[Touken Ranbu] Surviving the Village of Treasures

Saniwas (term used to refer to the players of Touken Ranbu where they take on the role of the sage or 'saniwa') around the world are busy grinding in order to collect enough beads to win the newest Touken Danshi (lit. Sword Boy), Kotegiri Gou.

Make way for the fashion police

As someone who has followed this god-forsaken franchise for 2 years, I've had my fair share of Village of Treasures event and so I'm writing this blog now to give you some tips on how you can possibly survive this event without Hakata chasing you out of your own citadel for driving it to bankruptcy.  Please note that these are just tips and suggestions.

Disclaimer: I may not have the same type of troops or the same toudans as your party so of course, our results may vary.  Also, I would like to point out that I grind without the intention of leveling up in the process.  I send out my most OP team to clear out stages as quickly as possible and I usually do the leveling after I have cleared the event.

Know your capacity
I've heard time and time again about people saying that their parties can't take on E4 because they are always forced to retreat due to injuries.  And to that, I suggest that you first measure your team's capacity.  Try out all 4 maps and see which is the map with the highest survival rate.  I know that there are unforeseen elements like drawing a 4th Yari or Naginata card (which happened to me several times), but try to gauge how much beating your team can take in a map with most of them making it through to the final node.  I know that this consumes tickets that you'd rather use for grinding, but from my standpoint, it is worth trying.

No need to send out your most OP swords if you don't want to!

The only way that you can get more beads out of each run faster is if a) you draw all the bead cards in one run (which is very unlikely) or b) you draw an enemy card and come out victorious with at least an A or S ranking (this gives you 30-36 beads depending on the enemy card for E4).  Losing a battle or retreating will only give you 25% of the beads of what is currently in your bag as well as make you lose all the instruments you have picked up in a run.  Sending boys to a map they can barely handle would also make them go into fatigue faster, which in turn will affect their performance in battle (I usually switch out fatigued toudans or use a dango/makunochi bento if they are available).

Do the math

This may be due to this hidden side of my that's a bit of a nerd, but I actually do my maths for once if it means getting my sword boy faster.  The reason why I encourage testing out the capacity of your team first is because it would help you determine how much you need to grind per day and sticking to that plan like glue.

I even wrote down all the rewards for Ookanehira's event and I check them off as I go.

Take the current event for example: The event started on August 15 and will end on August 29, meaning that you have14 days (I don't want to be grinding until the last minute so I subtracted 1 day from the timeline) to get 100,000 beads in order to get Kotegiri Gou.  Using simple division, we can say that we need to make at least 7,143 beads per day so that we can have Gou on the 14th day.  After knowing that fact, we can now use what we learned from earlier while testing out your team's capacity.

Here's what my computation looked like:
1 run = 450 beads (E4 map)
1 ticket = 300 koban
7143 beads per day/450 beads per run = 16 runs per day
16 runs x 300 koban per ticket = 4800 koban
4800 koban - 1800 koban (6 free tickets per day) = 3000 koban per day
3000 koban per day x 14 days = 42000 koban for the whole event

I have seen some people saying that they may not be able to finish the event because they do not have enough koban to spend.  I believe that this may be achievable if you have a good team at your disposal and also if you do not get too greedy.  Just like real life budgeting and work advice goes, learn to pace yourself and work within your budget and stick to it like glue.

It is not the end of the world

I remember the first VoT event happened on December 2015 with Monoyoshi Sadamune as the prize for completing the event.  This was before Touken Ranbu Pocket was introduced.  At the time, I was only able to play Touken Ranbu on my laptop during the weekend with a really laggy internet connection at home and I have just barely started Touken Ranbu last June.  That being said, I wasn't even able to complete half of the event because I can't play as often as I could and my team was still very weak and so and I was really sad that I missed the chance of getting Monoyoshi.

The event ended already?

Years later, I now know that missing a chance at completing an event is not the end of the world.  One of the reasons I am saying this is that even if you are just a newbie at the game, you can get a chance to level up your swords (have you seen how large the exp is for every enemy card?) as well as gain resources for your citadel to prepare you for future events or to make up for your loss from the past ones (VoT right after a smithing event helped me regain my resources quicker).  Prize swords for this event is also a great deal if you are just a starting Saniwa (I know I had a hard time smithing Shishiou and having him as an event prize is awesomesauce for me!)

Also, with new swords being introduced and the almost monthly events being held in game, TKRB is bound to reintroduce past event prize boys either as map drops or as swords obtainable through smithing.  If you are still not convinced, here are some swords whom I obtained at a later time after their first event or who came back after their event.

No need to be a sad burrito over missing the first opportunity

• Monoyoshi Sadamune. First obtainable through Village of Treasures. Became a rare drop sword for four War Training Expansion events and is now a map drop at Era 7-1.  I obtained him during War Training Expansion 7.
• Nihongou. First obtainable as a rare drop through the first War Training Expansion event.  Was also a rare drop sword for two more War Training Expansion events and is now a map drop at Era 6-4 where I originally obtained him.
• Fudou Yukimitsu.  First obtainabe through War Training Expansion 2.  Came back as a reward sword for War Training Expansion 4,5,6,7 and 8.  Obtained him during War Training Expansion 7.
• Hakata Toushirou, Gotou Toushirou, Shinano Toushirou and Houchou Toushirou were first obtainable on Underground Treasure Chest events and all came back as reward swords for the same events.  Obtained them during their original UTC events.
• Sengo Muramasa. First obtainable through a smithing campain.  Became a reward sword for one of my most favorite events in TKRB history, Edo Castle Infiltration Investigation where I also obtained him as prize.  I saw his musical version first before actually obtaining him in-game because I suck at smithing campaigns.
• Ookanehira.  First obtainable through Regiment Battle 2.  Came back as the reward sword for Regiment Battle - Early Summer Camp aka make the citadel as bright as the sun by collecting 60,000 fireflies.  Obtained him during Regiment Battle 2 and has regretted it ever since.
• Sohayanotsurugi and Oodenta Mitsuyo.  First obtainable through smithing campaigns and both came back as reward swords for Regiment Battle 2 and Regiment Battle - Early Summer Camp with Oodenta as a rare drop for these events.  Obtained them both in Regiment Battle 2.
• Juzumaru Tsunetsugu.  First obtainable through a smithing campaign.  Came back as a rare drop sword for War Training Expansion 3 and 4 and is now a map drop on Era 7-4.  Obtained him during War Training Expansion 3.
• Kogarasumaru.  First obtainable through a smithing campaign.  Came back as an reward sword for Village of Treasures - Instrument Gathering Stage 1 (PC users only), 2 and 3.  Obtained him during VoT-IGS 2.
• Akashi Kuniyuki. First obtainable as a rare drop during War Training Expansion.  Came back as rare drop for War Training Expansion 3, 5, 6 and 8.  Now a map drop on Era 6-2. He was the reason why I was finally convinced to play TKRB and it took me 2 years to finally get him.  Got him at War Training Expansion 8.
• Taikogane Sadamune. Is a map drop at Era 7-2.  Came back as a rare drop during War Training Expansion 5 and 8.  Got him at Era 7-2 because his Kiwame is beautiful and I just gotta have him.
• Higekiri and Hizamaru. First obtainable as rare drops (reward for Hizamaru) in Regiment Battle.  Came back as drops in War Training Expansion 3.  Now both obtainable as drops from Keibishii battles.  I got them both as Keibishii drops.
• Nagasone Kotetsu.  Was a Keibishii drop before getting replaced by the Genji brothers. Came as a drop for War Training Expansion events and is now obtainable through smithing.  I think I got him as a smith after his episode in Hanamaru came out.
• Urashima Kotetsu. Was a Keibishii drop before getting replaced by the Genji brothers.  Came as a drop for War Training Expansion events and as a reward for Uncharted Village of Treasures (Practice).  Now obtainable through smithing.  Got this kid through smithing.

With the new swords being introduced one after the other, I am sure that the devs will come up with an event other than smithing which will make them more obtainable so if you did not get them at the first try, cheer up coz I'm 300% sure that they will be back soon!

I hope you learned something from this entry and if not, just enjoy how much I torture myself as I get too mathematical over an in-game event.

Thanks for reading and may your sword family grow in numbers and in strength!





XO's,
Saniwa Saltsuki.