How to Farm Crypts Faster in Total Battle

Updated 19 October 2026 · About 6 minutes to read

The number of crypts you explore in a day depends on three things: how many marches each crypt takes, how long each march is on the road, and how long your captain waits at home before the next one. This guide goes through each of them, roughly in order of how much they matter.

In short

Pick the highest level your captain clears in one march. Two marches for one crypt halves your speed.
Set Carter, your crypt talents, the crypt title and your crypt bonuses before the march starts.
Cost bonuses save Tar on every march. Efficiency only saves Tar when it removes a whole march.
Work the nearest crypts and use march speedups.
The biggest loss is the idle time between marches. Send the next march the moment your captain is home.

1. Clear every crypt in one march

A crypt has a fixed amount of exploration to get through. Each march does a certain amount of it, set by your exploration efficiency. If one march isn't enough, your captain has to go back, and the crypt costs two full trips of time and Tar.

So the best level isn't the highest one you're allowed to explore. It's the highest one your captain finishes in a single march. A level 20 crypt cleared in one go beats a level 25 crypt that takes two. Check the exploration progress on the crypt card after a march: if it isn't at 100%, drop a level.

Marches are counted in whole trips. If a crypt needs 6.2 marches' worth of exploration, it takes 7. That's why a small efficiency increase sometimes changes nothing and sometimes saves a whole trip.

2. Set your bonuses before the march

Crypt captains apply their bonuses when the march starts, not while it's queued. Get everything in place first:

Carter. He's the captain with crypt bonuses. See Best captains for crypts and the Carter gear guide.
Hero talents. In the Archeology tree, crypt exploration efficiency and crypt exploration cost are the ones that pay off. Many players keep a separate talent preset just for crypts.
Premium title. Premium players can set the Great Archaeologist title, which boosts crypt efficiency and march speed.
Crypt efficiency boosts. Activate your personal crypt efficiency bonus if you have one.

3. Spend less Tar per crypt

Two kinds of bonus save Tar, and they work differently:

Bonus	What it does	When it saves Tar
Exploration cost	Lowers the Tar each march uses	On every march
Exploration efficiency	More progress per march	Only when it removes a whole march
Chance to explore twice	Sometimes explores twice for the Tar of once	When it triggers

Carrying more Tar than the crypt needs adds a further 10% efficiency, so keep a buffer instead of running your Tar down to the last drop. Each rarity uses its own Tar: Common crypts use Tar, Rare crypts use Rare Tar and Epic crypts use Epic Tar. Common Tar comes from the Tar Workshop, among other places. Rare and Epic Tar don't come from any building.

4. Spend less time on the road

Work the nearest crypts first. The Watchtower lists them by distance. A crypt twice as far away costs twice the travel time, there and back.
Use march speedups. A march speedup can turn a several-minute march into seconds. A common approach is to work the crypts you can reach in about 10–12 seconds with speedups.
Mind the limit. By default a march to a crypt can take at most 20 minutes. Some technologies and hero talents raise that.

5. Stop losing time between marches

This is where most players lose the most. Carter comes home, and he sits there until you notice. Over a day those gaps add up to hours: if each march takes 3 minutes but you only check the game every 15, four fifths of his day is spent waiting.

The fixes are simple but take discipline: open the Watchtower and pick the next crypt before Carter is back, keep the filter set to the level you clear in one march, and send him out the moment he arrives. If you play with more than one captain, keep them all busy on low-level crypts while Carter does the high ones. See Best captains for crypts.

Let a bot run your crypts

TB Crypt Auto-Explorer is a Chrome extension that runs the crypt loop for you. It sets the Watchtower filter, sends Carter (or three captains at once) to the nearest crypt of the type and level you pick, speeds up the march with your own speedups, and sends him out again the moment he's home. With three captains it runs about 188 crypts an hour. It never buys Tar or anything else.

It runs in a side panel next to the game, sets up in a minute, and the first hour is free.

Try it free for 1 hour Watch the 3-minute setup

Bots are against Total Battle's rules, so using one is at your own risk.

New to crypts? Start with Crypt types, levels and rewards and the Watchtower guide.

FAQ

What is the fastest way to farm crypts in Total Battle?

Clear each crypt in one march, set Carter, your crypt talents and the Great Archaeologist title before you send him, work the nearest crypts with march speedups, and send the next march as soon as he's home.

Is crypt efficiency or crypt cost better?

Cost saves Tar on every march. Efficiency only saves Tar when it removes a whole march, but it's what lets you clear higher crypts in one go. You want both.

Why does my crypt need two marches?

Your exploration efficiency is too low for that level. Drop a level, or raise Carter's level, gear, talents and bonuses until one march reaches 100%.

Can I farm crypts while I'm away?

With a bot such as TB Crypt Auto-Explorer, yes. It keeps sending captains and using speedups while you're away. Bots are against the game's rules, so it's at your own risk.