2024 Wildlife Event Guide!
Hello! My name is MooingCat and welcome to my minigame tutorial and event strategies for the 2024 Wildlife Event! In this guide I will go through all the rewards you can get in this event, I'll guide you through the mechanics of the minigame, and go over strategies on how to get the most out of the event!
You can also check out my videos on the event:
Table of Contents
Event Rewards
Let's start by quickly looking at the rewards, because there are some really good ones this event!
If you want to check out all the new buildings in my sortable table, you can use this short link: https://mooingcatguides.com/wildlife-buildings-24
Main Building: Flamingo Habitat
The Flamingo Habitat is a 5x4 building with 13 levels. As usual, you need a silver and golden upgrade for the final upgrades.
Note: Where values depend on age, they will be displayed as "BA-SAT" values.
Flamingo Habitat Level 11:
- Size: 5x4 (road required)
- Happiness
- 13-23 Forge Points (0.59-1.05 per tile)
- 40-60 Goods (1.82-2.73 per tile)
- 5 Fragments for Flamingo Habitat Silver Upgrade Kit (150 required = 30 days)
- 10-15% Attack for Attacking Army (0.45-0.68 per tile)
- 10-15% Attack for Attacking Army in GBG (0.45-0.68 per tile)
- 15-20% Defense for Attacking Defense (0.68-0.91 per tile)
- 15-20% Defense for Attacking Defense in GBG (0.68-0.91 per tile)
When upgraded to level 12 with the silver upgrade kit, the building turns into the Serene Flamingo Habitat:
Flamingo Habitat Level 12: Serene Flamingo Habitat
- Size: 5x4 (road required)
- Happiness
- 15-25 Forge Points (0.68-1.15 per tile)
- 50-70 Goods (2.27-3.18 per tile)
- 5 Fragments for Flamingo Habitat Golden Upgrade Kit (150 required = 30 days)
- Random chance:
- 67%: 3 Fragments of Habitat Journey Selection Kit (100 required = 50 days)
- 33%: 3 Fragments of Alligator Swamp Upgrade Kit (100 required = 100 days)
- 15-20% Attack for Attacking Army (0.68-0.91 per tile)
- 15-20% Attack for Attacking Army in GBG (0.68-0.91 per tile)
- 20-25% Defense for Attacking Defense (0.91-1.14 per tile)
- 20-25% Defense for Attacking Defense in GBG (0.91-1.14 per tile)
When upgraded to level 13 with the golden upgrade kit, the building turns into the Serene Flamingo Paradise:
Flamingo Habitat Level 13: Serene Flamingo Paradise
- Size: 5x4 (road required)
- Happiness
- 17-27 Forge Points (0.77-1.23 per tile)
- 60-80 Goods (2.73-3.64 per tile)
- Random chance:
- 50%: 6 Fragments of Habitat Journey Selection Kit (100 required = 33 days)
- 25%: 6 Fragments of Tepir Trails Upgrade Kit (100 required = 66.7 days)
- 25%: 6 Fragments of Alligator Swamp Upgrade Kit (100 required = 66.7 days)
- 20-25% Attack for Attacking Army (0.91-1.14 per tile)
- 20-25% Attack for Attacking Army in GBG (0.91-1.14 per tile)
- 25-30% Defense for Attacking Defense (1.14-1.36 per tile)
- 25-30% Defense for Attacking Defense in GBG (1.14-1.36 per tile)
For a full comparison with other buildings check out my sortable table!
If you play GBG, the attack boosts are quite nice. Otherwise it's a bit underwhelming compared to other recent buildings. Otherwise the building is quite good, gives a decent amount of goods and forge points, and fragments for 2 more new buildings, the Tapir Trails and Alligator Swamp:
New Buildings: Tapir Trails and Alligator Swamp
As you can see in the chapter above, the main building produces fragments for 2 small new buildings, the Tapir Trails (2 levels) and Alligator Swamp (2 levels)! Both of these are quite good, one for attack for both your armies, the other for defense for both your armies. They also have very nice productions!
You get the level 1 buildings from the Habitat Journy Selection Kit, and then upgraded with the individual upgrade kits.
Tapir Trails (level 2)
- Size: 2x1 (NO road required)
- Requirement: 30 to 2000 Population
- 2-4 Forge Points (1-2 per tile)
- 6-8 Goods (3-4 per tile)
- Random chance:
- 75%: 2 300% Defense for Attacking Army Boost Fragments
- 25%: 4 300% Defense for Attacking Army Boost Fragments
- Average: 2.5 per day. 15 required = 6 days.
- 5-7% Attack for Attacking Army (2.5-3.5 per tile)
- 7-9% Attack for Defending Army (3.5-4.5 per tile)
Alligator Swamp (level 2)
- Size: 2x3 (road required)
- Requirement: 110 to 7000 Population
- 8-13 Forge Points (1.14-1.86 per tile)
- 40 Goods (5.72 per tile)
- 30 Guild Goods (4.29 per tile)
- 30-35% Defense for Attacking Army (4.29-5.0 per tile)
- 37-42% Defense for Defending Army (5.29-6.0 per tile)
New Buildings: Daily Specials
We also have 3 new daily special buildings :O
Raccoon Hideout (Level 1)
- Size: 2x1 (NO road required)
- Coins, 40 to 2800 Population
- 10-14 Previous Age Goods (5.0-7.0 per tile)
- 5-7 Goods (2.5-3.5 per tile)
- 1 Rogue (0.5 per tile)
- 2-3% Attack for Attacking Army (1.0-1.5 per tile)
- 2-3% Attack for Defending Army (1.0-1.5 per tile)
- 2% Attack for Attacking Army in GBG (1.0 per tile)
- 2% Attack for Defending Army in GE (1.0 per tile)
Giant Kapok (level 1)
- Size: 2x2 (road required)
- 100 to 6000 Population
- 3-5 Forge Points (0.6-1.0 per tile)
- 16-18 Goods (3.2-3.6 per tile)
- 6-8% Attack for Defending Army (1.2-1.6 per tile)
- 10-12% Defense for Defending Army (2.0-2.4 per tile)
- 3% Attack for Defending Army in GE (0.6 per tile)
- 3% Defense for Defending Army in GE (0.6 per tile)
Blood Lilies (level 2)
- Size: 1x1 (road required)
- 20 to 1500 Population
- 2 Forge Point (1.33 per tile)
- 5 Guild Goods (3.33 per tile)
- 1-2% Attack for Attacking Army (0.67-1.33 per tile)
- 2-3% Defense for Attacking Army (1.33-2.0 per tile)
- 2% Attack for Attacking Army in GE (1.33 per tile)
- 2% Defense for Attacking Army in GE (1.33 per tile)
New Building: Gold League
The final new building is a Gold League exclusive building, the Garden of Eternal Dreams
Garden of Eternal Dreams
- Size: 4x5 (no road required)
- 80 Forge Points (4.0 per tile)
- 140 Goods (7.0 per tile)
- Random chance:
- 86%: 20 Fragments of Flamingo Habitat Selection Kit (150 required = 8.7 days, 96 days for 11 levels)
- 7%: 20 Fragments of Flamingo Habitat Silver Upgrade Kit (150 required = 107 days)
- 7%: 20 Fragments of Flamingo Habitat Golden Upgrade Kit (150 required = 107 days)
- 100% Attack for Attacking Army (5.0 per tile)
- 100% Defense for Attacking Army (5.0 per tile)
Grand Prizes & Milestones
To get the main building fully leveled you need at least 450 progress towards grand prizes. This will give you 1 upgrade from Milestones, level 1 + 9 regular upgrade kits from grand prizes, plus 50 silver upgrade kit fragments. If you reach 550 progress you'll get the new golden upgrade kit for the Animal Crossing!
If you get to 700 progress you will get all the 150 silver upgrade fragments you need, though as mentioned the level 11 building will produce these. If you get to 900 progress, you will get all 150 golden upgrade fragments, but again you will also get these from the level 12 building.
The Grand Prizes will first have a few unique rewards, before it starts looping between 475 and 1000 progress.
| Progress | Rewards (Unique) |
|---|---|
| 0 | Flamingo Habitat Level 1 |
| 25 | 50 Forge Points |
| 50 | Flamingo Habitat Upgrade Kit |
| 75 | 1 Minigame Ticket |
| 100 | Flamingo Habitat Upgrade Kit |
| 125 | 200 Goods |
| 150 | Flamingo Habitat Upgrade Kit |
| 175 | Finish Special Production |
| 200 | Flamingo Habitat Upgrade Kit |
| 225 | 250 Previous Age Goods |
| 250 | Flamingo Habitat Upgrade Kit |
| 275 | 50 Silver Flamingo Habitat Upgrade Fragments |
| 300 | Flamingo Habitat Upgrade Kit |
| 325 | 1 Minigame Ticket |
| 350 | Flamingo Habitat Upgrade Kit |
| 375 | Portrait |
| 400 | Flamingo Habitat Upgrade Kit |
| 425 | 250 Previous Age Goods |
| 450 | Flamingo Habitat Upgrade Kit |
| Progress | Rewards (Looping) |
|---|---|
| 475 | Flamingo Habitat Level 1 |
| 500 | 50 Silver Flamingo Habitat Upgrade Fragments |
| 525 | Flamingo Habitat Upgrade Kit |
| 550 | Animal Crossing Golden Upgrade Kit |
| 575 | Flamingo Habitat Upgrade Kit |
| 600 | 50 Gold Flamingo Habitat Upgrade Fragments |
| 625 | Flamingo Habitat Upgrade Kit |
| 650 | 300 Previous Age Goods |
| 675 | Flamingo Habitat Upgrade Kit |
| 700 | 50 Silver Flamingo Habitat Upgrade Fragments |
| 725 | Flamingo Habitat Upgrade Kit |
| 750 | Finish Special Production |
| 775 | Flamingo Habitat Upgrade Kit |
| 800 | 50 Gold Flamingo Habitat Upgrade Fragments |
| 825 | Flamingo Habitat Upgrade Kit |
| 850 | 300 Previous Age Goods |
| 875 | Flamingo Habitat Upgrade Kit |
| 900 | 50 Gold Flamingo Habitat Upgrade Fragments |
| 925 | Flamingo Habitat Upgrade Kit |
| 950 | Finish Special Production |
| 975 | Flamingo Habitat Upgrade Kit |
| 1000 | One Up Kit |
Daily Specials
There are a lot of daily specials that can be considered good, so for a complete list check out the fandom wiki ("list of possible Switched Prizes"). Below are a select few of my top recommendations:
- Mountain Reserve/Epic Wildlife Kit: Still a really good building for attack, and you get a decent amount per daily special.
- Blood Lilies: Very decent attack, especially for GBG. Only downside is the size and road requirement.
- Raccoon Hideout: A good mix of attack, defense and productions. Especially for newer players, the rogue production is really nice. A few of these in a new city and you're fighting will be much easier until you get yourself a Traz!
- Governor's Villa: Still a good mix of attack, production and units.
- Insect Hotel: A nice and small production building for current age production quests - though probably not worth it if you have Jumpin' Pumpkins.
You can compare all the available buildings from daily specials in my sortable table. For all available event buildings + daily specials, you can use the following link: https://mooingcatguides.com/wildlife-buildings
Leagues
This event has a league system based on points you get from breaking blocks and collecting Chests (chests) and Paws.
The points required on beta are not usually a good estimate for live servers.
New this year is that you get the Apprentice reward in Professional league, and both Apprentice and Professional rewards in Zoologist leagues.
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 on the fandom wiki. 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 - Minigame Tutorial!
The event mechanics are quite similar to the previous wildlife events and the latest fall event, but with a few minor changes! If you have played the Wildlife Event before you should have a good understanding of how it works. It can still be quite a difficult minigame to play at times, so here is my tutorial on the minigame!
Currency: Tickets & Coins
This event has two "currencies". You need "Tickets" to play the minigame, and within the minigame you have a few different ways to spend "Coins" to help you out.
Coins:
- Starting: 200
- Daily Logins: 30*15 = 450
- Rush Quests: 20*10 = 200
- Daily Quests: 20*20 = 400
- Milestone: 100+150
- Total: 1500 Coins
You can also get Coins from Incidents and Daily Challenges.
Coins Diamond Costs:
- 100 Coins for 150 Diamonds
- 400 Coins for 500 Diamonds
- 2000 Coins for 2400 Diamonds
You generate a free Ticket every 8 hours, but only as long as you have less than 4 already. So in order to play as many games as possible, you need to play at least 3 games every day.
Tickets:
- Starting: 4
- Rush Quests: 10
- Daily Quests: 10
- Grand Prizes: 2 (for free)
- Free Daily Tickets: up to 3*30 - 1 = 89
- Rival Challenges: probably around 3x10 (changes have been announced, we will have to see during live how many you can get)
- Total: up to 115 Tickets + Rival Challenges
New this year is the Rival Challenges (Mini Challenges), where you can get tickets. On Beta you could get 10 tickets each from the 3 Rival Quests that were active, but changes have been announced so this might be different on live. You might also struggle to complete all, so I have not included these in the total number of tickets. More on the Rival Challenges later on!
As has become standard now, this event also has "Golden Tickets", more on those in the next chapter! You can get 3 of these from Milestones, from Rival Challenges (most likely), and a very small chance from Daily Challenges (0.6 Golden Tickets on average for the entire event)
Tickets Diamond Costs:
- 1 Ticket for 200 Diamonds
- 4 Tickets for 750 Diamonds
- 10 Tickets for 1800 Diamonds
Starting a Board (Regular + Golden Tickets)
To start playing the minigame, you must use a "Ticket" by pressing the "Start" button. Once used, you will have 25 free moves (or "pops") on the generated board.
In addition to regular tickets there are special "Golden Tickets". These are a very rare, but also very powerful. After activating one, you can start as many boards as you want within a 5 minute time limit, no regular Tickets required. This is definitely hectic, but if you know what you're doing you can get a lot out of it! In the past I usually managed 5 or even 6 games, and from those I got around 20 "paws" each! It's worth keeping in mind that you only have to start a board within the 5 minute time window for it to be free, so for the final game you can spend as much time as you want. During the 5 minute period, my recommendation is to play fast and suboptimally, it's better to start as many games as possible. Go for the low-hanging fruits, don't spend lots of time thinking about the best moves!
Pro Tip: On browser, you can cancel the block-dropping animation and collect all the chests at once by clicking anywhere outside the minigame window. This will immediately close the window and you will get all reward popups at once, then when you re-enter the minigame all the animations are completed. Animations take a lot of time when you have a 5 minute time window, so it can definitely be worth doing when you are using a Golden Ticket. To get the absolute most out of this, you should try making big groups of rewards that drop down with a single pop, then you can "skip" all at once. However, if you spend a lot of time figuring this out, you might lose the time you save. Also, when using this trick you can't see the blocks for a few seconds, so it might take more time to figure out your next move. So my recommendation is to try it when using Tickets, practice, to see how you feel about it and if it will actually save you time in the end!
Example from Fall Event.
Popping Blocks (Paws + Chests)
The main goal of the minigame is to "pop" blocks to collect Paws and Chests. Any group of 2 or more blocks of the same color can be popped. In total there are 5 different colors, however only 4 will be available on each board. This is a huge change from last year's Wildlife event, and it will make the minigame a lot easier to play! Blocks above the popped blocks will drop down to fill the now empty spaces, and new random blocks will spawn from the top. Each time a new block spawns, it has a low chance of being a Paw.
If you pop groups of 5 or more blocks you create a Chest, which you can collect to get rewards, including a chance for the Daily Special. The Daily Special chance increases based on the size of the group of blocks, for a full list of rewards check out the fandom wiki. In total there are 6 "tiers" of Chests:
- 5 Blocks = 1 Star Chest (2% Daily Special Chance)
- 6 Blocks = 2 Stars Chest (3% Daily Special Chance)
- 7 Blocks = 3 Stars Chest (4% Daily Special Chance)
- 8 Blocks = 4 Stars Chest (5% Daily Special Chance)
- 10 Blocks = 5 Stars Chest (6% Daily Special Chance)
- 15 Blocks = 6 Stars Chest (16% Daily Special Chance)
Note: Daily Special Chances not confirmed yet.
The 6-star Chests have a really high chance of giving the Daily Special, so you should definitely aim to generate these. It can be a bit challenging at times, but with the limitation of only 4 colors on each board, it's actually not that difficult to generate a few of these on each board.
To collect Paws and Chests you must drop them all the way to the bottom of the board.
Extra Moves
At the end of each board, you can choose to finish the board, or spend 65 Coins to buy 5 additional moves, down from 10 moves in past events. Even with the nerf, my recommendation is to spend most or even all of your Coins on these additional moves.
You have 1500 Coins, which spread over 115 games is 13 per game. In other words, you can spend 65 Coins for additional moves every 5 games. This is not including any Coins you get from Incidents and Daily Challenges. That doesn't mean you should only spend every 5th game, but that's roughly how frequently you can spend. And it also doesn't mean you should limit yourself to buying 5 moves after a game, if you think an additional 5 will help.
Boosters
If you are stuck, you can use special Boosters to help you out, without using up any moves. The Boosters have been slightly changed from the previous events:
- Hammer: Removes any 1 block.
- (NEW) Leafy Line: Removes all blocks in the selected row (left to right), excluding Paws/Chests.
- Lightning: Removes all blocks of the chosen color.
You start the event with 5 Hammers, 2 Leafy Lines, and 1 Lightning.
You start with a limited number of these, and the cost of buying more really isn't worth it. The Booster Packs are too expensive, with the biggest one costing almost 100% of your free Coins. If you really feel like a Booster will be useful you could consider buying an individual one, but it's worth considering the alternative first by looking at how many moves you could buy for the same prize:
- Hammer: 60 Coins = 4.6 Moves
- Leafy Line: 85 Coins = 6.5 Moves
- Lightning: 110 Coins = 8.5 Moves
For reference, the Booster Packs are (you get 1500 free Coins (excluding Incidents/Daily Challenges)):
- 660 Coins: 6 Hammers, 4 Leafy Lines, 2 Lightnings
- 1230 Coins: 16 Hammers, 8 Leafy Lines, 6 Lightnings
Rival Challenges
The newly introduced Rival Challenges (Mini Challenges) returns this event! In total 3 Questlines will be during the event, all with the same quests. When they appear and which quests they have are unknown, but you can see the rewards and quests as they appeared on beta here: https://forgeofempires.fandom.com/wiki/2024_Wildlife_Event#Rival_Challenges
Note that we do know the quests and rewards will be changed, but all 3 questlines during the event should be the same.
As can be seen on beta, each questline provided a lot of good rewards, including 10 tickets, 3 golden tickets,coins and boosters. More info to come when the first Rival Challenges is launched on the live server!
Minigame Guide
For a video tutorial of how the minigame works, and some general tips on how to play it, check out my minigame guide video from the previous Wildlife Event! I am planning on making an updated version as well, but in the meantime this should give you a good idea :)
Event Strategies
Alright, let's talk about strategies. For this event there isn't actually a lot of strategy involved, most of the challenges of this event come from actually playing the minigame well. The main strategy choice comes down to when you play the minigame, so let's talk about that. Just as a reminder, you need 450 progress to get the Flamingo Habitat to level 11, so that will be the target for my analysis here.
When should you play the Minigame?
First of all, you should always play at least 3 boards per day! As mentioned, you get a free Ticket every 8 hours, but only if you have fewer than 4 at hand. This means that you always want to use at least 3 per day to ensure you always generate these free Tickets. These Tickets account for over 3/4 of your total Tickets, and depending on how well you play a lot of them will be required to get the main building fully leveled. If you want to maximize the number of Tickets you can spend on a given day you should try to have 3 ready when the daily special resets, but as this is midnight it might not work for your sleep schedule. If you can't spend at midnight, I recommend spending all your Tickets at roughly the same time of day each day, for example in the afternoon each day, so that you can generate the free Tickets during the night/next morning.
You do still have 20 Tickets from quests and 2 Tickets from grand prizes that you can control when you want to use. My recommendation is to use these on daily special(s) you want, which means only completing the quests during those days. There are a lot of good daily specials this event and some some will appear multiple times, so this doesn't mean you have to do all these tickets on the same day.
How should you spend Coins?
Another common question is when to spend your Coins. I strongly recommend spending most of them on additional moves - buying boosters is simply too expensive. As mentioned, the top booster pack costs almost all of your free Coins, which means you can only really buy it during the final days of the event... If you are out of free boosters and you think a booster can really be valuable on your current board, you could buy it individually, but for the most part, I think additional moves are more valuable.
So, if you plan on buying additional moves, how often can you do it? As mentioned earlier, roughly once every 5 boards on average. If you really think buying 5 moves is valuable, then go for it (and you can do it more than once per board)! If you run out of Coins towards the end it sucks of course, but at least you got good value for it earlier on.
In general, I recommend buying additional moves when doing so can get you 2+ Paws. I suggest that you keep a rough track of how much you've spent compared to the number of games you've played, and then you can adjust how frequently you buy additional moves going forward :)
Can you get the Flamingo Habitat fully leveled for free?
To get the Flamingo Habitat fully leveled you need to collect 450 Paws. For free you can around 115 Tickets, which means you need 450/115 = 3.9 Paws per game to get there. Well, that's if you ignore the 3 free Golden Tickets you can get. Based on my play on Beta, I was able to get around 20 Paws for each Golden Ticket, or 60 Paws in total. Let's be a bit more conservative and use an estimate of 40 Paws from Golden Tickets. That brings down the required Paws per game (from Tickets) to 410/115 = 3.6. Both 3.9 and 3.6 Paws per game are definitely possible, but it does require that you play at least decently well. Below is a table of how many Paws you will pick up at a few different Paws/game numbers (excluding Golden Ticket).
| Paws / Board (Excluding Golden Tickets) | 2 | 2.5 | 3 | 3.5 | 4 | 4.5 | 5 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Boards | 115 | 115 | 115 | 115 | 115 | 115 | 115 |
| Total Paws | 230 | 288 | 345 | 403 | 460 | 518 | 575 |
| Missing/Excess Paws | -220 | -162 | -105 | -47 | +10 | +68 | +125 |
Of course, this doesn't include any tickets you get from Rival Challenges. On Beta you could get 10 tickets and 3 golden ticket per questline, plus coins and boosters. So if you are able to complete all the quests, you're probably looking at 100 or more paws per questline. There are 3 of them during the event, so possibly 300 total paws if you complete all. This will be challenging, but even if you don't do all you should be able to pick up a few tickets, coins and boosters per rivals. So if you want extra safety, do as many quests here as you are able to complete.
How many Daily Specials can you expect?
If the daily special chances are the same as during the last Fall event, my estimate is around 1 daily special every 2 boards. How accurate this is I don't know, but I know that this event is a good one for daily specials. If we're using the once every other estimate, that's 57-58 daily specials during the event. A big downside is that you have to spend a lot on days when the daily special doesn't interest you, but when you get a daily special you want you can get a decent amount of them.
Diamond Spending Costs
It can be a bit tricky to estimate, but let's give it a go! You need 525 Paws per additional Flamingo Habitat, so let's look at the cost for different Paws/board numbers. I recommend spending most of your diamonds on Tickets, so as a reminder here are the Ticket costs:
- 1 Ticket for 200 Diamonds
- 4 Tickets for 750 Diamonds
- 10 Tickets for 1800 Diamonds
If you plan to buy Tickets for 2+ Flamingo Habitats, it might also be beneficial to buy some Coins, but I would probably not spend more than 2.4k diamonds for 2000 Coins. So you could add that number to the table below, though keep in mind with those extra Coins your Paws / game should increase as well.
| Paws / Board | 2 | 2.5 | 3 | 3.5 | 4 | 4.5 | 5 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Paws | 525 | 525 | 525 | 525 | 525 | 525 | 525 |
| Boards | 263 | 210 | 175 | 150 | 132 | 117 | 105 |
| Diamonds | 47.6k | 37.8k | 31.6k | 27.0k | 23.8k | 21.6k | 19.0k |
As for daily specials, with the estimate of 1 per 2 Tickets, the cost would be around 360 diamonds per daily special, which is a really good price! If you feel comfortable with the minigame, I can absolutely recommend spending diamonds for additional Tickets to get more daily specials!
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!
Table of Contents
- Table of Contents
- Event Rewards
- Quest "Cheat List"
- Event Mechanics - Minigame Tutorial!
- Event Strategies!
- Diamond Spending Costs
- Comments
