Well, the quest doesn't tell you how often to expect medal drops.

The major reason the medal drop thing is flawed, apart from its 1% drop rate, is that in order to continue getting medals, you have to do something completely redundant and gratuitous. I refer, of course, to the valley abandon reconquer technique that requires steady farm behavior. This necessity is a major detraction from the game. I suppose at its ideal point, people would by fighting each other trying to hold onto valleys, and this is how medals are supposed to come around.

However, many servers either require you to use the abandon and reconquer technique as low population on servers means you will always be fighting barbarian hordes for valleys, or on high population servers with an older age, your main city will just be ground down until you stop attacking people's valleys. Thus the whole system is actually flawed.