I won't say "useless" but what are the less useful artifacts people have come around? And most useful ones? Interested if there is agreement or not. Which are the ones you use for Upgrades asap, and which are the Keepers?

For me ...

LESS USEFUL:
Almost all the Active artifacts, but notably:

- Damage Territory, Common, 2.2%
- Triple Strike, Uncommon, 6%
- Quadruple Strike, Common, 4%
- Field Hospital, Common, 1.5% on neighbouring territories

Having such low % benefit usable once in 24h and eating a slot for same duration is just simply not worth it. The benefit is typically less than an hour of waiting - so not worth the slot kill penalty.

But also some passives:

- Efficient Smelters, Poor, Passive, 0.5% - just don't find that smelting is something I'm materially waiting on to make progress; smelting faster typically just makes me run out of ore and then wait/stop, so essentially I'm still only making as many (useful) bars as my ore allows (and not my smelting durations); also 0.5% is weak - even with the doubling, it will only gets to 16% for Legendary, so even a Legendary artifact will not make a material difference - so what's the point? The first Smelting Tech gets you 10% quicker, and most levels have a couple stages for that upgrade, so it won't even match the Techs.
- Mine Boost, Common, Passive, 3.5% - just too small to make a difference; even @ Legendary it would be 56% which is only even somewhat significant for the super valuable ores

MOST USEFUL:

- Hospital boost, Poor, Passive, 1% - Actually I'm on the fence about this one. 1% is pretty low, and 1% of an already fairly low # (whatever hospital savings you have) is even lower. So if you have 50M is hospital savings per territory, this will give you 50.1M savings - pretty meagre. But it is potential for every territory you capture ... so upgrade it to Rare to get 8% or Epic 16% and on a larger map this might end up being more significant.
- Territory Money Bonus, Common, Passive, 25% - Also on the fence about this. Territory money bonuses are typically pretty few and low, thus collectively this provides low value, but just leave it on and it will generate money - so useful if you're in a situation where that's what you need (saving for artifacts, etc).
- Money cache boost, Uncommon, Passive, 8%
- Resource cache boost, Uncommon, Passive, 8%
- Army cache boost, Uncommon, Passive, 8%
- Army camp boost, Uncommon, Passive, 8%
- Draft boost, Epic, Passive, 32%
- Mercenary Discount, Rare, Passive, 8%
- Bonus money boost, Rare, Passive, 40% - this is awesome! This is my overall best artifact that gives constant benefit and likely provides overall most value. Provides a serious money boost.

why would the mine boost be good? Just leave it on when not playing. I do that with army and money ones.

The smelter I haven't done the math but seems like a good ROI. st rate is 16% chance of smelting double. if only using it for high value you could sell the items for more than you'd get running a lesser passive boost, I would think.

Edit: Are you sure your passive % are accurate? Many of mine are very different - see below.

My one disagreement is Mine Boost. Though probably because mine is Rare and so gives a 14% increase. I find that extremely helpful for all ores, not just the rare ones.

Most Useful when not actually logged in:
Mine Boost (Rare) 14%
Bonus Money Boost (Uncommon) 20% - I agree. Maybe overall my best card even though a lower level than some.
Idle Time (uncommon) 40 min

When I've got WZI open in the background and tab over a few times an hour:
Draft Boost (Rare) 16% - swap out Idle Time

When actively clicking something I use whichever is relevant out of:
Cache Boost (Uncommon) 1.6%
Resource Cache Boost (Uncommon) 20%
Army Cache Boost (Uncommon) 4%
Mine Discount (Epic) 20%
Hospital Boost (Rare) 8%
Mercenary Discount (Uncommon) 4%

Honorable Mentions (i.e. my only other passives):
Tech Discount (Common) 1.5% - If I can get this leveled a bit it will enter the actively clicking rotation
Speedy Crafters (Common) 6% - Good, just not a high enough level to use a spot on.

Edited 12/15/2020 21:55:53

what is the point of the regular cache boost? I assume for battles or auto conquer or something? maybe it stacks to add value?

the values are so low compared to the dedicated one, just doesn't seem worth it.

It's just an added small bonus that works for all 3 cache types. It stacks with the Resouce/Army/Money cache artifacts.

My personal top two artifacts I have in slots when idling are Bonus Money Boost and Craft Double. They are so sweet! 3% chance to craft a second item helps to speed up unlocking all techs. 20% bonus money income from bonuses! (both uncommon)
I wish I get any army/draft for them to play while I am idle. For now my best "idling" artifact in the third slot is Efficient Smelters, lmao. Saving around 1400 of rarest ore with each bar crafted :DDD

Absolute top 1 in the active phase Hospital Boost (4% more saved armies for hospitals, purrr), also all possible discounts (merc/army camp/hospitals/mines/tech) of passive type, all "higher selling price" for ores/bars/items (even 10 million can help :DDD) and money/resource cache boosts for those boosts from caches, always good


Still don't have any army boosts from any sources, very unlucko :(

Speedy Smelters suck with my slow pace game style, because wasting all ores too fast and after that smelters just don't smelt anything :DDDD hate when they don't smelt :D don't want to upgrade mines XDDDDD

My three that I have running most of the time.
- Bonus Money Boost, uncommon. Yes great.
- Army Camp Boost. rare. This is the one I never swap out.
- Mine Boost, rare. I find this one very useful for the first half of a level, not so much later on. I switch to Smelt Double (rare) later in levels.

Have all three of the Cache Boost at uncommon that i switch out as needed.
Also use Mercenary Discount, Hospital Boost, and Item Value {all at uncommon} that I use as needed.
I wouldn't sacrifice any of those 9 for upgrading.
Would also like a Alloy Value (don't care about the Ore value) and I would prefer a Craft Double over my Smelt Double.

I used to use Idle Time often, but once I increased my idle time 120 minutes i found the extra 40 minutes wasn't worth losing 4 hours of one of my 3 goto's.

All the discount ones are nice, but outside of the Mercenary one I feel they are all on the chopping block for being sacrificed.
Actives are only good for sacrificing.

Surprise surprise, poor artifacts are well poor.

All artifacts double with each level they upgrade, so I'd focus on whether the effect is something you like rather than the percentage of the poor item.

Hi !

These are my cards i am using, hoping i have not upgraded them in vain...

Good ones:
-Army camp boost - uncommon - 20%
-Territory money boost - rare - 100%
-Bonus money boost - rare - 40%

-Money cache boost- rare - 16% - when i get a money cache territory
- Efficient crafters - rare 4% - when...crafting

Medium ones
- Efficient smelters - uncommon - 2%
- damage territory - rare - 8.8% - found it useful with a 3.5B army territory even though it needs 24 hours to recharge. saves 300M armies on the first use and 280M in the second use etc... at the end i could get a 700m+ "discount" which is a lot isnt it ?!

-Mine boost - common - 305% - specially at the beginning of the game. maybe should be upgarding it sometimesz.

Bad ones to get rid of:
- discount army camp - common - 3% (active)
- Money cahche - poor - 5% (active)
- Alloy values - poor - 3.5%

I'm having hospital boost always in.

When i'm taking territories i'm switching in cache boost + ressorce cache boost/money cache boost

When waiting i have bonus money boost and speedy crafters in.

So far that's the combination that allows me the most benefit for the fewest times changing in/out artifacts.

Yeah speedy crafters is a staple for me as well. It’s one of the few that actually gives you the nominal percentage too since there isn’t much else in the game affecting crafter speed.

I personally don't use the hospital boosts because I have joint strike maximized (25%).
Because joint strike gets applied after hospitals, this means hospitals are effectively 25% less useful than their numbers show (as 25% of what they save, would have been saved by joint strike anyway).

I got a rare speedy smelters and I do use that one even though my smelters regularly run out of ore. Speedy Smelters + Mine Boost is a good combo to help getting techs faster, which then in turn allows to start selling items off faster.
As soon as I a good mercenary artifact, I'll likely put it in the third slot for more efficiently turning money into armies. I've been unlucky so far in that my uncommon artifacts are all active ones.

Every map I finished hospitals saved me ~30-40% more than maxed joint strike. So I always use hospital boost.
How can you say hospital boost is bad when hospitals apply to every single territory you conquer, while joint strike works only "when 2+ your territories have borders with what you conquer"

I optimize my path by using joint strike in 90%+ of my territory catches (probably near 95% in most levels) and at 25% basic reduction that already reduces a lot. The extra of the hospital artefact that I have, is just not worth it. With regular hospitals + maxed joint strike, I think I actually saved close to 50% in total on China.

But it really depends on what else you have taken for advancements. Idle seems to be well-balanced in the sense that different tactics and focus seem to work similarly well.

I use:
Army camp boost and money bonus boost
Third slot speedy/efficient/double smelters/crafters, depending on mining income (efficient smelters when I have more smelting than mining power or when smelting advanced bars, speedy when smelting/crafting with plentiful resources, efficient crafters when combined with the 10% tech it reduces needed ingredients further, double smelt/craft items when smelting/crafting something where this artifact is more beneficial than either speedy and efficiency artifacts.
Swap out the third slot with:
- upgrade price reduction when upgrading camps/mines/hospitals
- tech discounts when purchasing technology
- value of ore/alloys/items when selling
- mercenary discounts when purchasing mercenaries
- draft boosts when drafting
- hospital boost when conquering
- money/army/resource boost when conquering territories/bonuses with these rewards, eventually exchanging artifacts in the first two slots.
After performing the actions above, I swap back the artifact in the third slot.

It takes a lot of micromanagement, and sometimes I fail to see a megabonus (especially those for disjunct territories, that are placed on the side of the map), or I forget that I swapped the artifact for another action.
I would purchase advancements auto-applying artifacts on actions, if those advancements will be added to WZI.

@MoD

I'm having hospital boost always in.

@Hukutka

Every map I finished hospitals saved me ~30-40% more than maxed joint strike. So I always use hospital boost.
How can you say hospital boost is bad when hospitals apply to every single territory you conquer, while joint strike works only "when 2+ your territories have borders with what you conquer"

I think Hospital Boost is "bad" (technically I listed it in my 'Most Useful' category but stated I was 'on the fence' about it) because it's only 1% @ poor (and would only get to 32% Legendary). So if you have a lot of hospitals and have upgraded them well and they are saving you 100M per territory captured, this artifact @ 1% (poor level) would only save 1M per territory. So let's say you have 1000 territories left, this would save you 1B over the course of capturing those 1000 territories. But capturing 1000 territories takes a long long time, in the range of ~10-14 days and the map is likely to have 100B-500B armies on it, so 1B is not likely to be material by the end of that 14 days b/c (A) it's a small drop in the bucket towards the total armies required, and (B) you're likely be to be earning 100-200M per hour by the end of that period, so this is almost totally insignificant.

Now fast forward to upgrading it to higher levels. Estimates under same Hospital upgrade settings.

Poor - 1% - 1B
Common - 2% - 2B
Uncommon - 4% - 4B
Rare - 8% - 8B
Epic - 16% - 16B
Legendary - 32% - 32B

Even Rare isn't really significant. Epic is starting to be - approx in line with what you might earn from Drafts on the same level. And Legendary is significant.

Now if you upgrade your Hospitals heavily as you progress, say up to 200M for the last half of the map (100M for 500 territories, 200M for another 500 territories), these values change to become:

Poor - 1% - 1.5B
Common - 2% - 3B
Uncommon - 4% - 6B
Rare - 8% - 12B
Epic - 16% - 24B
Legendary - 32% - 48B

And now Rare is becoming relevant.

BUT ... the question becomes - are you going to actively swap this artifact in/out every time you capture a territory? Or just leave it in, and if so, what are you displacing by doing so?

Side note: think I will upgrade this artifact next. (; Start the trip to get it to at least Rare to get into the realm of useful savings. 1% is just too insignificant to bother micromanaging it in/out of a slot with each capture, especially with already having to micro the Army/Resource/Money cache bonuses as well, etc.

It was really easy to get these artifacts uncommon from digging in those common (low%)/uncommon (high%) without the need of upgrading :) Personally I just switch artifacts for hospital boost/cache money/cache resources before going for conquering territories and after that I change to anything else I need. Doesn't leave those as passives for idle :)

Krinid i'm a hospital heavy player, i don't take the small territories but go directly to the big territories to get bigger hospitals. Hospitals save me much more than joint strike, even when i had an uncommon one, now it's epic. I finished orbis veteribus notus the second time in around 4 days, so there are a lot of territories to take in a short time. Hospital boost is easily the best artifact together with bonus money boost.

How is this even close to possible? Even if you dropped enough fog busters to reveal the entire map, the time and money it takes to get to and upgrade the hospitals would be more than 4 days.

I didn't upgrade the hospitals that much, i said i finished the level in that time. Mercenaries and hospitals are the main reasons for that, not only hospitals