how are people getting through these stages so fast? just took me like 6 months or sometime to super ascend for a 5th time

By the time you hit SA6 you should have some pretty decent artifact wealth and at least a couple +%AP boosts. Those make a big difference in both getting your AM up to where it needs to be faster and also reducing the required armies from AM to clear a level, as well as getting you to the first market faster.

In general, a level should look like*:
- cache surf + CRA to first market (<1h)
- drain market, buy mercs and repeat until you have all Hospitals and Markets (~5-10m)
- upgrade hospitals if needed (0-4h)
- clear the remaining 80-90% of the level (~5-10m)

On SA1, you won't have a good enough AV artifact to do this, and even if you did, you would come up short on armies anyways, because your AM isn't high enough. That means there's another step after the last one above which reads something like "- wait on army camps/drafting to fill the army shortfall (hours, days, weeks, ...)", which is by far the slowest part of an Idle level. This is why AM is the most important advancement to take and one of the reasons why A$B is one of the most popular artifacts (and almost certainly the best first Insane) - they're the most effective way to shrink and eventually eliminate this step entirely. Once you get there, you too can start knocking over levels in basically the time it takes to upgrade the Hospitals.

One wild guess: Are you dumping a whole lot of AP into IACP? If so, that's a trap and will be a big reason why you're going so slowly. IACP seduces you in the early levels where it still makes a difference, but it rapidly becomes irrelevant (moreso the later you get in the levels) and drains AP that could have been spent on AM.

* The early levels (before Far Land) have mediocre to non-existent cache surfs, and the very early ones lack Markets entirely. This makes them a constant boondoggle and generally problematic/slow. For a 6 month long SA they're probably a drop in the bucket for you still.

ahhh interesting. I do a little IACP but will stop. have insane alloy, army cache, time warp and army camp production as artifacts.

is joint strike still the premier advancement or should it all go to additional mercs? How far up do people generally boost it, 150%?

what's cache surf and CRA? do you even upgrade army camps, or anything really? or put all money to mercs and hospital, ignoring the skill tree?

Edited 10/29/2024 18:03:31

A little IACP is ok, it's pretty cheap up to 100% or so. 500% is very expensive though. See my posts over here for a more thorough breakdown: https://www.warzone.com/Forum/778254-phase-four-advancementslegendary-recommendations

JS is incredible but so obviously good and cheap that hardly anybody doesn't max it out very early on, so it's just generally more or less assumed that you max it ASAP. I take AM up to 125% now, but I don't play many levels before SAing again and have significant artifact support as well. You'll need to figure out what you actually need for your specific situation, as it will change over time. You will probably need a segue into IASV and MD before you get AM up to your target, where exactly depends on your +%AP and what levels you're playing.

CRA = Clan Request Armies
cache surf = hop from army cache to army cache (ignoring everything else) until you hit the first market

Most levels have a "gap" in the army caches available where you won't have enough to get to the next one, that's generally where you want to fire off your CRA to bridge the gap. If you do it right, you don't need to use any active artifacts nor any powers. Insane A$B helps a lot, Legendary A$B is still workable though.

For the post-early levels, I stop upgrading army camps after I fire off my CRA, as that's moments before I hit the first market and army camps become completely irrelevant. I buy the tech that matters using the markets (better hospitals and cache tech - sometimes also the cheaper merc techs, depends on the level). Mines are 99% ignored, with two notable exceptions (Geopolitics (not post-early, but noteworthy anyways) and HRome). Most levels have tons of money left over at the end that's basically useless.

18 supers: +250%AP, 10 artifact slots:



P.S. Probably last SA which I got enough SL without playing extra levels before hex.

Thirty-sixth Super Ascend!

New bonus: +25% AP
Kept: Insane A$B, ACampB, Legendary AV, TW, SAC, RCB, MD, CB, BMB, TMB, MCB, HB, Rare HB, IM, DB, SAC, Uncommon SC
Bonuses: +15 slots, +450% AP, 0.8^3 dig time

My Legendary MCB finally finished cooking this SA and using it was underwhelming, much like last time. There are a few instances where it's noticeable but mostly it's not really worth the swap in/out.

The extra AP altered my path a little again. After Far Land (and HFL) I jumped to 1066 AD and then on to HOT and HScandi followed by AEG (swapped with China to farm an SL) and Hex Earth. It's getting to the point where I almost don't play any post-early levels anymore, which is a weird feeling. The large AP dump from HFL continues to grow and really pushes along the SA. Soon I'll probably jump straight from HFL to HOT. I'm not there yet, but I'm starting to see a future where taking +100 starting AP would be more helpful than +25% AP, as the +25% AP has a fairly small impact on the early levels.

Next up: +25% AP, TBD