Shouldn't that just be the old version updated? why add a new one that does the same but its smarter? it just makes the older one useless... makes no sense to me. Sure you can get the other one sooner but.. I dunno, just make it smarter only on the last upgrade or something.

Auto dig seams cool though (though it probably will start them in order and start those awful ones, then again by the time you get it it doesn't matter?)

The question is whether the smart auto conquer will truly turn out to be that useful. Without a boost from buying mercenaries or an army cache there usually should be at maximum 1 territory at a time to which the auto conquer applies which does not seem to leave room for a smart algorithm.

Edit: It should be great in challenges though but at that time then again you won't need it ;)

Edited 3/24/2022 20:29:56

Phase 4, 5000 AP to unlock and have to rebuild it up 5% at a time, and it renders the 1st one that you've likely already pumped AP into useless. Too little, too late. It does go up to 100% instead of just 50% though, 1 key difference (which means even more AP required to max it out).

AP & Phase aside ... will it be useful? Joint Strike prioritization is good, prioritizing structures ... maybe good? But what I haven't heard here is that it will conquer all "free" territories b/c their capture cost is less than your hospital buffs. This is key, b/c that in turn increases the opportunities for Joint Strike.

Also haven't seen a "scale" to turn the % up/down, it's still just upgrade it to 100% and then turn it on/off.

I'd much rather see this:

- Phase 2 - Advanced Auto-Conquer - increase Auto-Conquer range from 55%-100% - Unlocks to 55% for 2000AP, upgrades in 5% increments, with scale bar to change from 5%-100% when activated
- Phase 2 - Advanced Auto-Conquer - Joint Strike - causes AQ/AAQ to prioritize Joint Strike - AP cost 1000 AP
- Phase 2 - Advanced Auto-Conquer - Structures - causes AQ/AAQ to prioritize territories with structures like Army Camps, etc - AP cost 1000 AP
- Phase 3 - Advanced Auto-Conquer - Joint Strike - causes AQ/AAQ to prioritize territories that can be captured for free because their capture cost is less the minimum hospital benefit - AP cost 2000 AP

And maybe some others. This way, you can toggle each one On/Off as you see fit for better control.

As for Auto-Dig ... presumably it will just prioritize the digs in the order they appear in the dig site list. Most Idle features target the benefits to the player in order of "easiest to acquire", which in this case would be cost.

Then again, who knows, it might take the path of AQ where it targets the biggest capturable territories available, and tries to buy the most expensive available dig. This would be terrible though, as it would use as much money as possible as quickly as possible. Especially during early levels, it's advantageous to start the cheapest digs first so you save money for other things.

It's probably the first option though (start the cheapest digs first).

Edited 3/24/2022 20:54:57

Oh yeah I was thinking about battles, since thats what I use it for (i just got a few point into it and no other auto yet) didnt even think its sort useless outside? Maybe not for people who go full idle, for them its good I guess.

I agree with your opinion, those are great suggestions and we would be able to chose which parts we want or dont want.

Honestly all i wanted in this patch is to be able top de-activate the arena/dig and mortar windows... they take a lot of space and its not needed info. You can remove other like markets I dont understand why you cant those since they are so big and dont go away on their own or when you click "dismiss all".

I was about to formulate this as a rant, but to stay in style of this thread's title: What are the benefits of the new AQ? I mean, I get AD, this is another aspect that wasn't automatizable before, so good for everyone willing to use some not optimal but automatized support instead of min-maxing yourself. But AAQ? Why? Suppose there is only one territory where AAQ can activate (because it is in range of the available armies), would AAQ conquer it? Because given the description on the blog, it PRIORITIZES some territories, but that still means that if it doesn't have a choice, it will still just take SOME territory at times. So, if there aren't any "better" captures but some that it can take, it should still take them and therefore - depending on your point of view - waste armies.

Second big question: Will there be other variants of AQ in the future where each variant prioritizes something else? The new AAQ seems just as (not) customizable as the existing AQ, so you will still have to cope with every decision it makes. And the only way to control it would be to turn it off completely. Hence, it isn't strictly better than AQ, just different. And if there should be another different approach in the future, there will be another AQ? Doesn't sound right to me.

I would have been fine to spend AP to control the way the existing AQ works, but spending additional AP to have what I already own? It's another of these advancements that (a) only really having effect if you max them (assuming you have AQ pretty much maxed) and that (b) serve as an incentive to spend coins to reset APs. Which always was a cheap trick to me. Resetting is way to expensive if the only thing you want to do is take the APs from AQ and spend them on AAQ.

@Phoenix, "Cheap trick" is how I felt about Super Ascend when I saw the update. A way of taking away what you have collected/earned/maybe even paid for already (artifacts/additional 30% AP bonuses) and squeezing more life of the game by simply forcing players to start over but be weaker. And _still_ without replenishing powers on the maps. Was surprised to see that powers still don't replenish even after giving up artifacts & AP.

Which reminds me of something I heard IRL that Tesla cars' heated seats require a subscription. LOL ... so funny, to use a feature of something that you already own, you need to pay a subscription fee.

Edited 3/25/2022 01:40:01

Maybe we are thinking it wrong? Say you leave the game on idle (closed) for A few hours and then come back. Then it Will calculate what happened, maybe then theres Always moren than one choice só being smarter is better? Less wasted. Then again . Still not worth it for me.

I THINK there are things calculated only when you get back. But then again maybe not. Who knows...

As for SASC i like it, my opinion is of someone Who Just did his first normal asc though. With SASC you get StacKing permanent rewards, thats cool. It hurts more People Who were playing a long time and have a lot of artifacts. The New experience should be better? Dunno. They should get powers back... 1 at least. Then again maybe the 2 or 3 artifacts you start with are enough to make the difference? Anyway i like it, its more along the usual idle type.

Quickly regarding SASC: @krinid: I fully understand your criticism about losing paid assets. That's definitely a valid problem for everyone who played and paid for idle before this feature was announced (which, to be fair, for a long time was in a beta state and everyone should know that actions taken in beta state can at any point be nullified by the admins). But I'm not sure how this problem could have been solved (other than better communication). In general, I think SASC is an interesting feature.

As for smarter AQ after a longer idle time: Assuming that Fizzer hasn't changed how idle is simulated, then the game still divides the idle time into a fixed number of smaller chunks (or fixed length chunks, I'm not totally sure). And for each of these chunks all Auto-advs can decide whether they want to activate or not. Hence - depending of the chunk's length - it is still very much possible and likely that there will be chunks with only a few possible captures, and again - based on the (possibly inaccurate) blog description - if none of these candidates are preferable, it should still try to capture SOMETHING.

But my biggest point of criticism is more that we are given two monolithic AQ-variants with no option to parameterize them and the risk of being given a third if both are deemed not enough by Fizzer. And a fourth... Before the update, players had two options: activate AQ or not. Now all we got was another third option: activate the other AQ. It still hasn't changed that both are really dumb. And the new one also costs additional APs. And what if I think that some of the criteria of the the new AQ are good (for example, imagine I like that it prefers Hospitals), but other criteria are the complete opposite of how I like to play (for example, I don't want it to conquer caches (before I have the tech)). Now, I have the choice between the old territory-agnostic AQ that won't prefer caches, or the new one that will look for Hospitals but will also actively capture caches no matter if I have the tech yet or not. I know this example is a bit made up, because Auto-advs were never intended to be GOOD, but the point is still valid.

I use regular AQ to capture freebies or finish levels once I'm done with techs and hospital upgrades. I'll definitely unlock the smart AQ.

Unfortunately, it has to compete with several amazing advancements in Phase 4. I probably won't be able to get to it (or auto-dig) until I'm well into Phase 4 and about a week or two away from super ascending.

Edited 3/25/2022 17:36:45

Oh thats nice info thanks.
Also didnt think about SASC whuch also make T4 stuff harder to use...

Overall we seam to agree it could have been done better. Not two of the same or at least give more options on how to activate it. Hope its good feedback.

Unfortunately, it has to complete with several amazing advancements in Phase 4. I probably won't be able to get to it (or auto-dig) until I'm well into Phase 4 and about a week or two away from super ascending

That's the problem. Most of the truly good Advancements are phase 4, which means you're preparing to re-SAsc, so not much point in gathering a bunch of AP and unlocking a whole slew of Adv's beyond the 134k required for SAsc, b/c it's all going away anyhow.

The cycle that SAsc brought on is in conflict with having lots of useful Phase 4 Adv's.

Edited 3/25/2022 15:30:32

So after the recent AMA ...

We see that AAQ is broken, and can actually result in slower level clear times. lol. Fix likely to be released as 5.19.2.

And it also doesn't focus on "free" territories (cap cost < hospital benefit), and still prioritizes the largest of its prioritized items, with no scale. So you can't set it to just capture free territories, nor can you lower the % capture setting to only capture up to what you have yourself identified as your minimum hospital benefit to have AQ/AAQ go wild and clear the map of all free territories, thus increasing your available JS caps & decreasing the # of clicks you have to do yourself.

sad

Still no idea why it's a totally separate Adv and not just an addition onto the 1st.

We really need a separate panel for just Auto-Adv's now. Scrolling up/down all throughout to enable AQ, enable AAQ, disable AUAC, disable Auto-Mercs/etc. Too much hassle and makes it easy to make a blunder when using MLs (powers or Adv).

Oh so its even broken lol

Thanks for remind me, need to watch the AMA vod. Only had time to ask a question but I am curious to see it all.

Is there an AMA video? Don't know if he saves/posts them. Would like to check it out if it posted. I only caught about 1/2 of it.

Fyi ... the cost to unlock AAQ is:
5000 unlock @ 5%
3000 upgrade to 10%
4000 upgrade to 15%
5000 upgrade to 20%

Incredibly expensive! 233K to unlock it to 100%, which is more than you need to do a Super Ascend.

Why would anyone bother unlocking this at all? I played around with it b/c I have AP to spare until I do my 1st SAsc (I'm just digging so I don't waste artifacts) but no way I'd put AP into this over the other much more useful phase 4 Adv's.

And yea, it's broken. You can see in the screenshot below where I have AQ disabled, AAQ enabled and upgraded to 20% (spent 17K AP! wow) and it's not capturing territories as small as 17K. I have 13.7M armies, so everything up to 2.74M should be captured automatically.

Yeah very very expansive.
Watch the vod on twitch thats what I did.

Dunno how long they last: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1436472245

So, based on krinid's example, AAQ can decide not to conquer at all. That is definitely smarter than normal AQ. Because if it would always conquer something as long as it could, it wouldn't be much better than AQ. But, at the same time, this might just be the reason why AAQ failed in the live stream test. It waits way too long to conquer anything just because it waits for the perfect strategy to be executed. And we human players all know that there is no perfect strategy.

And, any Phase 4 advancement over 100k is just plain stupid. More so, if this one costs over 200k. And to get to 50% (to break even with normal AQ) it still costs 68k. Sure, some might decide to wait before super-ascending, but who would wait another 150k to super-ascend?

Fizzer worries about the AI being too smart. However, unless he has an AI that knows the locations of hospitals, camps, etc, a human player should have no problem playing 3x-10x as fast as the AI.

It's definitely not "too smart". lol. 0% chance of that.

@Phoenix, It might be useful if we could control how/where it decides to capture vs. not, but right now all I can say is that sometimes it doesn't. It's supposed to prioritize structures and "useful territories", etc, but I see a 19K smelter & numerous caches sitting there. So don't know what the criteria are. Would just prefer to have separate Adv's for each of those so we can at least micromanage what it does/doesn't capture ourselves based on where we are/what Adv's/Artifacts/Techs/playstyle we have.

AAQ should be:
- upgrade from 55%-100%
- several Yes/No prioritizing flags for JS/caches[1 for each type]/structures[1 for each type]/etc - I'd be fine paying 1000 for each category
- cost way less ... the <200K cost now makes no sense at all

The cost alone makes me wonder what Fizz is thinking. Does he actually think this through? The fact that on the AMA someone chatted that Insane FB reveals less than 1 FB power and he responds, "Is that true?" makes me think he just makes changes without really measuring the impact of it or thinking through various scenarios. Which is unfortunate.

Then add silly things like SAsc benefit of +100 AP - which is bizarre, b/c it's painfully obvious that this will benefit no one, likely the only people to choose that will be misclickers.

I really see no plausible use for bringing AAQ to 100%. I'd rather just SAsc again and get some more "permanent" benefits. Permanent in quotes b/c there were previous other "permanent" benefits that undo their permanent status with SAsc, so quite possible that SAsc benefits will disappear someday when "Mega Ascend" is implemented. (;

Aside: just realized that Advancements are labeled as "Permanent upgrades"... lmao.


Edited 3/30/2022 18:29:14

Anyone tried AAQ since 5.19.2?

I briefly tested it at 10% before super ascending again. I really like it for finishing levels. I still couldn't get past 5 challenge levels. Didn't do much with battles.

My biggest problem with it was it didn't take free territories. I reported that to fizzer. He said he hadn't thought of making it take fee territories, but thought it was a good idea so he'll be adding it at some point.

I also reported a bug with auto dig. At the moment, it doesn't work until you open your game.

Edited 4/16/2022 03:08:40