With the 4th slot for an active artifact and the growing change from "all actives suck" to "some are pretty great at epic or higher", I was wonder how much people have changed their collecting and upgrading habits.

What I had almost 2 months ago:

Epic: Army Camp Boost, Mine Boost, Bonus Money Boost

Rare: All 4 Discounts, Draft Boost, Hospital Boost, Item Values, the 3 Cache Boosts.

3 Uncommon, 2 Commons and 2 Poors that were cannon fodder.

What I have now (just 10, my lowest total in who knows how long):

Legendary: Triple Strike, Time Warp

Epic: Supercharge Army Camp

Rare: Hospital Boost, Mercenary Discount

Uncommon: Smelt & Craft Double

Commons: Item Values, Army Camp Discount, Resource Cache Boost.

When I upgraded my Time Warp, I was left with TS, SAC, HB and a bunch of randoms that I have since sacrificed.
I'm running TW, SAC, and the two doubles unless I'm briefly switching another one in. I really want to replace the Doubles with Army Camp Boost, Mine Boost, Bonus Money Boost again, ACB for when SAC is running, otherwise just TW, SAC, MB, & BMB as my main four.
I'm super happy with TW & SAC combo and will upgrade SAC as soon as I can, damn everything else that I have.

Have you changed your habits lately and if so, how?

Didn't change anything for me.

The only active artifact that I'm using is Time Warp, and it has nothing to do with the addition of the 4th slot. I use Time Warp because it's the only artifact that reduces digging time, which is the most important thing to me right now. I would've used Time Warp anyway with or without the 4th slot.

Supercharge Army Camp is useful for Idle Battles as well but it doesn't occupy a slot as I can just equip it before battles begin and unequip it when battles end.

Supercharge Army Camp is useful for Idle Battles as well but it doesn't occupy a slot as I can just equip it before battles begin and unequip it when battles end.

Can't equip it in the 4th slot though if something else is cooling down. I've played a few battles with TS active ... lol... it's more useful than I thought but no surprises, it's no game winner.

Have you maxed out Faster Digging? I've digging soooo much more now with maxed + the CW bonus. Need to ensure I have 1 of my 2 levels (ML unlocked) at a point where I have a dig available with money to start it. It can be real work! lol

But I will use that to get TW upgraded as you guys are really selling it, so I gotta see it in action.

I'm confused as to how Mine Boost is one of your Go To artifacts though?

I typically use ACB, BMB, TMB, and then the Cache Boosts, Hospital Boost, Merc Discount, Hosp Discount, etc, as required. And of course start with a SAC, throw in a TS as required.

2 months ago:
Legendary: Bonus Money Boost
Epic: Army Camp Boost, Territory Money Boost
Rare: Hospital Boost, Cache Boost, Army+Resource+Money Cache Boost, Merc+Hospital+Tech+Camp+Mine Discount, Ore+Alloy+Item Sell Value, Mine+Draft Boost, Speedy Crafter
Uncommon: All remaining passive artifacts

Changes between 2 months ago and now:
-Got an Epic Time Warp
-Upgraded Alloy Sell Value from Rare to Epic
-Got an Uncommon Supercharge Army Camp that I only use for idle battles
-Downgraded my Rare Mine Boost and Draft Boost to Uncommon while upgrading Time Warp to Epic (by downgrade, I mean get a new Uncommon one, and then sacrifice the Rare one)
-And of course I also have the Legendary Triple Strike, which is useless for me and the only useful thing it can do is probably to be sacrificed for upgrading Time Warp to Insane some time in the far future.

Future plans:
Get 2 random Epics, then sacrifice them along with my Epic Army Camp Boost and Territory Money Boost to upgrade Time Warp to Legendary. Then get 2 random Legendaries (probably will take a looooong time), and sacrifice them along with Triple Strike and Bonus Money Boost to upgrade Time Warp to Insane.

@krinid

When the 4th slot has something cooling down (which is always the case), I equip my Uncommon Supercharge Army Camp in one of the passive slots. Doesn't matter because I'm unequipping it afterwards anyway.

I've maxed out faster digging. No CW digging bonus for me though. It requires 15 territories within the same season in Clan War to have the digging speed reward, which is a totally unrealistic target for my clan. My clan is not very into Clan War and the participation rate is pretty low. So far, my clan's performance in Clan War is:

Season 1: 5 territories
Season 2: 10 territories
Season 3: 7 territories
Season 4: 5 territories
Season 5: 6 territories

If the length of each season becomes a few times longer, then maybe I'll have a chance of getting the 2-week digging bonus......

In case you wonder why there's always something cooling down in my 4th slot, of course it's the Time Warp. I do non-stop Time Warping, regardless of what's going on in my levels. Digging team and Time Warp are the two things that needs to work 24/7.

why time warp? faster digs, less hospital cool down?

can you stack multiple time warp in all slots and power through endlessly?

TW propably for the reasons you gave.

And no, you can only have one artifact per type active or cooling down at any given time. So, use the rarest TW artifact and then wait 16h (or less, there seems to be some artifact cooldown reduction somewhere) to activate it again.

I think the 5.14 market change made more of a difference than the 4th boy for me.

During the 5.13 days, crafters were king and there was a lot of talk about Craft Double and Speedy Crafters (along with BMB, ACB, Hospital Boost, Merc Discount, SAC, and Time Warp).

With the 5.14 market change, crafting has essentially gone away and money is essentially infinite. Also, Hospital Boost got nerfed.

Everything is so negligible now other than markets and the merc camp limit that I don’t bother to micro manage beyond Army Cache Boost + Item Sell Value + Time Warp when active and ACB + BMB + Time Warp when inactive. I use Triple Strike or SAC in the fourth slot depending on if I’m battling or cooling down.

it has almost prevented world war 3, I think fizzer should continue making these important idle changes to prevent the "bad" from happening

"It has almost prevented world war 3, I think fizzer should continue making these important idle changes to prevent the "bad" from happening"

WW3? WAT

What bad.

WW3

I am curious how many people stopped or will stop their Time Warp upgrade at Epic (2 hours = hospital upgrade) versus how many plan to keep going beyond for no real benefit other than digging.

I digged up the ligma artifact

@graemes

I guess that many people will stop at epic first, but after a while they'll realize that digging is the only way to make progress after you've ascended for enough number of times. So they'll continue to upgrade Time Warp until insane because digging is the only thing matters at this point. At least that's my story.

I don't' even use it for hospitals, as soon as the cool down is finished I start it again. The last level I played took me about 4 real days to finish but 6 days in game running it all the time, now I don't think it saved me the full two days, but it was still at least one day faster. I also use it with my epic SAC which makes it much wore valuable for me.

^^
What Math said. Digging. I have pretty all the Advancements I want/need or that will make any material difference, but there's a lot of improvement available for artifacts still.

I have ML level 1 (so 2 levels at once), and I try to leave either EH or HEH almost finished so I can keep digging while doing whatever on the other level I'm actually playing.

Do EH, dig dig dig, HEH, dig dig dig, start EH, Ascend, dig dig dig, HEH, dig dig dig, repeat. And also fulfill clan requests like a madman. I can fund them all! mwahaha

I suppose my ultimate goal in WZI is to increase my Idle time to 24-48 hrs, get to 5 Simul Levels and be able to just enable the auto-Adv's and come back to great progress, requiring little interaction from me to finish the levels.

And to do that, gonna need some more Epic & Leg artifacts than I have now. Maybe even a couple Insanes.

And at some point in the future if there is an update similar to the addition of the Hardened levels ... I'll revive active play to complete those.

But to the answer the question on 4th Boy ... I use SAC artifact all the time, even if I don't need it per se. No point in NOT using it unless I think I'm going to be starting a new level soon and want to save it to start that level. I use my Leg TS if I'm playing HEH or HT to kill the 1.1T / 671B territories. So the 4th Boy was a fantastic addition, b/c it actually gives life to Actives (or increases it for those that already used them) without sacrificing current use of Passives. Win/Win.

I'm still upgrading TW, I only have it @ Rare 60 mins right now so not a huge bonus, but maybe Math's point is valid, once the level is started and there's not much benefit from SAC anymore (boosting army camps is really only significant at start of level), it might be better off throwing TW in to save 1 hr, notably if hospital upgrades are happening (or mortars if you're so inclined [I'm not]), but certainly save 1 hr with digs. And 2 hrs once I get it to Epic.

I did use SM a bunch while I was doing Tech Runs for those ridiculous ore requirements for luxury bars, but now that those are behind me, probably not going to use it again.

Is there anyone else using Actives other than SAC, TW or TS?

I know there were some folks using DT with FB powers to whittle down large territories early in the maps. And some were using QS b/c they didn't have the Leg TS yet (which makes sense).

Anyone using FH, MR, IM, any of the active Discount artis, any of the Cache artis? And surely no one is using FB (arti)? It has to be the worst artifact, 2 territories @ poor level, 24 @ Epic level ... so despite already being underpowered, it got nerfed to not even give the 2x increases per level (would have been 32 @ Epic). Visibility to 32 territories not even chosen my the player is just not worth 16h cooldown which could be used on one of the others like SAC, TW, TS, etc.

Edited 10/5/2021 20:11:35