If you’re in a guild, then you’re aware of Guild Expedition. There is no way to opt out of being included, because if you’re in a guild you’re automatically included each week. You can however chose not to actually participate… which hurts overall guild efforts but if you’re in a guild that doesn’t care then it doesn’t matter. What is Guild Expedition though (GE for short), and why does it matter? If you’re wondering that, then you’ve come to the right place!

Table of Contents:
Please use this to bounce to specific areas if you don’t want to do a lot of scrolling, or only need to see a specific section.

What is Guild Expedition?

GE is a competition that runs from Tuesday at 8am server time to Monday at 8am server time. I know, it’s weird, it starts on a Tuesday and ends on a Monday. I didn’t decide this, but I promise you get used to it. If you don’t know how your time links up to server time, well… that’s not something I can help you with. Check in with the official forums or your guild mates, they can help you figure it out. Or just look at the timer in GE itself.

For this competition, so long as your guild has at least three members, your guild will be pitted against six other guilds to see who can complete the most encounters the fastest. The top three competitors will receive boosts to the Guild Power (GP) that they earn during the competition.

  • First place gets a 25% boost to the GP they earned and a gold trophy
  • Second place gets a 15% boost to the GP they earned and a silver trophy
  • Third place gets a 10% boost to the GP they earned and a bronze trophy

It takes the whole guild participating to be in one of the top three positions. Regardless, so long as someone participates you will earn GP. It seems really guild-minded, until you realize the reason most players want to do GE is to get the really cool prizes that it offers.

If your guild has only one or two members you can still complete GE, but you cannot enter the competition against other guilds and you cannot earn any trophies or GP boosts.

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How does GE Work?

Every player will be presented with the same scene upon opening GE, a whole myriad of little platforms, known as encounters, where you have to complete them to move along. As you complete encounters you then get a prize (so it goes encounter, prize, encounter, prize, encounter, prize…). The deeper into GE you are, the better the prizes are (for the most part). Each player has to complete their own set of encounters based on the era that they’re in when GE starts on Tuesday. [Pro Tip: If you wait to age up until after GE starts, you’ll complete an easier GE because the game will have it set still to the previous era. This can give you a moment to unlock troops in your tech tree for the next week, or earn goods. The downside is you will only earn things for your current era from relics, as all treasure chests will also be set to the previous era.]

The encounters follow a repeating pattern as well: you do three standard encounters and then a boss encounter. You’ll know it’s a boss because it’s a much bigger temple to surmount. The boss encounters usually take the difficulty up a notch, and then when you return to the standard ones it’s (typically) a bit easier again; at least for a moment. Each tier of GE has 16 total encounters.

You can complete these encounters in two ways: fighting or negotiation. Fighting will take troops, which depending on how your attack boost and combat skills are (if you don’t hit that auto button) will determine if you lose any of said troops or not. Negotiation will always cost you whatever goods/coins/supplies/medals/special resources you give them. For those who don’t like to fight though, or for when the fighting gets too difficult, negotiation is a welcome thing. Likewise, if you don’t want to give up special resources (like promethium), then fighting is a welcome alternative to negotiations (but by the time they ask for special resources the fighting is very difficult so you’ll need a decent boost to manage it).

You always start each week with eight attempts in your bar (unless you somehow manage to have extra attempts at the end of GE the previous week, in which case they carry over), and you will earn one additional attempt every hour until the bar refills to eight total after you spend one. You will spend an attempt whether you win or lose the encounter, by either fighting or negotiation. You can purchase additional attempts for medals, up until you have eight in your bar again. The base cost is determined by what era you’re in, and it will increase for each attempt you purchase that week; resetting to the base amount again the following week. The only way to earn more than eight attempts at any one time is to win them from chests as you complete encounters.

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GE Tiers

There are four possible tiers that each member of the guild can complete, but only if they are unlocked. To unlock tiers, a member must have Leadership rights in a guild because it costs goods from the treasury to do so. If the goods aren’t there, most guilds won’t be unlocking the additional tiers (if I remember correctly, a leader can pay diamonds to put the missing goods in to unlock tiers if no one had them. I don’t know if this is still the case.) How many goods it will cost depends on what eras each player in the guild is in.

Each tier has 16 platforms, so it breaks down to look like this:

  • Tier 1: 1-16
  • Tier 2: 17-32
  • Tier 3: 33-48
  • Tier 4: 49-64

Tier 1 is the easiest tier, and is automatically open each week. It costs nothing to the guild for Tier 1. During this tier you will have only one-wave battles if you’re fighting, save for the boss encounters where it’s two wave, and you’re usually fighting the previous era of troops from the era you’re currently in (with perhaps a sprinkling of current era troops). Your opponent’s fighting boost is weak. If you’re negotiating, you need very few of each resource, and you will be using previous era goods typically, with extras being needed during boss platforms.

Tier 2 takes the difficulty up a notch. Like Tier 1 you’ll only have one-wave battles except on boss encounters up until the last four total, where it’s all two-wave battles. Now you’ll move into fighting mostly troops of the same era as you, and the attack boost that your opponent has is increasing. For negotiations, you’ll start moving into needing more of each resource, and using more current age goods than previous era.

Tier 3 is difficult. All battles are now two-wave, and the attack boost of your opponents continues to rise. The bosses are more difficult because there are more enemy troops to face than in the standard encounter. By the end you’ll only be facing current age troops. For negotiations, you’re going to need more of each resource, and you’re slowly moving into being goods-only and without coins/supplies being an option.

Tier 4 is exceptionally difficult. All battles are two-wave, all opponents are the same era as you, and their attack boost is extremely high. Without a well-maintained attack boost (you need more each era) yourself you’re likely to either fail to defeat these encounters by fighting, or you’re going to lose a lot of troops doing so. By the end of tier four you will be fighting two-wave battles where each wave has a high boost and eight opponents. Negotiations are also far more difficult. Without the extra turn boost from your tavern you’re likely to fail to complete the negotiation. Not only do you need a lot of whatever they’re asking for, but there are a lot more options to pick from making the process of elimination difficult. On the boss stages they may ask for special things, like medals or special resources like promethium.

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The Competition

The competition will be between guilds of similar size that are on the same general server. So if you’re on the US server, you can face guilds of a similar size from any world also on the US server. This gives a giant pool of guilds from which you might face, and means that sometimes competition is really fierce, and sometimes it’s a cake walk. You never know who you’ll end up against, and it’s unlikely that you’ll face the same guilds time and time again because there are so many out there (and sometimes, though rare, if you play in multiple worlds, you’ll be in two guilds competing against each other hahaha). Typically though there are three to four guilds each week that are really serious about their GE, and the rest just have a few members who pick at it and don’t ever do well. [Note: There is potential that if you start working on GE BEFORE the competition begins (gray trophy will be shown in the overall progress bar instead of a gold one), the competition will be based off how many encounters YOU normally complete. So if you usually do 64 encounters, it will pair you against HARDER teams! It’s a good idea to not start working on GE until your competition has been decided, just to be safe.]

You can usually get a feel for what your competition might be like by hovering over/clicking on the other guilds in the roster, and seeing how many trophies they have won. A guild with a lot of gold trophies is going to be a lot more competition than a guild who only has a smattering of gold and silver trophies but a lot of bronze, for example.

Like donating to Great Buildings, the first guild to a certain completion amount gets to hold that spot. So in the event of a tie between two guilds both being at 100% for example, the first guild to reach 100% gets the top spot.

Total completion towards the competition is based off how many encounters total your guild has done. So every encounter each member of your guild completes counts towards this overall percentage. Inno Games considers 100% to be if every member completes 48 encounters. This means doing the first three tiers to completion. Tier 4 is considered a bonus, and so teams that bust into that fiery pit of insanity (literally, the level looks like it is on fire as pictured left) will go above and beyond 100%. The total percentage you can earn if all members of your guild complete Tier 4 is 133.3%. If you ever see a guild with that completion, just know they are really serious about their GE and competing. If you are that guild, congratulations on being GE beasts!

Each encounter completed will give a certain percentage towards your guild’s overall goal. So if you have 10 guild members for example, your guild will achieve 100% when the whole guild has completed 480 total encounters (10 members multiplied by 48 encounters each equals 480). Should you open Tier 4, this means that there are 640 encounters available. If half of your members do all 64 that is 320 total encounters done, leaving only 160 to be completed between the other half to reach a 100% completion (32 encounters each for the remaining half if split evenly). Anyone who has been in an average activity-level guild for more than a few weeks and paying attention though knows that most members do a random amount of encounters each week based on their own personal availability. Less active guilds do less GE, and the most active guilds will do the most GE with the elite of GE doing that 133.3% completion regularly.

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Earning Guild Power

Finishing in the top three positions of the competition multiplies the GP you earn as a team by a certain percentage. How much GP your guild is going to earn is based on overall encounter points (EP) that you earn. It takes a certain amount of EP to reach the next goal of GP, and you can keep earning towards those goals until everyone has hit all available encounters completed (available encounters being based on what a guild opens for tiers each week).

You can see where your guild is at by looking at the completion bar (this may look different on mobile). The trophy on the left indicates where your guild currently ranks in the competition. The crown on the right indicates what level of GP you are working towards (and each level gives out a certain amount of GP). The middle bar indicates how much EP your guild has currently collected, and how much total is required to get to the next level. Clicking on the crown (at least on a PC) will tell you how much GP your guild has currently collected, and how much additional you’ll receive when your team reaches the next goal.

If you click that center bar you will be brought to a list of guild members, and it will show you two things: first, how much EP they have contributed, and second how many encounters they have completed. The little temple being on fire means they’re into Tier 4, which is also indicated by them having completed a greater number than 48 encounters.

The amount of EP that you earn for each encounter is dependent on a few things:

  • What era are you in? Higher eras earn more per encounter. However, higher eras also have more difficult fights, and the goods/resources needed for negotiations are more valuable too.
  • Are you fighting or negotiating? There is a slight slant towards negotiation, and those earn more than fighting as far as EP is concerned (but fighting helps your personal score more outside of GE and helps you place in the PvP tournament towers).
  • Were you successful? Failure gives a minimal amount of EP, and then you can try again. Bizarre as it is, there is some strategy (potentially) to losing a few encounters to bring in some additional EP and therefore potentially GP overall. So long as those losses are the EP it takes to push your team to a level they wouldn’t otherwise reach, it works as strategy.
  • How well did you do? It’s not confirmed by Inno Games, but it seems that depending on troop loss (when fighting), goods spent (when negotiating) can change how much EP you get per encounter. The amount appears to be negligible based on a small experiment I did. This is between like-styles of completion (fighting or negotiation) we’re speaking, to clarify. So negotiating encounter 2 one week and spending a certain amount to get 28 EP for example, versus negotiating it the next week and spending a different amount to get 30 EP instead despite completing both in only two of the three turns. [Note: If anyone has more information on this, please comment below. I have been unable to confirm/deny or elaborate on it in either the forums or on any wiki pages]

At the end of the current expedition, when it closes on Monday at 8am server time, the total amount that your guild earned will be displayed as well as where you finished in the competition. The image pictured left shows what it looks like (on PC) if you open the GE screen anytime when GE is not currently active on Monday into early Tuesday. This did not used show you how much you actually received with a potential top-three competitor bonus, but instead what the base was. There is a screen that pops up (at least on PC) when you log in the first time after GE closes for the week to tell you what you earned total with that special competitor bonus, if you earned it. Still, if you know you finished in first, second, or third place there are easy multipliers to figure it out:

  • First place means multiply by 1.25, which in this case would take the image left and bring it to 43,760 GP. That’s an additional 8,752 GP.
  • Second place means multiply by 1.15, which in this case would take the image left and bring it to 40,259 GP. That’s an additional 5,251 GP.
  • Third place means multiply by 1.10, which in this case would take the image left and bring it to 38,509 GP. That’s an additional 3,501 GP.

Looking at those numbers it becomes obvious why guilds would want to do well in GE. It can really help elevate a guild level, which means more goodies for all members. It still pales in comparison to what a guild can earn weekly in GvG, and sometimes even with Hall of Fames (if kept motivated), but the more avenues you use to get GP the more GP you get.

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Rewards you can Earn

It’s super nice to delve deep into GE for altruistic reasons of helping your guild, but lets be honest, the best part about delving deep into GE are the rewards you get as a player. Just like the difficulty increases as you go further in GE, so does the lucrative nature of the rewards you can earn.

Generally Speaking: When you’re in Tier 1 you’re likely going to be earning a lot of blueprints (especially for the Temple of Relics in some cases), and getting little things like coins, supplies, goods, extra turns, premium troops (like champions), and perhaps a premium happiness building or supply producer. All nice things, but nothing really special per-say. Tier 2 will see a stronger likelihood of cool things (like FPs), and larger quantities of the things you could earn in Tier 1. Tier 3 is where we first see some really cool stuff. In here is where you’ll first see a propensity for getting FPs (which go to your bar, not to FP packs in this case), and you’ll start to see the potential to get diamonds from the chests. In addition, at the end of Tier 3 you might earn a special building that is only available through GE and nowhere else.

Tier 4 though… that’s where it’s at for prizes. Since this tier is so exceptionally challenging it’s also where all the good stuff is. In here you’re most likely to earn FPs, diamonds, large (and I mean large) quantities of resources (goods, medals, coins, or supplies), and really nice buildings for supporting your city. The end of Tier 4 always has something promising, especially now that anything which doesn’t work for your play style that you win can be sold for a good return at the Antique Dealer. It is well worth getting through all 64 encounters for that reason alone, if your guild can support unlocking all four tiers.

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The Temple of Relics (and Relics)

The Temple of Relics is a special GB that you can earn BPs for from chests you open along the way in GE. The only other way to get BPs for this GB is by earning them as a reward for placing in the top spots on someone else’s ToR. It is not age specific, and the only reward it gives is passive, which means that there is no collection from it.

This GB allows for the spawning of relics in GE. Relics are special things that give cool rewards (most of the time). They definitely make GE more fun, but they’re totally random in when they will appear. Sometimes you’ll go through GE and get a ton of them. It will seem like every time you complete a fight, a relic pops up. Other times you won’t see a relic until your 53 encounters deep, and it might be the only relic you see all GE. Despite what the percentage chance says based on your level of ToR, it really does seem like you go through dry spells regardless.

Of the GBs, this is not high on the list of recommended ones to push beyond level 10. Perhaps once you’ve worked on other GBs that are far more important to supporting your play style, if you have the time and FPs to spare, you could do it… but it shouldn’t be a priority. Even getting ToR to level 5 or 6 makes a huge difference in how many relics you tend to see, so it shouldn’t be stressed over. If you do get to the point where you’re pushing it higher (again, after other GBs are done that are more crucial) then you will see an improvement on relic spawn rate. Get it high enough and you’ll spawn tons and tons of relics more regularly, which if you’re in a GE-focused guild might not be bad but again… there are other GBs that should probably be done first to support your ability to go deep in GE.

Relics have a chance of spawning (once you have ToR and it’s out of the mud) anytime you complete an encounter. They will always spawn somewhere on the tier you’re presently working on, and they could spawn under a section still covered by clouds (which will be revealed after you beat a boss), which would mean you cannot collect that relic until you reveal it. You’ll know if there is a relic waiting for you based on the little relic light. When it’s colorful it means there’s one or more relics waiting for you somewhere, and when it’s grayed out there are no relics to be found.

 

You can spawn three different kinds of relics: Common, Uncommon, and Rare. Common relics are silver, uncommon relics are gold, and rare relics are jade. What you can earn in each relic depends on what kind it is, but obviously the more rare it is the better the stuff you can get (in theory). The reality of it is that what you earn in a relic being good or bad depends on your needs at the time. Someone who just started a new era and needs troops will want a relic more likely to grant them said troops than a relic that gives something else they don’t really need. What’s cool about relics though is they will always reflect your current age, so if you do age up during GE the relics will age up too, even though the GE encounters and chests do not.

A common relic is silver, and has the opportunity to grant you:

Gate of the Sun God, Face of the Ancient, 5 Units of One Type (current era), 2 BPs (current era or below), 25 Goods of One Type (current era), or 20 FPs.

What you get is totally random, but eventually you will be sick of receiving Gates and Faces. They’re really cool at first, and can be handy when a quest wants you to gain so much happiness or if you’re in a happiness pinch… but there are definitely better things out there.

An uncommon relic is gold, and has the opportunity to grant you:

Ritual Flame, Tribal Square, 200 Goods of One Type (current era), 10 Rogues, 100 FPs, or Small Medal Package (actual medal quantity received is based on your era).

These prizes are, for the most part, better than what you can get from a common relic. Again though, if you really need troops (for example) then this isn’t going to be the relic you’re looking for. Similarly, you will eventually have Ritual Flames and Tribal Squares galore and won’t want anymore of them.

A rare relic is jade, and has the opportunity to grant you:

Sacred Sky Watch, Terrace Farm, Fountain of Youth, One Up Kit, Store Building, or Renovation Kit.

Since this is a rare relic and the hardest one to make spawn, you would think that these prizes are extremely coveted. For the most part that is correct. Depending on your play style and where you are in the game era-wise, you may or may not want certain things in here. You’ll always want One Up Kits, Store Buildings, and Renovation Kits; but eventually you may not want Sacred Sky Watches, Terrace Farms, or Fountain of Youths. So it’s a gamble. Again too, if you’re in greater need of goods or troops for example, then this relic will not be what you’re presently looking for.

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Special Buildings from GE

There are certain buildings that you can only earn from GE and nowhere else. They’re not available from quests (daily, story, event, or otherwise), they’re not available from events, and you cannot buy them from the Antique’s Dealer in any fashion. They each do different things, and their usefulness is really dependent on your own personal city needs. The buildings are in alphabetical order: Face of the Ancient (Face), Fountain of Youth (FoY), Gate of the Sun God (Gate), Ritual Flame (RF), Sacred Sky Watch (SSW), Terrace Farm (TF), and Tribal Square (TS).

Face of the Ancient

This is a special 2×2 building that grants happiness, and it doesn’t require a road connection. The amount of happiness that it grants is dependent on the era of the building. It can be upgraded to your current era with a One Up Kit or a Renovation Kit, but since they are very easy to earn in GE it’s not recommended that you waste either kit on this building (if you even have one planted at all). It can be polished via aid to temporarily double the happiness output.

Fountain of Youth

This is a 3×3 building that grants a random reward every 24hrs. It is essentially a Wishing Well that has been altered slightly in the percentage chance of receiving what it can offer to make it unique. This building has a random chance of granting you: Coins, Supplies, Medals, Goods, FPs, Diamonds. The amount of FPs and Diamonds you can receive is static, but the rest will be in an amount that is dependent on what era you’re in. This building will automatically match era with you as it has no set age, so it does not require a One Up Kit or Renovation Kit. It cannot be plundered. It must be connected to a road to produce a reward.

Gate of the Sun God

This is a special 2×2 building that grants happiness, and it doesn’t require a road connection. The amount of happiness that it grants is dependent on the era of the building. It can be upgraded to your current era with a One Up Kit or a Renovation Kith, but since they are very easy to earn in GE it’s not recommended that you waste either kit on this building (if you even have one planted at all). It can be polished via aid to temporarily double the happiness output.

Ritual Flame

This is a 2×1 building that adds an extra 8% defending bonus for your city defenses. They do not require a road connection, and have no specific age. You cannot increase the defense bonus (at least not presently, who knows what Inno could do in the future) that each individually gives, but having multiple does stack (so for example if you have 3 of them you’ll get a total of 24%). The defense bonus of the base of this item is equal to either two Level 1 Watchfires, or one Level 2 Watchfire; both of which are a 1×1 item.

Sacred Sky Watch

This is a special 3×2 building which requires a road connection, and will grant the player population, coins, and when motivated by aid, 1 FP. The amount of population and coins that you get is dependent on what era the building itself is. When motivated the coin output is doubled, and the building can no longer be plundered. It is essentially a less efficient Shrine of Knowledge. Unless you’re in desperate need of coins, it’s not recommended to use a One Up Kit or Renovation Kit to bring this to your current era.

Terrace Farm

This is a special 5×6 production building which requires a road connection and costs population to put into your city. The amount of population that it costs is age dependent. You will be able to select what it produces, which varies based on time selected. You can produce coins in 5min, supplies in 15min or 1hr, medals in 4hrs, 10 goods (2ea) in 8hrs, or 5 FPs in 1 day. The amount of coins, supplies, and medals you make are determined by the era of the building. Likewise, the kind of goods you can create are determined by the era of the building as well. If you are using your Terrace Farm(s) for FPs only, there is no sense in using a One Up Kit or a Renovation Kit to bring them to current era. If you are using your Terrace Farm(s) for goods production, then it is important to make sure they are in the era(s) for which you want to make goods. Once you are working with refined (and re-refined) goods, this can be very handy because a Terrace Farm will only produce goods of the era it’s set to (so not unrefined). This building can always be plundered.

Tribal Square

This is a special 4×3 building which requires a road connection, and will grant the player population, coins, and 1 of each good matching the era of the building when it’s motivated by aid. Be careful with this building not to get into trouble with happiness because of the amount of population it grants. This building cannot be plundered once it is motivated, and motivation will double the amount of coins it gives in addition to the goods. You can use a One Up Kit or a Renovation Kit to bring it to your current era if you so choose, depending on what your needs are for goods. It is more efficient to run a Terrance Farm every 8hrs for goods than it is to run Tribal Squares, if you don’t need the Terrace Farm for FPs. This building only produces goods of the era it’s set to, and not unrefined goods.

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Useful Tavern Boosts

Once you have upgraded your tavern to have all 16 chairs you will have access to all possible tavern boosts. Until then, some of these boosts may not be something you can activate.

In general there are two ways to complete GE: Fighting or Negotiation. As such there are two kinds of tavern boosts to help you out: Attack Boost and Extra Turn.

Attack boost does exactly what you think, it gives a percentage boost to your attackers to make them more effective. You can select from:

  • 10% boost for 30min at a cost of 750 Tavern Silver
  • 20% boost for 4hrs at a cost of 3,000 Tavern Silver
  • 30% boost for 24hrs at a cost of 8,500 Tavern Silver

Generally speaking you can get away with the 20% boost if you’ve maintained your personal attack boost well, which is nice in case you have to switch to negotiations at some point or need to run a different boost of any kind. Remember, you can only run one boost at a time unless you pay diamonds to unlock a second one (not permanent).

Extra Turn is for negotiations, and is GE-specific in that it doesn’t affect negotiations anywhere else (presently). It gives you one extra turn when negotiating to try and appease the tribal council members. You can select from:

  • +1 Turn each encounter for 15min at a cost of 1,500 Tavern Silver
  • +1 Turn each encounter for 30min at a cost of 2,500 Tavern Silver
  • +1 Turn each encounter for 1hr at a cost of 4,000 Tavern Silver

Typically you’ll only ever use the 15min boost because it usually doesn’t take that long to negotiate, rarely you might want the 30min one. Unless you’re intending to spend a lot of medals buying attempts and rushing through GE, there’s not usually a reason to get the 1hr duration.

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