Looks like it's exactly like last year's event, just swap roses for tickets and hearts for florins. Only difference is that that the 15% awards less and the 5% awards more this year. The costs for direct prizes are ugly high again like it was last year, I think an analysis of the chests that have upgrades in them to see which once is the most florin effective by probability will be useful.
http://forgeofempires.wikia.com/wiki/2018_Carnival_Event
Not wowed by the questlines either, the main requires taking one province on the map, with required sector infiltration and negotiation. The daily also has unavoidable map requirements. I strongly suggest to anyone who is actively doing DCs to finish up your current Challenger's Chest and then let the DCs rest until finishing all the map requirements or until you deceide to stop progressing on the event since the DCs will give you map requirements if you have an open province. If you don't this event could very well eat up your map.
At least research is optional and only appears once at the very end of the daily quests. More ugly: guild treasury donations vary by age. This helps the new players, but it's ugly because I have no idea how much to stockpile. Gathering resources also varies by age which might not be too bad in the long run, and again helps the noobs who can't gather large amounts of stuff while providing a reasonable challenge to established players. Interesting: Vitruvian Man appears here again as a potential prize after a long absence, as well as the Tree of Love (but not the bigger trees). Unfortunately, they're just decos.
I don't know, I'm seriously considering skipping this one. The map will require me to open the next age's map, which will mess up my side/recurring quests. I did not enjoy last year's Carnival, and I'm not enthusiastic about the prizes. The bridge is okay, but it's basically a bigger Pillar of Heroes. The PoH got attention because the highest level one gives 3 FP for a 3x3 building, that comes out to 1 FP/3 squares, which is more effective than the SoK and offers several items at once. The bridge though is 4x3 so with 3 FP at level 7, it's 1 FP/4 squares the same as the SoK. Yes, it too has the extra stuff like the PoH, but it's pretty much inferior to it. The other prizes? Two Ziggurat variants, two Bazaar variants, and 3 decos, two of which usually appear in the summer casino. Then there's the various common special buildings which appear in most events anyway, and can show up now in the DCs.