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2022 Halloween Event Guide!

Mooing Cat

Hello! My name is MooingCat and welcome to my guide for the 2022 Halloween 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 if you prefer that, as well as a video on how to use tools, check them out here!

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, starting with the new ones!

Main Building: Tarot Card Caravans

The main building for this event is the brand new Tarot Card Caravans! This building is good for most players, with a good amount of forge points and goods, as well as a decent attack boost. The attack boost is particularly good in lower ages (compared to other buildings), because unlike most buildings it almost gives the same there as in the highest ages! The attack boost is not fantastic in the highest ages, but at 1 attack per tile it's quite alright considering the other rewards, unless you are absolutely cramped for space.

  • Main Building: Tarot Card Caravans Lv12

    • Size: 5x4 (road required)
    • Base: Population, (negative) Happiness O.o, Coins, (depending on age)
    • Production: 10 Forge Points, 30 Goods, 1 Finish All Supply Production Fragment (15 Required*)
    • Boost: 19-22% Attack Boost (0.86 to 1.0 per tile, including roads)

* Update: You only need 15 fragments, I was using the information from the Beta Announcement, which was incorrect :)

New "Limited" Buildings: Daunting Tower & Haunted Tree

In addition to the Tarot Card Caravans, there are two other new buildings in this event, the Daunting Tower and the Haunted Tree. Both of these buildings are "limited" buildings, meaning they lose their bonus afer a given period of time. The Daunting Tower is available both in the Event Pass and as a Daily Special, while the Haunted Tree is available in the Event Pass and Calendar is only available if you complete the Calendar. (Update: Now also available in Event Pass)

  • Daunting Tower (Lv1)
    • Size: 1x1 (no road required)
    • Limited Bonus: 50% Attack Boost for Attacking Army
    • Uses: The bonus lasts for 1 Day only, make good use out of it! After the bonus has expired, the building only gives 250 Happiness.

  • Haunted Tree (Lv1)
    • Size: 2x2 (no road required)
    • Production: 20 Forge Points
    • Uses: The bonus lasts for 5 collections. After the bonus has expired, the building only gives 250 Happiness.

Grand Prizes + Event Pass

As seems to be standard now, you have two sets of "grand prizes". The main one you unluck as usual, with a second set of rewards locked beyond a 1200 diamond one-time payment (event pass, or "Halloween Prizes"). The event pass is not required to get the main building, so if you're free to play (or don't think it's worth it) you can ignore them without losing anything. Below you can see lists of how these rewards appeared on beta, though there may be some changes on the live servers. Changes to the Event Pass Rewards has been announced, so we can at least expect those to change a bit.

Grand Prizes:

  1. 25 Forge Points
  2. Tarot Card Caravans Upgrade Kit
  3. Shrine of Knowledge
  4. Tarot Card Caravans Upgrade Kit
  5. 20% Attack Boost
  6. Tarot Card Caravans Upgrade Kit
  7. Tactician's Tower Lv1
  8. Tarot Card Caravans Upgrade Kit
  9. Mass Self-Aid Kit
  10. Tarot Card Caravans Upgrade Kit
  11. 50 Forge Points
  12. Tarot Card Caravans Upgrade Kit
  13. Store Building
  14. Tarot Card Caravans Upgrade Kit
  15. Gigantic Medals
  16. Tarot Card Caravans Upgrade Kit
  17. Tactician's Tower Upgrade Kit
  18. Tarot Card Caravans Upgrade Kit
  19. One Up Kit
  20. Tarot Card Caravans Lv1*
  21. Abandoned Asylum Selection Kit
  22. Tarot Card Caravans Upgrade Kit
  23. 2 Blueprints
  24. Tarot Card Caravans Upgrade Kit
  25. Renovation Kit
  26. Back to Grand Prize 1.

Event Pass / Fall Prizes: Below is a list of what I consider the interesting Event Pass rewards, for a compelte list check out this link: https://forgeofempires.fandom.com/wiki/2022_Halloween_Event#Grand_Prize

With the free currency, you will probably end up with at least prize number 18-19 :)

  1. Forge Fountain
  2. Wishing Well
  3. Daunting Tower
  4. Wishing Well Shrink Kit
  5. Daunting Tower
  6. Daunting Tower
  7. Checkmate Square
  8. Orb (minigame tool)
  9. Shrine of Knowledge
  10. Wishing Well
  11. Haunted Tree
  12. Daunting Tower
  13. Wishing Well Shrink Kit
  14. Daunting Tower

Then there doesn't seem to be any more buildings.

Milestone Rewards for this event gives you some building pieces and event currency, as usual :) Note: The Selection Kit has been replaced by a Lv1 Tarot Card Caravans, as it was supposed to be :)

Daily Specials

How many daily specials can you get? I will go into more detail further down in the guide, but my rough estimate is around 20+ on average, but with quite a high variance.

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. NOTE: The daily specials for the first week of the beta event were incorrect, so look at the switch prices ("Alternate Daily Specials") for more accurate info on what is available. Also note that the Daunting Tower daily special has been changed from fragments to a full building. I've split the daily specials into three sections: attack, forge points, and other (situational).

If you prefer to comapre buildings in my sortable building table, here is a link to most* halloween event buildings you can get this year: https://mooingcatguides.com/halloween-buildings

* Limited buildings and production buildings are not included in that table. Also, as far as I can tell you can't actually get shrine of knowledge level 2, but because of the ways I sort the table right now that's included as well :)

Attack Buildings (for attacking army):

  • House of the Wolf (House of Horrors Lv7)
    • Reasons to get: Best combined attack per tile, small, relatively few daily specials required.
    • Size: 3x4 (road required)
    • Boost: 6%/6% to 15%/15% Attack/Defense for Attacking Army | Combined 1.7-4.3 per DS | Combined 0.89-2.22 per Tile (including required)
    • Other: 4 Forge Points, 5 Goods, (negative) Happiness, Population, Coins, Supplies
  • Stage of Ages (Lv1)
    • Reasons to get: Best attack per daily special, good attack per tile, good additional rewards.
    • Size: 4x4 (road required)
    • Boost: 7-19% Attack | 7-19 per DS | 0.39-1.06 per Tile (including roads)
    • Other: 15 Previous Era Goods, 4 Forge Points, Population, Happiness
  • Winners' Plaza Lv2
    • Reasons to get: Good attack per tile, good attack per daily special
    • Size: 3x3 (road required)
    • Boost: 5-15% Attack | 2.5-7.5 per DS | 0.48 - 1.43 per Tile (including roads)
    • Other: Happiness
  • Abandoned Asylum Lv9
    • Reasons to get: Mediocre attack per tile, but good secondary rewards.
    • Size: 5x5 (road required)
    • Boost: 16-24% Attack | 1.77-2.67 per DS | 0.58-0.87 per Tile (including roads)
    • Other: 11 Forge Points, 20 Goods, Coins, 1 Population, (negative) 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
  • Daunting Tower (Lv1)
    • Reasons to get: Insane, but temporary, attack boost. By far the best in the game ... when active.
    • Size: 1x1 (no road required)
    • Boost: 50% For 1 Day, nothing after | 50 per DS | 50 per Tile

Also available: Checkmate Square, Botanical Rotunda and Royal Marble Gateway. All of these are alright as options, though not as good as the other listed IMO.

My recommendations: This is a tough question to answer. I think for most established players I would recommend the House of the Wolf, because of its very good combined attack per tile. If you are purely after attack or defense, you could go for Winners' Plaza or Sentinel Outpost instead. If you are a developing player, or want a lot quickly, the Stage of Ages is also a very appealing option. If you are in a low age, all of the buildings will give less, so I would either go for Stage of Ages for the short term, the House of the Wolf for the long term, or perhaps just go for the Sentinel Outpost :) I probably wouldn't recommend the Abandoned Asylum unless you are completing one, it's not that great anymore :(

The Daunting Tower is actually a very interesting option after the final changes to it. It now gives 50% attack per piece, and you get a full one from each Daily Special, instead of fragments like you did initially on beta. This means that if you pick up, say, 10 of these, you can get an immediate 500% attack boost for a day. In the right scenario, this could be really powerful. I think the two main use-cases would be to 1) be able to go past max attrition for two days (before / after reset), or to 2) rush through a bunch of the continent map. For example, if you have higher age units but struggle to get through the last maps (for expansions), using a bunch of these while rushing through them (with diamonds, which isn't very expensive with what you get back), you might be able to get through what you otherwise wouldn't have been able to :) Another possible use-case could be +50% attack for 10 days (or however many buildings you get), but I don't think that's worth it personally.

Forge Points:

  • 50 Forge Points: Update: This doesn't seem to be available anymore. End Update Well ... it's Forge Points :P Could be an interesting option on newer worlds. Not sure if this will be available on live or not, will update the guide when/if it is confirmed :)
  • Horror Circus
    • Reasons to get: Very good FP per tile, no roads required. Note: This didn't appear on beta, but as explained here that was most likely a bug.
    • Size: Varies, see video below. (no roads required)
    • *Forge Points:** 6-24 FPs | 1-1.14 per DS | 0.46-0.71 per Tile
    • Other: Happiness, Coin Boost, Attack/Defense Boost for City Defense, Medals
  • Abandoned Asylum Lv9
    • Reasons to get: Decent FP per tile, good secondary reward.
    • Size: 5x5 (road required)
    • *Forge Points:** 11 FPs | 1.22 per DS | 0.4 per Tile (including roads)
    • Other: 16-24% Attack, 20 Goods, Coins, 1 Population, (negative) Happiness
  • Stage of Ages (Lv1)
    • Reasons to get: Best FP per daily special, great secondary rewards
    • Size: 4x4 (road required)
    • Forge Points: 4 FPs | 4 per DS | 0.22 per Tile (including roads)
    • Other: 7-19% Attack, 15 Prev. Age Goods, Population, Happiness
  • House of the Demon (House of Horrors Lv7)
    • Reasons to get: Best fp per tile, small, decent secondary rewards
    • Size: 3x4 (road required)
    • Forge Points: 6 FPs | 0.86 per DS | 0.44 per Tile (including roads)
    • Other: 6-15% Defense (for attacking army), 5 Goods, (negative) Happiness, Population, Coins, Supplies
  • House of the Wolf (House of Horrors Lv7)
    • Reasons to get: Mediocre fps and fps per tile, but good secondary rewards.
    • Size: 3x4 (road required)
    • Forge Points: 4 FPs | 0.57 per DS | 0.30 per Tile (including roads)
    • Other: 6-15% Attack & Defense (for attacking army), 5 Goods, (negative) Happiness, Population, Coins, Supplies
  • Shrine of Knowledge (Lv1)
    • Reasons to get: Honestly ... I wouldn't get this anymore :)
    • Size: 2x2 (road required)
    • Forge Points: 1 FP | 1 per DS | 0.20 per Tile (including roads)
    • Other: Population, Coins

My Recommendations: If you are looking for FP efficiency, last year's Horror Circus set is the best. It wasn't available on Beta, but that was most likely due to a bug, so should be available on live. If it is, this is quite an interesting option for a brand new world if you want to boost your FP production! If you are not interested in that, your best option is the House of the Demon, followed by Abandoned Asylum and even House of the Wolf. If you want a lot of FPs quickly you best option is the Stage of Ages by far, or possibly the 50 Forge Point option if that is still available on live. There are a few other FP buildings as well, but none that I think are worth going for.

Below is a video on the Horror Circus set, FP layouts start at 3:56 :)

Situational:

If none of the buildings above interest you, there are always some situational / nice-to-have items like the Renovation Kit, 6h Mass Supply Rush, and Mass Self-Aid Kit. No Wishing Well (or shrink kit) appeared on beta.

If you are looking for Antiques Dealer fodder, the best option seems to be the Stage of Ages, at 11550 Coins and 15-25 Gems (24h).

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 Halloween Event or the last Archaeology Event, with one minor addition this time around. Let's go over how everything works :)

Currency: Tickets & Tools

The main currency of this event is Tickets, which can be used to buy Tools to use in the minigame. Read more about tools here!

Tickets:

  • Starting: 120
  • Daily Logins: 22*50 = 1100
  • Rush Quests: 30*80 = 2400
  • Daily Quests: 21*140 = 2940
  • Milestone: 333 + 666 = 999
  • Total: 7559 Tickets

Tool Costs:

  • Starting: 7 Candles, 3 Flashlights, 1 Lantern, 1 Orb
  • Individual Costs: Candle = 10 Tickets, Flashlight = 35 Tickets, Lantern = 50 Tickets, Orb = 25 Diamonds
  • Small Bundle: 195 Tickets for 5 Candles, 3 Flashlights, 2 Lanterns
  • Big Bundle: 395 Tickets for 20 Candles, 8 Flashlights, 8 Lanterns

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 behind the fog (by "clearing" away the fog), and to do so as efficiently as possible. You should not clear every fog tile, rather you should use your tools strategically to either 1) clear out visible rewards, 2) reveal as many hidden fog tiles, or 3) move ahead as much as possible. Regarding 3), you clear 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 it.

Tip: You don't actually have to pick up rewards that you have cleared 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!

  • Light Bulbs: Unlocks Grand Prizes. You need 20 Light Bulbs per Grand Prize.
  • Pumpkins: 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 fog! It's almost always worth clearing tiles with tools.
  • Toys: Can be used to start a mini questline for more rewards. See chapter below for more info :)
  • (Joker) Sticker: Stickers for the Calendar. See chapter below for more info :)
  • Avatars/Icons: Make yourself look pretty!

Tools

There are four different Tools: Candles, Flashlights, Lanterns and Orbs. The Orb is a new addition this year, but requires diamonds to be purchased, so for the most part when we talk about Tool we're talking about the three "free" / "main" ones. So, excluding Orbs, when using your Tools you want to keep the number of each tool type roughly balanced in a ratio of 2.5:1:1. So for every Flashlight and Lanterns you have, you should have roughly 2.5 Candles. If you deviate a bit that's absolutely fine, I tend to spend more Candles for example, but you should try staying around that ratio. When it comes to how to use the tools:

Candles can clear 1 fog 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.

Flashlights can clear all tiles in a column (up-down), 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.

Lanterns can clear 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.

Orbs can not clear out any tiles, but will reveal all tiles on the board (see image below). This can be useful when there are a lot of hidden tiles and you're unsure where to go, but because they cost diamonds you probably won't be using these a lot. You start with 1 for free. I will admit that I haven't tested playing with Orbs, so I can't say if they are worth it or not, but I will say that I'm not personally planning on using them. If you are, good luck!

Check out this video to learn more on how to use tools!

Pumpkins

Pumpkins are your way of getting daily specials! There are 3 types of pumpkins: Rotten, Traditional, and Charmed. Each type has 4 different variations, each with different rewards and a different chance of daily specials. As the names suggest, the Rotten Pumpkins are the worst, followed by Traditional and then Charmed. Unlike most events, you can't actually choose which pumpkins you get. Based on testing from this and previous years' events, the distribution of Pumpkins seems to be roughly 55% Rotten, 25% Traditional, and 20% Charmed. This event is usually not great when it comes to Daily Specials, however this year ALL pumpkins received a +5% chance of giving the Daily Special. That's a BIG deal, almost doubling the number of expected Daily Specials! Below you can find a table of all the Pumpkins and their Daily Special chances, for a full list of rewards check out the wiki: https://forgeofempires.fandom.com/wiki/2022_Halloween_Event#Pumpkins

Charmed 15% 15% 15% 15%
Traditional 12% 12% 16%* 12%
Rotten 10% 11% 10% 10%

* Confirmed to be 16% :) This was 16% in-game on beta, but a +5% increase from last year would be 8+5=13%. 13% makes more sense as well considering the other Pumpkins, so my guess is that the 16% is a bug. I will update this after the event has started with the right value :)

Toys

There are a total of 8 different Toys that can be found in the sand. Each Toy starts a small questline of 5 quests, that will give 4*5=20 Tickets and 1 final reward. These rewards are: 100 (+CF Boost) Goods, 5 Blueprints, Extra Large Medals, 100 (+CF Boost) Goods, 2h Mass Supply Rush, 10% Attack Boost Item, 100 (+CF Boost) Goods, and Mad Scientist's Lab. The first 4 Toys are "common", and are the most ... common :P Then you have 3 "silver" Toys, and finally a "gold" Toy. You can get multiples of each Toy, meaning you can complete each Toy multiple times. You can have all individual Toy questlines activated at the same time, but you have to finish a Toy's questline before restarting it.

You can find all the Toy quests here: https://forgeofempires.fandom.com/wiki/2022_Halloween_Event#Collectors_Quest_Lines

If you complete all 8 unique Toys you get the Collectors Reward. This gives 30 Candles, 10 Flashlights, 10 Lanterns, and an Avatar. If you complete 8 more unique Toys, you get the rewards again (excluding the avatar).

In terms of "value", each Collectors Reward is worth roughly 570 Tickets, so if we also include the questline Tickets it's worth around 570 + 8*20 = 730 Tickets.

How many Toys can you expect to get?. Based on my testing, I had to spend around 120-150 Tickets per Toy, using those numbers you should expect to get around 50-65 Toys. So if you complete all of those, you are looking at 1000-1300 additional Tickets, plus 570 for each Collectors Reward you get. You are not guaranteed to get any, but I think it's likely you'll get at least one or two. The image at the top of this section is of my results from beta, after spending 7110 Tickets (less than full free amount).

Completing Toy Quests

Below you can find a table with all the toy quests, and some suggestions on how to complete multiples at the same time! I have color-coded the quests according to which can be completed together. Note that for some of them, while you can complete them together, there are also other options that might be easier to complete.

Kevin Sir Husalot Secret Steve Mr Tickles Betty Lou Annabella Trixiebelle Psychopomp Pete
Q1 Kill 10-48 Units OR Simple Nego Build Production (1/2) Spend 12-48 FPs 2-12 15min Prods Small Army OR Moderate Nego Gain Population Spend 18-72 FPs (Build 1 Cur. Goods OR Get Goods) AND Pay Coins
Q2 Build Residential (1/2) Spend 12-48 FPs AND Pay Supplies Very Small Army OR Simple Nego Build Decorations (4/5) AND Pay Coins 5 Incidents OR 10 Current Age Productions Spend 18-72 FPs AND Get Supplies 2-12 4h Prods AND Pay Supplies Spend 24-96 FPs AND Get Supplies
Q3 Spend 12-48 FPs Small Army OR Simple Nego Build Culture (1/2) AND Get Supplies Very Small Army OR Simple Nego Spend 18-72 FPs AND Get Goods Small Army OR Moderate Nego Sell 5 AD OR Get Goods Medium Army OR Moderate Nego
Q4 (V. Small Army OR Simp. Nego) AND Buy 5 FPs Visit 15 Taverns OR Kill 10-48 Units Recruit Units (4/5) Spend 12-48 FPs AND Buy 5 FPs (Aid 40 Times OR Moderate Nego) AND Pay Supplies 2-14 1h Prods AND Pay Coins (Small Army OR Mod. Nego) AND Aid 10 Times 2 Tavern Boosts OR Win 3-8 Battles w/o Loosing
Q5 2-12 4h Prods AND Pay Coins (Sell 2 AD OR Get Goods) AND Pay Coins (4 Incidents OR Get Goods) AND Pay Supplies (Get OR Donate Goods) AND Pay Supplies Win 3-8 Battles w/o Losing OR Gain Happiness Acquire 1-2 Sectors OR 2-12 24h Prods Win 3-12 Battles OR Donate Goods Scout Province OR Medium Army

A few notes:

  • For quests that has either current or previous age requirements (build buildings, recruit units), the requirements are noted as (current/previous)
  • "Small Army", "Moderate Nego" etc means either win a "small" army or complete "moderate" negotiation, etc
  • Where there are both "AND" and "OR" requirements, I've used brackets to seperate out each part that needs to be completed.

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 Stickers. The first time you pick up a Sticker on a given day, you will complete that day's slot, and get a small reward. Any subsequent Stickers you pick up that day will instead be Joker Sticker. With 5 Jokers 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 Tarot Card Caravans Selection Kits
  • Haunted Tree (new "limited" building)
  • 200 Forge Points
  • 100 Goods
  • Morrigan Avatar

To see the rewards as they appeared on beta, check out the fandom wiki: https://forgeofempires.fandom.com/wiki/2022_Halloween_Event/Beta#Calendar_Daily_Rewards

Based on my testing I got a Sticker every 320-340 Tickets, which means you should be able to get around 20-25 Stickers from the free Tickets, with a few more if you also get Tickets from Toys / incidents. Each day you can also get 1 Sticker shard from one of the daily challenges, for an additional (up to) 20/5 = 4 daily Stickers. This means that if you want to go for it, you should be able to complete the calendar. More on that here

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. All of these can 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 Toys (if you plan to do them).
  • If going for the Calendar, you should pick up most if not all Stickers.

So, what are the differences?

  1. Grand Prizes: Focus on Light Bulbs by ignoring Pumpkins (only pick up incidental ones)
  2. Daily Specials: Focus on Pumpkins by ignoring Light Bulbs (only pick up incidental ones)
  3. Everything: Dig up every treasure! (Perhaps excluding Avatars and/or Toys/Stickers if you're not doing Toys/Calendar).

Here are some video examples of how each of these strategies work in practice!

It's difficult to put numbers on which is best, but based on my testing I got these numbers:

Strategy Tickes per Light Bulb Tickets per Pumpkin
Focusing on Grand Prizes 19 64
Focusing on Daily Specials 25 43
Going for Everything 20 45

So as you can see, I actually got very similar amount of Pumpkins 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.

Personally I am planning to go for strategy 2, focusing all out on Pumpkins. Will doing so cause any problems completing the main building? Let's explore that!

Can you get Tarot Card Caravans fully leveled for free?

In order to get the main building fully leveled, you need 12 levels, 3 of which you get from milestones, which means you need 9 from Grand Prizes and/or Calendar. That means you need:

  • 17 Grand Prizes (340 Light Bulbs) without the Calendar, or
  • 13 Grand Prizes (260 Light Bulbs) with the Calendar.

I will be using my numbers from above, but please keep in mind the results will most likely be different for you. If you play better than me you'll get better numbers, if you're not as comfortable with the minigame you'll probably get worse numbers, and of course luck also plays a part. So choose your strategy accordingly, if you don't feel as comfortable I would play it more safe, if you feel confident you can go all out!

For the comparisons, I will use two different number of tickets. First, the 7559 free tickets from quests/milestones. Then I will use 9000 tickets, which assumes a decent amount of toys completed / tickets from incidents.

Strategy (7559 Tickets) Light Bulbs Grand Prizes Progress for Next
Focusing on Grand Prizes 7559/19 = 398 19 18/20
Focusing on Daily Specials 7559/25 = 302 15 2/20
Going for Everything 7559/20 = 378 18 18/20
Strategy (9000 Tickets) Light Bulbs Grand Prizes Progress for Next
Focusing on Grand Prizes 9000/19 = 474 23 14/20
Focusing on Daily Specials 9000/25 = 360 18 0/20
Going for Everything 9000/20 = 450 22 10/20

Looking at the numbers above, it should be very easy to get the required 17 Grand Prizes, so the Calendar is not required. Even if you focus on Daily Specials, 7-800 tickets from toys / incidents (which is very possible) should be enough to get above the 17 Grand Prizes required, if you get similar numbers to me.

So what do I recommend? This depends on three things, A) do you feel confident in your abilities to play the minigame, B) are you planning to do toys quests, and C) are you planning to go for more than 1 Tarot Card Caravans? If your answer is "Yes" to A and B, and "No" to C, I would go for Strategy 2: Focus on Daily Specials. That should allow you to get as many daily specials as possible, while still completing a full Tarot Card Caravans. If your answer is "No" to A or B, or "Yes" to C, I would go for Strategy 3: Going for Everything. This gives you more safety in regards to getting the Tarot Card Caravans fully leveled, it makes getting more of them cheaper, and you also don't lose out on too many Daily Specials. I do not recommend going for Strategy 1: Focus on Grand Prizes, I see no good reason to do so in this event with the stats of the Tarot Card Caravans compared to Daily Specials.

Should you go for the Calendar?

In my opinion you should not go for the Calendar. It is possible to complete for sure, but it's not required for the main building, and I think it is worth more focusing on the daily specials you want. Going for the calendar you have to spend tickets over a lot of different days, so you can't focus on the ones you are interested in. Considering that this year you can actually get a lot of daily specials, this is an even bigger deal.

If you still want to complete the calendar, my recommendation is to go for the Daily Sticker 16-17 days, then get the remaining 4-5 from Joker Stickers. You will get 20/5 = 4 Stickers from Daily Challenges, which means if you play 17 Days you will get the remaining stickers that way. You should also be able top play 16 days, and pick up 5 additional joker stickers from the minigame. Playing for 15 days would require 10 joker stickers from the minigame, which should also be possible, but not guaranteed. It's quite old now and from the Archaeology event, but the explanation of going for the Calendar I present here is still accurate: https://youtu.be/OBPRSp56kuY?t=577

How many Daily Specials can you expect?

As mentioned above, all Pumpkins received a +5% Daily Special chance this year, which is a huge deal! If we assume pumpkins are 55% Rotten, 25% Traditional and 20% Charming, that brings the average chance up from 6.7% last year to 11.7% this year (assuming Traditional Pumpkin #3 has a 13% chance, 11.9% if it's actually 16%).

I've written a small simulation down below to create a distribution of daily specials, here are the average number of expected Daily Specials with 7559 / 9000 Tickets:

  1. Focusing on Grand Prizes: 13.8 / 16.4 Daily Specials (with 7559 / 9000 Tickets)
  2. Focusing on Daily Specials: 20.5 / 24.5 Daily Specials (with 7559 / 9000 Tickets)
  3. Going for Everything: 19.6 / 23.4 Daily Specials (with 7559 / 9000 Tickets)

As you can see, all of a sudden this event has become a very good event to get Daily Specials from!

If you can't use the simulator you can use this link: https://trinket.io/embed/python3/01845db063

Diamond Spending Costs

There are three Ticket Packages you can buy:

  • 200 Diamonds: 50 Tickets | 4 Diamonds / Ticket
  • 700 Diamonds: 180 Tickets | 3.89 Diamonds / Ticket
  • 1995 Diamonds: 625 Tickets | 3.19 Diamonds / Tickets

For simplicity's sake, let's use 20 Tickets / Light Bulb. You need 24 Grand Prizes per additional Tarot Card Caravans:

  • Cost per Grand Prize: 20*20 = 400*3.19 = 1276 Diamonds per Grand Prize
  • Cost for each additional building: 24*1276 = 30624

So around 30k per additional full building. However, if you also do Toys this price will drop down quite a bit. You will probably get around 3 toys per Grand Prize you complete, which is 60 Tickets back every 400 you spend. That means you need 13% less initial tickets, so instead of 400 it's 348 tickets per Grand Prize. Using that number instead:

  • Cost per Grand Prize w/Toys: 348*3.19 = 1110 Diamonds per Grand Prize
  • Cost for each additional building: 24*1110 = 26642

So a reduction in around 4k diamonds. Additionally, each full Toy set you complete you get 570 tickets worth of Tools, which will lower the price with a further 1.8k. So probably around 23-25k diamonds per additional Tarot Card Caravans.

Additionally, with toys from the free tickets you spend, you are probably looking at a further reduction of over 2k tickets, so another 6k plus diamonds lower. Meaning a second Tarot Card Caravans might not cost more than 17-20k diamonds

As for Daily Specials, if we use the 11.7% average chance of daily special per Pumpkin, you need around 8.5 Pumpkins per daily special. So using my numbers for Tickets per Pumpkin from above:

  1. Focusing on Grand Prizes: 64*8.5 = 544 Tickets = 544*3.19 = 1735 Diamonds per Daily Special
  2. Focusing on Daily Specials: 43*8.5 = 366 Tickets = 366*3.19 = 1167 Diamonds per Daily Special
  3. Going for Everything: 45*8.5 = 383 Tickets = 383*3.19 = 1222 Diamonds per Daily Special

That's not great, but not too bad either.

So, over all this is an alright event to spend diamonds on, but I would probably save them for a future 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!