there are 5 people who want something. You have to “guess” which person wants which goods or supplies or coins. If you’re correct, it says correct. If you placed the goods in the wrong spot, it says so and if this good is not required, it says incorrect and you cannot pick it again at the next attempt. Bear in mind a given good can be wished several times…

Encounters 1, 2 and 3 of Level I are impossible to lose : there are three attempts and there are two to three goods to pick from… So, if it’s not one, it’s the other or the last one. 

The first 2 encounters are coins and supplies. What I do is put supplies everywhere on the first attempt. It will therefore be correct or incorrect, impossible to be in the “wrong place”. Whatever is red will be coins at the next attempt. I do the same at the third encounter : supplies everywhere, then coins wherever there’s space and finally, what is left can only be the good. Doing it like that makes you save goods… 

4th encounter, the toughest of this first set of 4, has 4 goods to choose from. You have three attempts by default. This is where you can choose to activate your 4th attempt in the tavern. However, bear in mind that encounter number 5 will be 3 goods again… So you won’t need your 4th attempt !

So here’s my general technique :

1st attempt : put all the goods to pick from or as many as I can (as you do encounters, you will see that you have more than 5 goods to pick from… so it will take more than one attempt to go through all those goods). 

At the beginning, you have less goods than people : I always put coins to fill the empty spots. Example : cloth / jewelry / coins / coins / supplies. At some stage, you have 5 goods to pick from for those 5 people. First attempt : 1 each. 2nd attempt : change the position of the incorrect ones and make sure you check that the correct ones are not needed again, so add them at the second encounter, just to be sure.

Your goal, always, is to eliminate possibilities, i.e. goods. The best news you can get at your first encounter is as many reds as possible… Many greens is actually bad news as it gives you less room to figure out what’s the last ones… It gets interesting when you have more goods to pick from than people, i.e. 8 goods and 5 spots. My typical approach : 
1) Fill the spots with 5 goods, always picking coins and supplies when available.
2) Next attempt : fill the orange spots with the goods that have not been tried yet (the bad scenario is one merchant with only red… at least, if you have orange on the first attempt and red on the second, you already have information as to what to not put there !) and the red spots with the goods from the first attempt that were in the wrong position.
3) Work you way out !

One last tip : if you have two spots left to fill and many goods to pick from, but you know what good to put in one of those spots. Don’t put that good on that attempt (unless it’s your last attempt and you want to try your luck) : eliminate the other choices first as much as you can. Remember, red is good news ! 

That’s about as much as I can tell you right now. Good luck !

Xylo