You win artifacts on expeditions, on tiles with a guarded artifact. Every artifact has a type and a rarity: the type says what it strengthens, and the rarity how strongly and how much gold its sale brings.
Treasury
Artifacts are kept in a village's treasury: one for each treasury level (up to 5).
An artifact from an expedition goes to the treasury of the commander's village. If that treasury is full, the artifact is lost.
An artifact works only once it is assigned to a village. Each village has one active artifact, and you can also assign to it an artifact from another village's treasury. A new artifact replaces the previous one in that village.
An occupier takes control of the artifacts in a conquered village's treasury and can use them, but cannot sell, list or discard them. When the village is freed, the artifacts return to their owner.
When production is split between villages, of the two Production artifacts (sending and receiving village) only the higher one applies, not both.
Types and rarity
Artifact
Effect
Normal
Common
Rare
Epic
Legendary
Mythic
Capacity
Warehouse and granary capacity of the village
+50%
+75%
+100%
+200%
+400%
+1,000%
Training
Training speed in the barracks and stable (+100% is twice as fast)
+25%
+50%
+75%
+100%
+150%
+300%
Production
Production of all the village's resources
+30%
+60%
+90%
+120%
+180%
+360%
Upkeep
Army upkeep of the village (food)
−25%
−35%
−45%
−55%
−65%
−85%
Builder
Construction speed in the village (+100% is twice as fast)
+50%
+100%
+200%
+300%
+500%
+1,000%
Speed
March speed of armies leaving the village
+10%
+20%
+30%
+40%
+50%
+100%
War
Attack and defence of armies leaving the village and of its defenders
+10%
+15%
+20%
+25%
+30%
+50%
Quick sale (gold)
300
650
1,000
2,100
5,000
14,000
On later expedition stages rarer artifacts turn up more often:
Chance of each rarity for an artifact won on an expedition.
Stage
Normal
Common
Rare
Epic
Legendary
Mythic
1
54.1%
27.5%
11.7%
5.4%
1.2%
0.1%
2
53.1%
27.1%
12.5%
5.8%
1.4%
0.2%
3
52.3%
26.6%
13.2%
6.2%
1.5%
0.2%
4
51.4%
26.2%
13.9%
6.5%
1.7%
0.3%
5
50.6%
25.7%
14.6%
6.9%
1.8%
0.3%
6
49.8%
25.3%
15.3%
7.2%
2%
0.4%
7
49%
24.9%
15.9%
7.6%
2.1%
0.4%
8
48.2%
24.6%
16.6%
7.9%
2.3%
0.4%
9
47.5%
24.2%
17.2%
8.2%
2.4%
0.5%
Selling and the Market
A quick sale turns an artifact into gold according to its rarity (last row of the types table). The Assaying and Jeweller research raise this amount — see Research.
The artifact Market is available once you have a Treasury and a Market. There you list an artifact for a price in gold of your choice, and other players of the world can buy it.
The seller receives the price minus the market commission. The listing fee is not refunded — neither when you cancel the offer nor when nobody buys. An unsold artifact returns to the treasury when the offer ends.
A listed artifact cannot be assigned to a village or quick-sold — cancel the offer first. An artifact assigned to a village cannot be listed.
A bought artifact goes to the treasury of the chosen village, or, if that one is full, to another treasury with a free place. If all are full, the purchase fails.