Suppose you had the following artifacts:



What would you do with them and why?

that money cache and supercharger mine, yuck.
id just keep grinding. those are 3 I use primarily.

that money cache and supercharger mine, yuck.

Sadly those were the 2 epics i got (1 from dig, 1 from WZIB reward), the 2 useful epics i had to sacrifice a lot for....

- Buy Idle Time via AP Adv, it's fairly cheap. Use the additional slot with 1 of ACB, TMB, BMB or Speedy Crafters (not sure which one you swap out to make room for Idle Time, and depends on whether you're crafting profitable items or not). This will get you more armies/money.
- Sacrifice Idle Time, Discount Hospital, Triple Strike, Quadruple Strike at earliest opportunity. Quad Strike can be useful but only if upgrade to at least Rare (48%) for the huge territories on some of the final levels with >200B units.
- Upgrade Speedy Crafters to Epic. I'm working on this myself; believe it gets +50%, which is huge.

Curious though, you have Money Cache & SM @ Epic, do you actually use these in WZI levels or just WZIB? If so, Money Cache is an interesting one ... how much does it get you and how do you use it? Any tips/tricks like using SACs for Free Caches to get higher armies?

Curious though, you have Money Cache & SM @ Epic, do you actually use these in WZI levels or just WZIB? If so, Money Cache is an interesting one ... how much does it get you and how do you use it? Any tips/tricks like using SACs for Free Caches to get higher armies?

Neither tbh, those are the only 2 epics i recieved, and i've never used either of them. I'm just waiting till Fizzer creates an artifact duplication bug to i can get more epics and sacrifice them...

Ah, just saw your above comment ... I assumed you had upgraded them to that point and thus found some way to actually get value out of them vs the 16h cooldown. I was doubtful (or maybe hopeful?). Would have been cool if some Active artifacts were actually useful.

It seems that the more you play (post Ascension), and the faster you clear levels, Active artifacts will become less and less appealing, b/c now 16h is often 20%+ of a level clearing speed.

Maybe that's a benefit Ascension could provide ... lowering artifact cooldown time. B/c as limited use (I won't outright say useless) as Actives are now, it's only amplified as clear speed increases.

I would still like to get my hands on rare or epic SAC, but for battles only. Even if Fizzer massively improved the active artifacts, their cooldown and the fact that they lock a slot while cooling down still reduces their usability by a lot.

I'm currently using hospital boost + army cache boost + money cache boost when capturing stuff, and running ACB, BMB and either TMB or Idle time (depending on how long i'm gone for). Faster crafters has currently no use for me, since my smelters cant even keep up without boosting the crafter speed.

I mostly keep crafter speed on when items take 30+ mins to craft and my smelters can keep up.

It's interesting that you are suggestion crafter speed to upgrade to epic, since i was considering upgrading TMB. Hospital Boost or Item Values.

Army Camp Discount is one that i'm deff going to sacrifice, since i rarely ever use it. Merc Discount is nice, but only saves 8%, and if i upgrade something to epic with it, i'll probably make more than 8% more money, so that one can go as well.

Not sure which other rares to sacrifice, since the other ones are all quite useful from time to time.

Agree that Speedy Crafters isn't helpful if you're smelting all the ingredients, but there are several levels with market-profitable recipes, so smelter speed becomes irrelevant, and in those cases +50% from Artifact (working on this) and +50% from the AP Adv will be huge. Some levels don't, and for those you need to work the smelters to make the ingredients for the crafters.

Merc Discount is great for me. Even a meagre 8% over the course of an entire level can save >1T money across all merc purchases. I already have AP Adv +50% so together that makes it 58%. This works well with my +75% Additional Mercs, so I have both more mercs & cheaper mercs, so less armies required from army camps.

Army Camp Discount I'm on the fence about ... it's okay, but only 3% (I have Uncommon) and not sure it's worth raising to 12% Epic b/c my game isn't focused on army camps. Hospital Discount rare 6% I get a lot of value out of though. Will get that & Merc Discount to Epic before Army Camp Discount.

Item Sell Value is my next AP Adv focus, and I have the artifact @ Rare +16%, also good bonus money when combined with Speedy Crafters.

My game is focused on having lots of money to buy Hospital upgrades & Mercs.

For the levels as they currently are, Speedy Crafters would be my first choice for upgrade, with Hospital Boost and Item Values close behind. Army Camp Discount and Idle Time would be my top choices for sacrifice.

However, there hasn't been an update few a few months. Nearly all of the very late game recipes are completely un-makeable (can't get the ingredients in time). You can upgrade market visibility to 50 but there are never more than 7 markets on a level. I'd prefer recipes and markets to be left as they are, but they could change. Any significant changes to them could affect the usefulness of speedy crafters. Upgrading it is a gamble.

Both true & relevant. Upgrading anything to Rare is a minor to significant risk, upgrading to Epic is a large risk, upgrading to Legendary is a super huge massive risk. Anything can change, and all that investment could be hard nerfed into disappointment.

We already saw Speedy Crafters get nerfed from the 2x level-to-level increases to 10%/15%/25%/35% (not listing Legendary & Insane b/c for most of this, these are not reasonably achievable) ... oh just realized Epic is 35%, I thought Epic was 50% - well that vastly reduces the efficacy of it but maybe still worth it. Legendary is just too much investment required ... 4 Epics could provide a lot of value for just a last +15% crafter speed.

But on some levels ... 15% speed across 15x crafters building Explosive Bolts/Magnets/Circuits/etc could still be significantly profitable.

I would like to see improvement on the recipes though. 80% of the recipes on later levels are outright useless (requires too many ingredients relative to the smelting/crafting time of the ingredients + final item + sale price once crafted).

Edited 7/5/2021 17:53:10

Sacrifice: Idle Time, Speedy Crafters, Money Cache, Supercharge Mine, Hospital Disc., Triple and Quadruple Strike.
Keep the rest

@Parsifal
I'm surprised you're saying to sac the Army Camp Discount artifact? I assumed you'd have this up at Epic since you have an army campy-centric strat. I assume you have the Army Camp Discount AP Adv maxed out (or near it)?

I assume that you don't use all the active artifacts and that especially the Common/Poor ones just fall into the category of "just got them and waiting to sacrifice/upgrade them in order to boost my already Rare/Epic artifacts".

I see three strategies in general from this state onward:

1.) If you use (almost) all of them at some point, keep everything as is and swap as appropriate. Here, there isn't much more to say.

2.) Determine the four least used Rares and convert one Rare into Epic. First candidate for sacrifice is probably Speedy Crafter (because of the nerf). The other three depend on your strategy. Idle Time can be replaced by the advancement or if you play at least half a day anyways, idle time doesn't do much. The other two, I don't want to advise you on; check how they benefit you currently. Also, I don't have a clear winner on which one I'd upgrade. Item Value could be a good candidate. Or TMB, but you already use one Epic Money Boost, so perhaps look for something else as the third passive Epic. And you will most likely not sacrifice the Rare TMB, so you would still have one Rare and one Epic Money Boost.

3.) From all your Epics/Rares select one really valuable and from the Rares select two (to four) that you use the most, convert the first candidate all the way to Legendary and keep the other two (to four) Rares for 2nd and 3rd slot (plus two to swap in where applicable). Here, a lot would change - especially you would lose all your Epics (except one, in case you chose one of the Epics as your Legendary) - and hence, a lot will depend on your playing style. The candidate for Legendary could be ACB. The four Rares to keep would for me probably be TMB, ACD, IV, and HB. But you would sacrifice a lot here and not only artifacts. ;)

I'm more of a swapper, so I'd probably choose option 1. Option 2, though, seems viable, too. Option 3 might be too radical for most. If you had one more Rare, you could upgrade one to Legendary and still have one Epic left (but sacrifice everything but the Common/Poor ones). Perhaps then, when you can keep an Epic, option 3 is a bit more appealing.

Edit: @ krinid, if my eyes don't play tricks on me, Parsifal wouldn't sacrifice ACD.

Edited 7/5/2021 19:49:06

Speedy Crafter is great. Do not sacrifice.

Sacrifice Army Cache, Money Cache, Idle Time, and Army Camp Discount to improve Hospital Boost

Do not sacrifice: Item Boost, Speedy Crafters, Hospital Boost, Mercenary Discount

Edited 7/5/2021 20:08:16

So based on what's been said so far, the suggestions are generally:

1. do nothing

2. upgrade either Speedy Crafters, Hospital Boost or Item Values, sacrificing the 2 cache boots, idle time and another artifact i rarely use.

Right now, i'm going to stick to 1, and see what my stats are at the end of my current level (China). Since crafter speed is easier to get using AP, I will not upgrade that one to epic. That leaves either Hospital Boost or Item values to upgrade to epic, depending on whether hospitals saved a reasonable % of armies compared to the total armies i obtained.

Note on Crafting Speed, the affects stack inversely unlike other artifacts.

Example:
Base takes 100s to craft

Max AP boost takes 50s
100*(1-0.5)
Can Craft 2 compared to base

Max AP Boost and Epic Craft Speed
100*((1-0.5)(1-0.35))=32.5s
In the same time it takes the base, it’ll produce 3.08. And produce 50% more than just with AP.

35% Crafter Speed = +53.84% Items
(100/(1-0.35)-100)/100

@krinid

you are hallucinating.
nowhere have I suggested to sac Army Camp Discount

Edited 7/5/2021 21:43:12

Your math on the last example is confusing me . . . what are you calculating in that formula? Why is 0.65 on the denominator?

I agree that a 100s craft will take 32.5s with +50% & +35% bonuses from crafter speed AP Adv + Artifacts respectively.

But +35% Artifact alone would cause it to craft in 65s (100s*(1-0.35)=65s, which is unsurprisingly 35% quicker (not 53.84%).

After you get one more rare, sacrifice all your rares to get 2 more epics, then sacrifice those 2 epics with the 2 active epic and upgrade Army Camp Boost or Bonus Money Boost. At least then those 2 epics become useful.

I'm 2 days into United States. Here's the breakdown for various epic artifacts.

Crafters: 6
Recipe to make: Tin Can
Cost to buy ingredients from the market: 1.7M
Sell price (with Item Values equipped): 20.0M (3.09 M from Item Values)
Profit: 18.3M
Craft time with speedy crafters: 66 seconds
Craft time without speedy crafters: 102 seconds

Tin can profit per second with speedy crafters: 18.3M/66 x 6 crafters = 1.66 M/s
Tin can profit per second without speedy crafters: 18.3/102 x 6 crafters = 1.08 M/s

Here is what various epic artifacts would contribute to my income right now:
Epic Speedy Crafters: 1.66 M/s - 1.08M/s = 580 K/s
Epic Item Values (Speedy Crafters equipped): 3.09M/66 x 6 crafters= 291 K/s
Epic Bonus Money Boost: 166 K/s
Epic Territory Money Boost: 266 K/s
Epic Craft Double: 20M/66 x 12% x 6 crafters = 218 K/s


I run these kinds of numbers on occasion. Speedy crafters is the best currently, but it won't be for long. Overall, bonus money boost is better than speedy crafters on the last three levels. On the middle levels, speedy crafters is the best money artifact for a solid majority of the level. In the first few levels, it's completely useless. The best time to upgrade it is partway through Europe Huge before ascending. The biggest downside to speedy crafters is that you have to do the math if you want it to be useful. Overall, I find it to be more valuable than bonus money boost.