Vain Castle

The new event **Vain Castle** was begun at 12:00 UTC on May 9th, replacing “The Last Autumn” as our new midweek event.

## Before you read

**WARNING!!!** This guide was not written by me, it was written by DraconicEntity and Illinea, you can find some guides in the Discord Server.

## Guides

* **All Heroes are unlocked** for this event. However, the limited sources of Heart of the Land makes Leveling the heroes slower. This has been improved some in the May 23rd VC changes.
* **Tired or Hungry workers suffer a 20% work efficiency penalty** (Formerly 50% penalty) in this event. This value is not displayed by the workshop, but will be noticed by how long the individual worker takes to complete his task (the rate at which the worker's green circle fills per task).
* **Meals are reduced in Vain Castle.** Basic meals will not be enough to sustain the workers. Basic meals cost 10 potatoes and provide only 15 satisfactions.
	+ Chef Tony returns to save the day, in version 1.4.3. Level him up to 20 to improve the quality of the meals.
* **There is no Guard Tower** Workers speeds are set, but have been increased (May 16th 2023) so they are not as slow as they were.
* Vain Points are produced from workshops, similar to Heart of the Land in the greenhouse. They are the currency counting toward milestone and leaderboard progress. The **VP** **BOOST** skill increases all VP output.
* Furniture Tickets are produced at the Castle Arcade, which has replaced Vain Castle's old furnace. Production is increased by upgrading the arcade.
* Furniture Tickets are required now to upgrade the second bar on most resource buildings.
* The **REFURBISHMENT** skill can be used to reduce the cost of building upgrades.

## Continued

* In addition to producing Furniture Tickets, the arcade doubles as a slot machine. Coins earned through completing tasks or claimed in the store can be spent here to earn hearts, skills, and resources from the wheel.
* The "Bonus Bonanza" skill increases the chance that spins in the arcade will earn an additional free spin.
* Heart of the Land is produced by the Greenhouse. Aside from the Greenhouse hearts are earned through Task Completion, and Castle Treasure/Castle Deluxe Treasure Draws. leveling the skill "HEART OF THE LAND" will also increase the number of hearts earned.
* Since the Greenhouse is the *Only* building producing heart of the land, this building is now critically important and should be as staffed as possible at all times.
* Dorms will now require blueprints from the Draw spin to upgrade beyond certain levels. These are walls that must be overcome through either RNG or the paid pack. **The likelihood of getting blueprints from the spin has been increased.**
	+ Dorm 1 requires one to reach level 4 (Max).
	+ Dorm 2 requires one to reach level 3.
	+ Dorm 3 requires one to reach Level 2.
	+ Dorms 4 and above require one just to build the structure.
		- As of the Castle Arcade (v1.4.3) update, the blueprints requirement has been changed.
			* Dorm 1 requires one to reach level 3.
			* Dorm 2 requires one to reach level 2.
			* Dorms 3 or above require one just to build the structure.
				+ Some dorms need even more blueprints to upgrade, like 2, 3 and 4 blueprints to reach max level for Dorms 3 or above.
* Skill books are earned from the arcade slot spinning, or are purchased from the store with the 200 gems skillbook sets (players can buy up to 10 sets of these for a grand total of 2000 gems). The skills earned are random. Due to this random nature, there is no way to optimize or emphasize any skill in particular.

## Update modifications

* Lowered the difficulty of completing several milestone tasks
* Increased probability of obtaining skills
* Reduced the length of time between new survivors arriving
* Increased survivor's walking speed to compensate for lack of Guard Tower.
* Penalties for hungry/tired are reduced to 20% from 50%
* Heroes now require less hearts to upgrade.
* Survivor workstations unlock easier.
* Improving the speed of survivors walking.
* Decreasing the requirements of completing milestones (WP).
* Decreasing the arrival duration of new survivors.
* Decreasing the requirements of upgrading heroes.
* Removing the requirement of upgrading heroes to certain levels to unlock more survivor slots.
* Hunters->potato planting, to easily produce hearts.
* Increasing the possibility of obtaining blueprints

## Strategies

* The first three buildings, Wood, Planks and Iron, can and should be maxed out with **Furniture Tickets**. All three are cheap to upgrade and have a great Vain Points output. Furthermore, Iron will be essential when you get to Oil.
* At the opposite, try to spend as little Furniture Tickets as possible in Coal, Nails and Furnaces. Those buildings become useless once you get to Oil, therefore it's better to save your tickets. Instead, use Hearts to upgrade the heroes of those three buildings to get through them. If you prefer a smoother progression, with less time spent on the game, then use Tickets on those buildings instead of Hearts.
* Once you get to Oil, remove all workers from Coal, Nails and Furnaces and place them in Oil, Iron, Wood and Planks. Those last two have a better VP output, which will give you additional Vain Points while you don't need those workers elsewhere. At this point you should have saved enough Furniture Tickets to upgrade some levels on Oil.
* For the last three buildings, **you need to be careful while upgrading the heroes.** James (Iron) should always be 10 levels higher than Elizabeth (Oil). Louis (Laboratory) should not be above 10 levels higher than Elisabeth, same between Carlos and Louis. If one of them is too high compared to the previous one, your production chain will not be able to keep up, and your workers will not work anymore, **which will decrease the amount of VP you get.**
* Throughout this event, try to spend your coins only when needed. The further you get in the event, the better are the rewards in the Arcade. You need to find a balance between spending coins to get more Blueprints and Skills, and save coins for later.
* Overall, keep in mind that your results in this event are highly based on the skills you'll get in the Arcade. You might not get as far as wanted if you don't get enough VP Boost skills for example.

## Bugs

* Some people's version is still in v1.7.1 even though the current version is v1.7.2, and players are unable to join the event.
	+ This bug has been patched due to new version has already been released.
* When the players are offline, workers are unable to cook food, and during eating time, all survivors will not be able to have a meal.
* When buying the Golden Hammer Booster, there is a bug where it shows an image of Grandpa's Booster from Grandpa's Farm instead of the Golden Hammer in Vain Castle.
* There is currently a bug with the "Repair Race" that if the player gets an extra spin, it doesn't increase the counter.
* There is a glitch where if you complete any task in Vain Castle, it doesn't show you will get 2 fuels before you claim the rewards.
	+ It only shows 2 fuels if you claim the rewards after completing the task.

## Trivia

* This event is the replacement for The Last Autumn, due to the copy of a Frostpunk DLC, also named The Last Autumn. So that's why they get rid of The Last Autumn event.
* After the Harvest Journal update, this event name is now called Relentless Factory.
* The top right castle is actually a reference to City 16 Amusement Park.
* This event short name is called VC, and some users think VC stands for Voice Chat. But it's actually called Vain Castle (In event).