“If you have multiple copies of the same artifact and select it 1st, 2nd, and 3rd only the 1st one you select gets equipped.”

Yeah, this is the crux of the question. I didn’t realize anyone had been mad enough to try. Have you actually done this?

Yes. After super ascending I only had the 1st one I selected equipped while slot 2 and 3 were empty. I was expecting that the 4th and 5th I selected would have been equipped but that did not happen.

I've super ascended 2 times. +25% AP, and 3rd slot.

Edited 7/29/2022 20:47:59

updated

I just pushed the Super Ascend button for the first time 😁

Updated

May anybody recommend decent SAsc levels from the middle of the SAsc levels list as well as strategies to beat them efficiently?

There is already lots of info on pre-SAsc EH,HEH and post-SAsc HE (lol at the acronyms). The most common route described in the forums is to have skip level advancement, beat EH, then use super skill level power and get to EH. But what is the best way to go without the skip level powers? What levels do you complete, when you dont have the powers and how?

Edited 7/31/2022 21:17:34

I’ve poked around on the SAsc levels and I think the answer might honestly be that there just isn’t a way to make these efficient from an AP/hour standpoint in comparison with the regular levels.

The mercenaries are so expensive that you are ultimately forced to use IM powers or IM artifacts if you want to beat these levels in less than a week. If you’re going to use these ultra-valuable powers though, you might as well just play Hex Earth.

I’m honestly not even convinced it’s worth “rescuing” the TW and IM powers from these levels - I think you just skip skip skip to Hex Earth and pretend the other 14 levels don’t exist.

That said, I was focused on levels #6-#10 in particular because I was interested in a “landing spot” between super-powered skip levels. Maybe one of the ones before or after?

I think you're right on in your analysis, graemes. I think all the new maps are pretty much garbage until Hex.

Especially the first few, offering a paltry 100-200 AP. But everything up to Medieval is still <1000, and for the time/powers it takes to clear them, I'd say minimum 4000 AP is where I'd draw the 'value' line, so only 7YW, 30YW & Hex are worth it from an AP earnings perspective.

And 7YW is just simply one of the most annoying maps ever, way too many super bonuses and odd bonus combinations, makes it super obnoxious to know what to clear to get certain buildings and caches, and even once you know, they're often so spread out that it's still obnoxious. 30YW is only somewhat better. So I cast them both out.

And that leaves just Hex. The only new post-EH map worth doing imho.

So one or two level per Asc just to reach HE then. About HE, is one IM power enough to clear it or need 5 with SP? I have legendary ACacheB, TS and AV.

@mobtrio
Depends how you play it. With Leg AcacheB & TS, you could certainly just play until you get to the big Merc Camp in Greenland, pop 1 IM, go East, get the big army cache & money cache in E Russia, use TS on the 737B territory, upgrade hospitals twice, clear the level easily.

But the opening of getting to Greenland might take a while ... so if you want to speed that up, you could also:
- get army cache on Parauapebas (need 64K, so may have to wait 10-15 mins depending on artis & Adv's, etc)
- use 1 IM on El Caura in Venezuela
- use 1 IM on Chipas in Mexico
- use 1 IM on Hebron in Labrador
- this will get you all the way to the big merc camp Snow in Greenland, use 1 IM there & follow above instructions

All of these "use 1 IM" iterations could be 1 IM power, or 1x IM arti activation + 1x TW to cool it down, wait 8 hrs (or 3.25 hrs if you have the CW 30% speed cooldown buff on) to move on to the next one, then wait 8 hrs for TW to cooldown again, repeat.

Or . . .
- follow above to get to Snow
- then pop SP IM on Snow merc camp, then you don't even need to use TS on the 737B territory or bother with hospital upgades; this is especially useful for 1st clear through Hex, when you don't yet have or 50% Better Hospitals and 100% Increased army caches; you need this to be around 50% BH and >=60% IAC before you can skip the TS/QS of 737B & hospital upgrades

And depending on your AP% bonuses (# of SAsc's), it may take you 3-5 Hex clears before you get 50% BH + 100% IAC, but as you SAsc it up, you can accomplish this is just 1 clear.

So based on these options, clearing Hex can take anywhere from multiple days to 15 mins, just depending on how many powers you're willing to use to clear it.

Last thing I'll mention, is ALWAYS have AQ or AAQ unlocked before playing Hex. It's >3700 territories, and you don't want to have to cap every territory manually, especially if you're going for multiple playthroughs per SAsc and doing multiple SAsc's (carpel tunnel much?). Once you have the E Russia army cache capped (and maybe the E Russia money cache depending on if you need to upgrade hospitals or not), and have given all the big territories 2 borders if you're using AQ and not AAQ (or just capture them), enable AQ/AAQ and let it fly. Yo do need to ensure that you have enough armies left to finish the central Russia superbonus army cache, and if you get below 1T armies, may need to disable AQ/AAQ and manually cap the rest to avoid not having enough to get that cache. Once you have that cache, reenable AQ/AAQ and let the game finish itself.

LOL, thank you very much for very detail info. So I will use 4 IMs for a while before can only use 1.

I waited to play hex earth until I had better hospitals, additional mercs, and all important money related Phase 1/2 advancements maxed. I was able to beat it using 1 inspire mercs power on the 911M Merc camp in Africa and a rare inspire mercs artifact on the big merc camp in Greenland. I also had a legendary army cache boost.

The thing that eats my powers is getting to hex earth.

@graemes, krinid,
Thanks

I am worried about the availability of skip level powers. My thoughts are as following:

- The total pool of skip level powers in pre-SA levels = ~160
-- Each pre-SA level seems to have 2 skip level powers. You can collect them twice.
-- There are ~40 pre-SA levels
-- ALso some of the skip level powers were used preSA and you also cannot hoard them past 5 (skip level is not present in raffles or wheel spins and the door is optimized to not give you that power, when you cannot use it)

- Every SAsc (within let's say 10 SAscs) requires 15-20 skip level powers to speed run
-- To get to HE you need either 5 skip level powers with advancement or 10 skip level powers without the advancement.
-- Let's say, you do 1 run to HE without the advancement + 2 runs with the advancement.

So, seems after 4 SAsc you will deplete half of the skip level powers on levels, and it might be an effort to find the levels, which still have them.

At ~8-10 SAscs all skip level powers in preSA levels will get depleted that way. If one is being more conservative with power usage, then that depletion moment will be delayed, but still at some quite near point there will be no skip level powers available.

So the challenge looks like to me as:
1) Collect +25% SAsc bonuses, so that you get the skip level advancement faster (within 1st ascencion)
2) Collect a pool of artifacts, which will allow to quickly complete any of those mid-SA levels, so that you will not need skip level powers
As I have have neither of those yet (currently only 2 legendaries and low SA AP bonus), I seek for advice to optimize the routing strategy towards HE.

The thing that eats my powers is getting to hex earth.

I am worried about that too. Dumping IMs in HE seems to me a lesser issue, than lack of skip level powers.

Edited 8/1/2022 12:14:55

You should be able to do it in 3 IMs (either artifact or power)

The route looks like this:
Money cache in Suriname
Army cache in Espirinto Santo
Inspire Mercs in El Caura
Inspire Mercs in Central Newfoundland
Inspire Mercs in Snow (Greenland)
Get three hospitals and upgrade to L2
- Snow (Greenland)
- Xinjiang
- Mortka (Central Urals)
Money cache in Pakistan
Four crafters
- Buenos Aires
- Gharyan (Libya)
- Michigan
- Quebec City
Complete Hospital upgrade path
Money cache (Bonus, Eastern Russia)
Army cache (Bonus, Eastern Russia)
Upgrade hospitals to L3
Auto conquer the map

Tips and tricks:
1. You should be able to beat it comfortably within 16 hours of game time, most time is spent crafting
2. Time Warp should be used once you have all four crafters - set these up to have two on Barbed Wire, one on Tin Can, one on Metal Sheet. There’s still a little extra Barbed Wire remaining to be done at the end but it’s close.
3. Don’t bother with any techs other than Hospital / 50% cache path
4. Don’t bother with Joint Strike
5. Triple/Quad Strike should be used in Brazil, not the 737B territory. Armies are not limiting at the end, they are limiting at the start.

Funny how Hex is played differently. I never crafted anything nor used markets on it and still was able to beat it in less than 1 day with 1 IM. Army cache artifact is very useful here. And you only need to upgrade the 3 large hospitals, the other ones are not helpful.

I’m thinking of doing a tech run on the 17 post-SAsc levels once for the achievements, so I don’t have to do them again. I’ve figured it only makes sense to do so once I’m sufficiently deep into phase 4 advancements…

Just an insight from today AMA:
Fizzer said that "1 army camp"-balance in post-SA levels was initally a bug in level generation, and he decided to leave it as a feature for challenging end-game play :)

Edited 8/1/2022 20:21:08

69 ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

https://i.imgur.com/uLtBObu.png

1075% AP
16 artifacts
+1200 AP

43 +14 +12 = 69 goal reached

I'm going to be busy from now on so I doubt I can play much. I can actually start the 70th but not a nice stopping point.