I was just periodically re-evaluating my opinion on the advancements and as I said before, I have a hard time seeing the point in most of phase 2 and 3 advancements both from the perspective of "getting something useful out of it (and for my money)" and "getting the phase full to unlock the next". So, please enlighten me and (if so) point me to where I'm wrong (given the currently most preferred strategies).

• Ore advancements: yeah, right. Maybe someday when I have 50k to spare I'll max them all in one go
• Visibilities: sure, it's markets and mercs, both important assets, but there are the screenshots available so I don't really need them
• Autos: Sell is probably the worst of all and upgrading your mines is still considered a good investment, but it will always upgrade the wrong mines and waste all the money. Though sell could be (mildly) useful for battles
• Can Skip: Only really appealing to me as soon as I have the ML advancement, other than that perhaps have 1 or 2 stages for QoL
• Start with Tech: the ones you get are the ones you will get for free by just playing for the first hour or so no matter what. And then spend 21k?
• Mortar: seriously?
• BMB: if you use an epic BMB artifact, maxing this advancement out only has an effective boost of 50% (if you don't use techs), with techs even less, and as far I as know the current strategies target quick level clearings, so not much time to earn money from bonuses anyway
• Tech discount: only 30% for almost 10k and techs aren't that important if you don't need the tech achievement (anymore)
• Item Sell Value: even this one is generally considered inferior to Alloy Sell Value (when it comes to raiding markets at least), but definitely worth something

Edited 2/16/2022 01:14:30

Can skip lets you skip whatever is giving low returns (depends on if you’re early or late as to what that is); start with tech is useful in battles and still useful particularly on late maps which require crafted items even for basic techs; item values is probably best because some markets only have items, and bmb is decent in battles and early upgrades. I’d say a couple skip levels then 4 start with tech, item values, and then whatever you like next best.

The first thing I purchased in phase 3 is can skip level.

Being able to skip levels like Triskelion without needing to use a skip level power is cool.

My favorites in phase 3:

* can skip levels: lets me skip over most of the levels I don't like
* starts with tech: avoid some early tech grind, become efficient sooner
* merc/market visibility: army counts help me prioritize targets

I felt the QoL improvements were more important that boosting secondary money sources.

Same as awaythro said plus increased money bonus once you got the other good advancements (incl phase 4).

- Skip levels is a must, definitely first to get
- Merc/market visibility is relatively cheap and makes gameplay easier (for large maps)
- Start with tech is nice to have before super ascension but a real plus for the new levels in which even the early techs are not affordable / cannot be produced in a reasonable time. Particularly useful if you also unlocked auto-draft in phase 4.

Start with Techs
Market Visibility
Merc Camp Visibility
Tech Discount
Skip Levels

Those are the useful ones.

Item Sell Values costs way too much AP, and as you said, Alloy Values is where it's at. There are only a small handful of markets without alloys, so unless you're crafting a lot of items, this is wasted AP.

Market & Merc Vis are QoL. Yes, there are screenshots, or your own notes, or just memory if you've played the levels enough, but this just makes it so you don't need to bother referencing anything, it's right there in front of you.

Tech Discount & Start with Techs are both just a bit of acceleration. If you're actively playing levels (ie: lots of micromanagement instead of casually coming back every now and then), this isn't as big a buff, but minimally when maxed out it gets you Drafts & 1 of the 2 +15% Alloy techs, which means you can get started with Markets & getting $ quicker.

Skip Levels is likely absolutely not necessary unless you do a lot of skipping. If you only skip 1 or 2 here andthere (looking @ you, Trisk), the powers on the levels will be enough. I've never invested in it myself for this reason, but maybe getting level 1 or 2 is sufficient to skip past the occasional troublesome level is useful? But imho I'd save this as the last bit of AP you need to use up to get to phase 4, which is where all the real goodies are.

Speaking of Can Skip: How exactly does that work? If I have it at - say - stage 3, does that mean I can always start every level up to four from the last cleared level, or that I can skip 3 levels in total within one ascension?

Example: with Can Skip 3 after an ascension, I can start with any of the first four levels, right? If I now decide to skip the tutorial and cleared Huruey's Castle, how many more levels can I access afterwards? Only one more, because I cleared one of the accessible levels (skipping the tutorial counts as one towards the Can Skip advancement)? So, for every cleared one, I get one more. Or two, because of the next four levels counted from Huruey's Castle two weren't unlocked before?

Speaking of Can Skip: How exactly does that work? If I have it at - say - stage 3, does that mean I can always start every level up to four from the last cleared level, or that I can skip 3 levels in total within one ascension?

The former.

Oh! So its not like skip level then, you just start a few levels in? I guess it helps, just not as much then (then again I don't skip levels (still on my first time)).

Skip Levels is a very good Achievement. There’s a wide disparity in how “good” levels are from an AP per time perspective (ranging from Hardened Europe levels at best to regular Triskelion at worst) and Skip Levels is the only tool you have to optimize for this lever.

Churning ascensions and playing these “good” levels when they still pay out 100% AP is quite a powerful tool.

With that said, Phase 3 achievements are definitely the worst and you should certainly max Joint Strike, Alloy Values, Increased Mercs, etc. before even considering putting AP in here.

Oh! So its not like skip level then, you just start a few levels in? I guess it helps, just not as much then (then again I don't skip levels (still on my first time)).

1 level of Can Skip Levels is exactly like 1 SL power, just that they're always active. After finishing a level, it's like you just played 1 SL for each level of Can Skip Levels you have invested in.

Example: if you just finished Drakemor, without any Can Skip Levels investment, you will have Pelo unlocked, and everything after it still locked. If you have Can Skip Levels @ Level 3, you will also have unlocked KP-X, Feldmere, Sengoku. And if you skip over Pelo, KP-X & Feldmere and play Sengoku & finish it, you would then have unlocked Copper Creek (next level), Geopolitics, Breaking Green & Far Land.

Edited 2/16/2022 15:30:06

So, with Can Skip at stage 1 I can already play only every other level and skip all the odd or even levels and will ultimately be able to ascend again with only playing half the levels (without needing powers)? That's pretty powerful. Then, I get why this is a strong and recommended advancement.

@Phoenix
Correct. I suppose one of the reasons I never bothered with it is b/c when I was more actively playing levels, the trick of Start EH / Ascend / Finish EH to re-unlock all levels / Play what you like / replay EH / re-Ascend, was available, so there was never any need to skip over levels b/c they were all always available.

Now SL is more of a necessity now that that era has passed.