Last year, Fellowship, half of Soccer and Forge Bowl where all the same (Fall too, but with 5 resources, instead of 1, Spring was also the same 2 years ago)
Archeology and Halloween were the same.
There were always multiple Events with the same mechanic, years ago every Event had the same as Fellowship, etc.
If anything, they are mixing it up a bit, that's at least how I feel about it.
While you may have access to better records of events, I started playing this game in 2018 and these were the events and characteristics that year:
- 2018 Forge Bowl event [Jan16-Feb5] - Collect Footballs from quests or diamonds. Use the footballs to make a play and attempt to move on the field from the 50 yard line. Very unique looking 3D view of the field. Each play had a cooler that provided a reward which included a chance at the daily special. Touchdown reward also available. Same overall feel of today's Forge Bowl event but you got rewards from a cooler not from picking a player. Unique.
- 2018 Carnival Event [Feb22-Mar12]- - Collect Tickets & Florins from quests, hourly generation (ticket), select a game to play in the event window using a ticket to gain more florins, with three different rish/reward levels. Then spend the florins on prizes (timed reward - replaced every 6 hours & random chest - replaced every 12 hours). It looks like 10 tickets could be held at any given time so one only had to check in and play it a couple times a day. There was competition in the neighborhood for who got the most florins every day and a Zanni Mask Statue was the reward. Unique.
- Napoleon Bonaparte Historical Questline - Just quests that led to a 30% defense boost,a store building, and the Royal Marble Gateway and a portrait of Napoleon. Simple and unique.
- ...I started playing here..
- 2018 Spring Event [Mar28-Apr19] - collect lanterns from quests, incidents, or diamond spending and use them to open chests. Progress along a prize path was provided via blossoms received from opening the chests. This event was simple, elegant, straight-forward, fun, and unique.
- Cleopatra Historical Questline [Apr26-May1] - Just quests that led to the Obelisk Garden that provided a Cleopatra being carried around in her lectica on our roads. Informative and fun prize.
- Vincent van Gogh Historical Questline [May9-May15] - Simple questline that led to 2h Mass Supply Rush, Mass Self Aid Kit, Magnum Opus, and a potrait of Vincent. Informative and very useful building - still have it in my city today.
- Sacajawea Historical Questline [May24-May29] - Simple questline that led to Finish Supplies Production, Large Medals Package, a Menagerie, and a portrait of Sacajawea.
- 2018 FOE Soccer Cup [Jun14-Jul16] - Collect energy drinks from logging in, quests, and diamonds. Spend the drinks to move the ball down the field and receive a chance at the daily prize as well as other prizes each player grants. Goal Reward. Similar mechanics to forge bowl event, but not a direct copy/paste and reskin.
- 2018 Summer Event [Aug2-Aug23] - Collect Doubloons from quests, daily login, and diamonds. Spend Doubloons to spin the wheel for a prize and progress on the treasure map. You were in competition with your hood for the wheel prizes. Very unique!
- 2018 Fall Event [Sep12-Oct3] - Collect ingredients from quests, daily login, incidents, diamonds, and daily challenges. Spend the ingredients by choosing a "recipe" and get a prize (chance of daily reward) and progress towards grand prizes. Included a leauge. Arguably this was just a more complex Spring Event, but it was unique due to the added mechanics of ingredient balancing and while a bit frustrating it was overall very fun!
- 2018 Halloween Event [Nov23-Nov6] - Questline of 57 quests only to receive rewards. Five good rewards.
- 2018 Winter Event [Dec3-Jan2] - Collect stars from quests, daily login, diamonds, some gifts. Spend the starts to open gifts with set prizes including the daily special and receive a matchstick. Completing a quest or opening a gift started a snowfall on the player's city. Each matchstick could light from 1-3 candles on a Christmas Tree. With 20 candles lit a grand prize was won. Very unique!
That was 9 unique mechanics for the events in 2018 including the historical short quest platform only once.
-1 Forge Bowl later turned to using a nearly identical interface to soccer cup and exact mechanics.
+1 Soccer Cup got the original event window moved to "practice" and the card game replaced it as the main progress in the event - spend diamonds like crazy in order to get more cards than anyone else and still lose match ups.
-1 All historical quests dropped, because after all it didn't provide an avenue for income or diamond spending. It's sad that these can't be run again from time to time.
+0 New Archaeology event added +1 and removed -1 but mechanics of it moved to Halloween Event +1, removing the pure quest driven event -1.
-1 Spring event mechanics replaced -1 with pond hopping frog +1 and then removed in lieu of St Patrick's Day Event in 2022 -1.
+1 St Patrick's Day Event with unique mechanics added (based on exponential returns).
-1 The unique Summer Event is now a reskinned Winter Event.
+0 Fellowship/Hero Event surfaced with it's reskin of the pond hopping frog. This year it appears it will now be a reskinned St. Patrick's event.
+1 Wildlife event with original minigame.
+1 Anniversay Event with different mini game two years in a row, but since one minigame replaces the other it's a wash of creativity and additional originality to the over all event list. Also, unfortunately it's basically just the wildlife event with a different minigame, but since it has the added complexity of keys (kind of like ingredients) it gets to keep it's unique feel.
Trend shows net zero in maintaining unique events since 2018....with a ton of development time invested.
8 major events in 2018 grew to 11 major events in 2022. 2023 looks to be on track for at least 10 events with only 7 being unique. Three of the newer ones require daily interaction to have a chance at getting a n-1 upgraded building and then waiting months to get the final upgrade. That's exhausting.
In 2018 two of them were kind of similar. In 2023 at least 3 of them will be same mechanics with different art work: summer/winter, St Patty's/Fellowship, and Wildlife/Anniversary. If Archaeology actually returns then Archaeology/Halloween show as same mechanics. Additionally, as you pointed out, Forge Bowl and Soccer are still very similar events with Soccer just adding card collecting for the tournaments.
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