Treasure Hunts
Treasure hunts (THs) are special adventures where you gather clues, combine clues into better clues, and finally use the highest rank clue to start a treasure hunt quest. Treasure hunt quests always reward an item, usually a good one.
You start a treasure hunt at the barkeep in any city by talking to the barkeep. He offers various options below the order a drink, treat your sailors to a drink and hire an aide buttons.
Here the theme Sun God of Ancient Egypt is selected. To the right you see the representative relic. In case you have not discovered a relic yet, this will be blank. The description of the theme is on the right, something about an odd design in some Egyptian relics.
You will try to figure out what the story is behind these odd designs. The No. Discovered indicates how many of the relics in this theme you have already discovered. This theme has only 1 relic and I already discovered it. Some themes have 2 or 3 relics. Lastly, there is one known theme that requires an item in your inventory to appear. I will tell more about that later.
Select the theme (this theme is one of the easiest to complete) and go to Journal-> Treasure Hunt. In this menu you have the various option related to your treasure hunt. When you start you have zero information, however by doing activities you get clues as a by-product.
The clue can now be seen in your clue menu (option 4 in your TH menu).
The best and fastest way to get a lot of clues is by reading in Archive
Other ways to get clue:
Buying trade goods, buy ships, shipwrecks, collection, procurement, fishing, dolphin, pets, storms, reporting quests, report discoveries, placing an exhibition in Paris, buying tow permit, buying support permit, investing in port, reporting research, develop farm.
When you start your TH, then you will only get 1 to 3-star clues. However, you need a 13-star clue to get the TH quest from this theme (Sun God of Ancient Egypt).
Different treasure hunts require a higher star clue, up to 20-star for the most difficult ones. To get a higher star clue you will need to combine your clues at a barkeep (option 2 in the Barkeep menu). That brings up the menu you see below, where you can combine clues of different star values. You can also add a discovery card, but this seems not very useful, so just keep it at Not Set.
Here a one 3-star clue is combined with three 2-star clues, which gives a one 4-star clue. Then 4-star clue is combined with three 3-star clues for a 5-star clue. You always get one clue, so combine two 4-star clues with six 3-star clues will only give you one 5-star clue.
The clues are capped, you cannot get a clue from a normal activity that is higher than your current highest clue, e.g. If you have combined clues up to a 5-star clue, then you cannot get a 6-star clue. You continue this until you reach the 13-star clue that you need to begin the TH quest.
Clues above 10-star can always be combined with three 10-star clues to get the next one. For example, you can combine one 12-star clue with three 10-star clues, to get a 13-star clue. A red star is equivalent to 10 normal stars.
Once you get your final clue, it will tell you so.
Also you cannot use that clue anymore to get a higher star clue. In your clue menu select the final clue and click the quest button for the quest to appear. If you accept the quest then the quest will appear just like any other quest.
If you do not accept the quest you will keep your clue. The quest will not require you to get information blocks, and you are directed strait to the treasure location. In this case you have to go to the Central Nile landing point and go to the Table Boulder in the northeast of the area. To complete the quest you will require rank 5 Search, rank 7 Theology and Ancient Egyptian.
You will need these specific skills in order to find the treasure, but you can use items that give a bonus and for Ancient Egyptian you can also use a translation note (Hamito-Semetic translation notes in this case). When you have all the requirements fulfilled, click the table boulder and a chest will appear, that opens and you find your treasure.
Other information
- you can only complete one treasure hunt each day. You will have to wait for the daily reset before using another TH quest clue.
- one of the TH themes is called Avalon and this theme can only be started when the item Ancient Glass Fragment is in your inventory. The Ancient Glass Fragment is the treasure that you get from the second TH in Treasure Legends theme, here is the quest, or you can buy one from another player. When you talk to the barkeep with this item in your inventory, then the Avalon theme will appear. Starting the theme will cause you to lose the Ancient Glass Fragment.
- reading in the archives is my preferred way of getting clues. Normal activities will give you clues that are 1 to 3-star, and for example reporting a high level quest gives a high star clue, but that does not go very fast. Reading in the archives with a high rank in the appropriate knowledge skill gives you high star clues very fast. The formula is maximum star clue = knowledge skill rank / 2 + 1, thus reading from the Archaeology shelf with rank 16 Archaeology can give you up to 9-star clues. Remember you have to combine in order to get higher star clues.
- at some clues a quest button also appears, these clues are not the final clue. Clicking the quest button allows you to accept a specific quest. This is not a TH quest, but a regular one that you can also potentially find at the quest mediator. I normally had already done these quests, so I haven’t done quest in this way. It may be very useful for some. You can always click Use Clue, see what quest it is, then look it up in the UWO database to see if you want to do this quest. Thanks to Spirozzo for this info: Taking any quest from a clue counts towards the daily limit and “Also you can’t do the quest if you don’t have the requirements (like not being at the right point of a quest chain).”
- most treasures from a treasure hunt contribute to a memorial album. There are four memorial albums that can be filled like this, called Truth of the Rumours (No. 1, 2, 3 and 4). In the future there will be 2 more memorial albums.
- there are three special locations that can only be visited while you are doing a treasure hunt quest. These are El dorado, Avalon and the Peach Blossom Spring. They are some of the greatest location to visit in the world of UWO.
Sir Thomas Gresham 