Since the update is coming soon to the Apps, there has been some debate as to which artifacts to carry over. Obviously, some artifacts are better than others, and since you can only bring 2-3 on your first loop, I wanted to see what other people think are the best. Here are a few of the top contenders that I see:

25% AP - Not an artifact, but takes the place of one if you are doing a SAsc, so going to treat it as one for these purposes.

Alloy Values - Best money artifact in the game when combined with Markets and still great without. A must.

Time Warp - Great at all levels of play (early game and late game). Helps with WZIB for those prizes. Only Artifact that can help you get more Artifacts faster.

Army Camp Bonus - Huge help in the early levels. Drops off in usefulness as time goes on.

Mercenary Discount - Helpful later on as you have more upgrades in Add Mercs. Less useful from the get go. (I would know.)

There are other useful artifacts, but I see AV/TW/ACB being the top contenders.

Personally, I am leaning towards a Insane + Epic + AP 25% for my SAsc. The artifacts of choice being Insane TW and Epic AV for the reasons mentioned above.

Given that I can currently spew out an Epic Artifact every 15 days, I can be picky before I do a SAsc.

What are other people's thoughts? What will you take with you?

Edited 11/27/2021 16:22:18

I'm planning to super ascend with:
Insane Army Camp Boost
Legendary Alloy Values
One other artifact

Future Legendaries will be Army Cache Boost and Time Warp. I'll consider Mercenary Discount if I'm running out of money. If I have trouble getting enough armies, I may actually go with Cache Boost before Time Warp.

Insane Army Camp Boost = 320% Insane? While I'm not a huge fan of Army Camp methodology, that could actually be feasible given that we get 0 AP, 0 Adv's ... starting again with 0% Army Camp Production buff is rough, it really needs to be at least 100% when you first start out, which is really the only time Army Camp Production is significant. Not sure if it trumps Time Warp though.

Think it depends if you're going to be actively playing or not. If so, maybe ACB makes sense. If not, TW or TS likely better.

Legendary Alloy Values is a no brainer, I think.

But I'm thinking Time Warp might be good to speed up digs, b/c presumably the goal is to get an many Insane artifacts as possible as quickly as possible, so Insane TW would help with that.

But if you're more focused on Ascending 3-4 times + Super Ascending then repeating quickly in succession, ACB could make sense.

Surprised that you have it at Insane though ... couldn't have given you much value pre-Super Ascend update, b/c it'd just be an additional 320% on top of the already 500% from the Adv, which gives <1% of the armies required to clear a level, so let's assume that it even bumped you to 2%, surely would have been bigger from having Alloy Values or Time Warp @ Insane?

I'm thinking if I ever bother to SAsc (undecided as of yet), I'd take:
Leg/Insane Alloy Values
Leg/Insane Time Warp
Leg/Insane Triple Strike

Leg TS is great for casual play. Activate it, get bonus armies, ensure you're digging, hit TW, come back later, repeat.

@krinid
It'll be a while before it (my ACB) becomes insane ;) Other stuff might be better, but it's the one I want.

Edited 11/28/2021 06:45:44

My recommendations:
* +25% AP
* Supercharge Army Camp
* Army Camp Boost

With the choice above, it should be possible to finish most levels in 1 day. Now, I estimate that a super ascension could be done under 2 months.

@Master Jz, Functor
It's tough to only pick 2 or 3 after having been using 10 or so for such a long time. There is a case to be made for any of ACB, SAC, TW, AV, Army Cache Boost or a few others. Even taking +25% AP has merit, esp considering if you do that 4 or so times, +100% AP would definitely accelerate getting that 143K AP required to SAsc again.

Theoretically each time you take 25% AP it decreases the time required for next super ascension by some amount related to the speed increase. The speed increase can be described as a fraction starting with 1 for the first run and time is inversely related to speed. Because it is a 25% boost each time the first run would take 4/4 or 100% of the time. Every 25% reward increases the numerator of speed by one so after four increases you would have 8/4 which is two times the speed of the first run or 50% of the time. The first 25% reward it will take 4/5 the time or 80% of the time, the second reward will take 4/6 or 67% of the time etc. This of course ignores artifacts which also increase speed by some amount. In order to warrant picking an artifact you have to save at least the amount of time the next 25% AP boost would have saved.

Edited 12/2/2021 22:13:21

@Chief Rollie
That's the question indeed - which artifacts help you clear levels 25% faster? Or more specifically, which 3rd Artifact would do so? You already get 2 to bring, and thus the question becomes which 3rd artifact when combined with the first 2 would still bring a 25% speed increase?

Candidates:

• Time Warp - Literally a time saver. At Insane level would give 8 hrs speed every 16 hrs, which at first glance seems to be 50% speed increase - but it's 50% play speed and not really 50% level clear speed b/c the rate of level clear really depends on ability to get money/buy mercs which happens when you're actively playing and not while being Idle (for 8 hrs or otherwise). Except the early levels, where this might actually be super useful.
  
• Supercharge Army Camp - Often gets the level started super fast, to the point where most experienced players never start a level without it. What might have taken 4-24 hrs (depends on the level) to finally get some real action happening on a level can be accelerated into 30-60 mins by throwing in some Free Caches to assist. BUT this can be reasonably substituted with SAC powers, so maybe this isn't a must have? But it's definitely a Nice To Have and is a good contender for 25% time saver.
  
• Triple Strike - This one depends on your play style. If you are an active player, doing speed runs, play lots of levels consecutively, then maybe this isn't a match for you. But if you play casually, check in a few times per day, etc - then this can be a wonder. Active it, kill the biggest territory, and at Legendary or higher, even get some armies credited just for using it, which means quicker clear speed. So if for example you're taking 20+ days to clear a level, using this ~16-20 times on that level could certainly shave off 25% of the clear time if you hit the right territories.
  
• Army Cache Boost - In the end, it's all about having armies. Legendary 32% means 32% more armies from caches, and Insane 64% is even higher, and army caches work out to be ~15-20% of the armies on a map, so @ 64%, that's 9.6%-12.8% more armies, which just might save 25% of the time it would have taken to generate those via army camps or crafting items to buy mercs.
  
• Alloy Values - Yes, it's all about armies, which means it's all about mercs, which means it's all about money. Epic 56% alloy value buff immediately brings sooooooo many money mercs to the fight, Legendary 112% even more, and I won't even mention Insane. I think this is an easy contender.
  

Maybe there's more but those are my picks.

But you get 2 of those already ... so let's assume they stack nicely and give you 50% speed increase (in reality probably closer to 35-40%, I don't think all the bonuses together quite work out that way), would the 3rd one offer an additional 25% increase? Or would you just be better off taking the +25% AP?

And then on further SAsc's, if you continue adding Artifacts, would they continue adding 25% speed? Surely not. But adding additional +25% AP either certainly would or at least come close. Imagine after 8 SAsc's and having +200% AP, this would surely make for phenomenal clear times from halfway through an ascension. The start would still be slow b/c you still have to clear the first 5-10 levels with very little AP and only 2 artifacts, but after that, it should get easier fairly quickly.

Hmm, I hadn’t considered SAC. I forgot how good it is when ML is out of the question.

Ins TW + Epic SAC…. *scratches chin pondering*

There’s absolutely no way Triple Strike is in the running, when you get it for free within the first ~dozen levels guaranteed. The incremental value of a Legendary Triple Strike versus an Epic Triple Strike pales in comparison to the incremental value of a Legendary or Insane Time Warp, SAC, Army Camp Boost, Merc Discount, etc. versus nothing.

My tier list:
Alloy Sell Value
+25% AP (#1)
+25% AP (#2)
Army Cache Boost
Time Warp
SAC
Army Camp Boost
+25% AP ad infinitum

If I were allowed I would sacrifice an artifact for double AP.

@graemes
Actually carrying over Leg TS is one of my top picks, along with Leg AV & TW. But right now I'm playing super casually, so Leg TS makes a lot of sense for me. Find the biggest target, use TS, use SAC, ensure a dig is started, use TW, come back later in the day when the cycle repeats.

For levels like Hard Trisk or HEH, Leg TS can turn it from a brute to a kitten by taking out a few key territories and notably the big ones (like the 1.1T territory on HEH) while providing an allowance of armies. I can see this strat working for the early levels as well.

Right now I'm just digging to get some Insanes, and I'm considering whether I want 2x Insane + 1x Leg or Epic, or just 2x Insane + 25% AP and then do a 3rd artifact on next run. If 3 artifacts, then it's AV/TW/TS but need to decide which will become Insane.

I do question if you'd be able to finish Hard Creek within 'the first ~dozen levels', I suspect you wouldn't quite be ready to take it on yet. But regardless of whether it's in the first dozen or not, getting an Epic TS means great Epic fodder in making another Leg or Insane.

@graemes there’s a huge difference between epic and legendary TS. I came across a 17bn stack earlyish into hardened Scandinavia. Instead of spending 3.4bn, which I didn’t have, I gained ~10bn and was able to conquer a bunch more to boot.

Starfox!

the first time you war