Merchant Empire

Three-day caravan event. Dispatch loot wagons, raid rivals, and harvest Artisan's Vision and Charm Guides for Governor Gear progression.

Merchant Empire is a three-day, server-wide PvP-flavoured event where you dispatch loot caravans between outposts and raid other players’ caravans on the way. Successful escorts and successful raids both feed Alliance Brawl points, and both pull loot out of the caravan onto your account.

The headline reward is Artisan’s Vision — the hard bottleneck on Governor Gear upgrades. Outside of expensive packs, this is the cleanest monthly source the game offers.

TL;DR

• Never miss a dispatch. Four caravans a day, three days — every missed slot is ~8% of the event gone
• Check the cargo, not the colour. Artisan’s Vision > Charm Guides > Truegold. Skip Forgehammer caravans — Bear Hunt covers them
• Dispatch 4–6 hours after server reset to avoid the raid spike. One caravan every ~6 hours is the natural rhythm
• Refresh aggressively toward SSR, but use Caravan Vouchers as the default currency. Save gems for the last refresh or two on a near-SSR caravan
• Spend your daily Assisting Squad on your best-cargo caravan, especially overnight. It doesn’t roll over
• Always volunteer assists when alliance members ask — three free per day, no slot cost, free Brawl points

When it runs

Merchant Empire runs for three days, returning roughly once a month and starting right after the Kingdom of Power event week. Escort and raid are both available across all three days.

The event is fused with Alliance Brawl on kingdoms that qualify — Alliance Brawl runs on a longer schedule than Merchant Empire, so the two overlap rather than match exactly. Where Alliance Brawl is not active, Merchant Empire runs standalone with identical mechanics but without the alliance-scoring stake.

How a caravan works

Three actions drive the entire event:

Three rules apply across all of them:

• Caravans take about 3.5 hours one-way. Once dispatched, the cargo is fixed — your only mid-flight lever is defence.
• Each caravan can be raided at most twice, and the combined loss is capped at half its loot. Two fire icons on a caravan means it’s sealed.
• Caravan power updates in real time from your heroes, gear, governor gear, charms, and pet skills. Upgrading mid-event helps in-flight caravans immediately.

You’re capped at two caravans in flight and four dispatched per day, plus four successful raids per day. Failed raids don’t burn the quota. Across the full three-day event, that’s 12 caravans and 12 raids if you clear the cap every day — every miss is a meaningful chunk of the event gone.

Caravan rarity

Caravans come in four tiers — Normal (green), Rare (blue), Epic (purple), and Mythic / SSR (yellow). Higher tier means better loot quality and more Alliance Brawl points on escort. Each caravan offers one free refresh and additional refreshes via Caravan Vouchers or gems, with the sixth refresh guaranteeing an SSR caravan.

The cost ramps fast, so the practical choice is “commit to refreshing all the way to SSR” or “take what you rolled.” Refreshing once and stopping at Rare is the worst-EV outcome.

What to actually pull out of a caravan

The single most repeated piece of advice from veteran players: check the cargo, not the colour. Two SSR caravans can carry very different loot, and a mid-tier wagon stuffed with Artisan’s Vision beats a yellow wagon full of speedups every time.

The priority is the same whether you’re choosing which of your own caravans to invest defence into or which enemy caravan to raid:

Apply this to your own caravans

• Before dispatching, read the cargo. If it’s C-tier or worse, refresh. The refresh button effectively re-rolls the loot as well as the rarity.
• Once it’s in flight, the cargo is locked. Switch focus to defence — boost power, request an assist, time it well.
• Collect on arrival immediately. An arrived caravan still in your queue blocks an in-flight slot and costs you one of your daily dispatches.

Apply this to raid targets

• Always tap a caravan to inspect its cargo before raiding. The map shows tier; only the inspect view shows what’s inside.
• S- or A-tier cargo: always raid, even if the caravan has been hit once already.
• B-tier on a fresh SSR: raid. B-tier on a once-raided SSR: situational.
• C-tier or worse: skip. Your four raids per day are scarce; spend them on the best targets visible.
• Hide your own kingdom’s caravans with the eye icon so you don’t accidentally hit allies.

When the Alliance Brawl is live and your alliance has called a rival tag, raid their caravans first — even when the cargo is mediocre. Point-denial against the called rival matters more than your individual loot, and you’ll still get the raid loot anyway. Spend any remaining raid attempts on the highest-cargo wagons you can find.

When to dispatch

There is a predictable raid spike at and immediately after daily server reset. Every player has fresh raid attempts, everyone logs in to clear dailies, and the world map fills with hunters. A caravan dispatched at reset is a caravan dispatched into a feeding frenzy.

Wait roughly four to six hours after server reset before launching your first caravan. By that point, the most aggressive raiders have spent their daily attempts and gone offline. Multiple long-running guides report meaningful raid-rate reductions when shifting dispatches into this window.

A workable daily rhythm

With two slots and a four-per-day cap, the natural cadence is one caravan every ~6 hours.

reset   +4h     +8h     +12h    +16h    +20h    next reset
  |      |       |       |       |       |          |
  |    launch 1+2        launch 3+4
  |        └─arrive ~+7.5h         └─arrive ~+15.5h

The first pair launches 4–6 hours after reset and arrives well clear of the spike. The second pair launches once the first arrives and a slot opens. Both pairs finish before the next reset window.

When to break the rule

• You’re online and can defend in person. Watching your caravan in real time changes the calculus.
• Alliance Brawl coordination calls a dispatch wave at a specific server hour. Compliance with alliance strategy beats individual optimisation.
• Day 3. Late dispatches on the final day risk not arriving before the event ends. Stop sending caravans roughly 4 hours before close.

Common timing mistakes

1. Dispatching all four caravans at reset. Wipes the daily quota into the spike. The single most expensive mistake in the event.
2. Letting an arrived caravan sit uncollected. Blocks an in-flight slot. Costs a dispatch.
3. Dispatching into your own sleep window with no assist. Offline player vs awake raider is a guaranteed loss.
4. Refreshing into SSR, then dispatching during the spike. You paid the refresh cost; a raider collects half of it.

When to use your Assisting Squad

The Assisting Squad is a single daily request: one of your in-flight caravans gets a defending march from an alliance member. It stacks with your own caravan power and visibly deters raid selection — defended caravans look worse on the target list.

The constraint that defines the choice is “one per day.” The question is never “should I assist?” — it’s always “which caravan today gets the assist?”

When to spend it

How to request it

Tap Assisting Squads next to the Escort button on your in-flight caravan. The request goes to alliance chat. Members tap My Assistance in the Merchant Empire tab to volunteer their defending march. They get a smaller loot share and a small Brawl-points cut for stepping up.

Defend other players’ caravans too

You can offer three assists per day to alliance members. There’s no slot cost and the rewards are pure upside — small loot share plus Brawl points. Showing up in the volunteer queue is one of the easiest contributions any player can make, and it’s the lever that keeps the alliance defence economy alive.

What the assist won’t do

A single Assisting Squad does not make a caravan untouchable. Two committed raiders can still strip the loss cap. The four defences that actually compound:

1. Timing — avoid the reset spike.
2. Power — keep heroes, gear, governor gear and charms current.
3. Assist — one daily request on your best caravan.
4. Pre-emptive raiding — raid the rivals who’d otherwise raid you. Spent enemy raid attempts can’t hit you.

None of these is sufficient on its own.

Common assist mistakes

1. Spending the assist on the first caravan that dispatched instead of waiting for a better one later in the day.
2. Not requesting the assist before going to bed. Offline + no assist + S-tier cargo is the worst caravan in the event.
3. Refusing assists “because I’m strong enough.” Free defence is free defence.
4. R4/R5 ignoring the My Assistance volunteer queue. Alliance defence is a coordination game; unmanned queues mean expired requests.

How the event fits together

Merchant Empire is the most efficient monthly Artisan’s Vision source the game offers. Treat it as a quota-management problem — daily caps are universal, gem spend doesn’t unlock more caravans, only better ones.

• Never miss a dispatch. Four caravans a day for three days, plus your daily four raids — most of the value lives in clearing the daily caps, not in pushing SSR every time. Three days is short; one wasted day costs a third of the event.
• Refresh aggressively toward SSR, but lead with Caravan Vouchers. Save gems for the last refresh or two when a caravan is close to SSR and you’ve already spent your vouchers. Vouchers roll between events; gems don’t refund.
• Stage Governor Gear, Charm, and Pet upgrades for just before the event. Real-time power scaling means upgrades during the event also help your in-flight caravans.
• Coordinate raid targets with R4/R5 when Alliance Brawl overlaps. Concentrated point-denial against a single rival tag multiplies the scoring swing.
• Always volunteer assists when alliance members ask — three free contributions per day, no slot cost, free Brawl points.