Artifacts
Artifacts are one-of-a-kind relics, devices and Great People (famous people) found in ruins, offered by tribal villages, looted from warlord camps and turned up by a city's Great People points. Each carries effects; slotted into a city, those effects apply there like a building's.
Finding them
- Ruins, village events and camp events can hand over an artifact. The roll walks the pool from the rarest artifact to the commonest, each getting its own chance in turn, so the rare ones stay rare.
- Some event choices promise a particular kind, a Great Person or a relic, and only that kind can come of them.
- Tribal villages deal in relics: a village event that offers an artifact offers a relic, never a Great Person. Great People come from warlord camps, ruins and a city's Great People points.
- A city's specialists and some wonders earn Great People points; when its bar fills it turns up a Great Person, a device or a relic of its own (Specialists and Great People).
- A relic is one of a kind: once anyone has found it, nobody can find it again. A reward that promised a relic when every relic has been found pays 100 gold instead, more in later ages. Great People and devices are one of a kind within a civilization: nothing hands it one it already has, and a find with nothing left for it pays gold instead too.
- The discovery tells you where an artifact came from: a ruin, a camp or a village, a city's Great People points, or a wonder another civilization finished first.
Using them
- A new artifact goes to your vault. A city's Items tab shows the vault beside that city's slots: drag an artifact into a slot to place it, or out again to move it elsewhere.
- The Great People and Relics window (I, or the Great People tab on the bottom bar, after Trade) lists every artifact you hold: which city it works in, or whether it sits idle in the vault, and what it does.
- Taking a city takes the artifacts slotted in it.
- Every city has 3 artifact slots. Buildings and wonders can add more:
- Buddhist Monastary: Adds +1 artifact slot to this city
- Christian Monastary: Adds +1 artifact slot to this city
- Confucian Monastary: Adds +1 artifact slot to this city
- Hindu Monastary: Adds +1 artifact slot to this city
- Islamic Monastary: Adds +1 artifact slot to this city
- Jewish Monastary: Adds +1 artifact slot to this city
- Taoist Monastary: Adds +1 artifact slot to this city
- An artifact's effects work like a building's: resource bonuses, tile yields, production modifiers, city defense, caravan capacity and relief from overcrowding.
Kinds
- Great People are people who join a city: an architect who hurries wonders, a physician who keeps citizens well.
- Relics and devices are objects kept in a city, with effects that lean on places and things: temples, mines, trade routes.
Common (8) (25% find chance each)
Abacus, Frontinus, Hiawatha, Pytheas, Ribchester Helmet, Shigir Idol, Tlacaelel, Venus of Willendorf
Uncommon (13) (20% find chance each)
Al-Khwarizmi, Code of Hammurabi, Columella, Heavy Plough, Jakob Fugger, Joyeuse, Lion-Man, Phaistos Disc, Shuar Ceremonial Tsantsa, Su Song, Tizona, Water Clock, Yared
Rare (14) (15% find chance each)
Antikythera Mechanism, Astrolabe, Cyrus Cylinder, Kofun Iron Cuirass, Narmer Palette, Nebra Sky Disc, Rosetta Stone, Standard of Ur, Sun Tzu, Sushruta, Sutton Hoo Helmet, Treadwheel Crane, Vitruvius, Zheng He
Epic (6) (8% find chance each)
Archimedes, Bust of Nefertiti, Dead Sea Scrolls, Excalibur, Hypatia, Printing Press