While you're on your first Ascension, the game plays differently, especially if you're going for Achievements and doing all the Techs, etc.

If you're just trying to zip through it, you _best_ & _quickest_ way to clear a level is to ignore EVERYTHING and prioritize (a) merc camps, (b) hospitals, (c) markets, and then depending on your artifacts/AP Adv's, (d) army caches, (e) army camps, and do a SAC+FC early level boost. Only invest as much in army camp upgrades to boost your FC returns. And time so you can do a Clan Request at the same time.

That said ... as it's your 1st Ascension, you may run into issues trying to do this, notably if you don't have Additional Mercs maxed out to +150%. So if you can't achieve this, you will need to adjust to some variation of this strat so you don't get to the end and just simply have no mercs left that you were relying on to clear the level, and now have to rely on armies from army camps - which is always the _worst_ way to finish a level, b/c army camps are super inefficient to clear the last 25% of a level. Just simply not enough armies.

@Krinid: Since I don't have enough AP for this sort of thing, my strategy is:
Stage 1
Go to hospitals as quickly as possible using maps
Upgrade hospitals
Conquer free stuff
Upgrade army camps only to speed up the initial process
SAC+FC combos are good but optional
Get all hospitals, and some markets, but don't burst the markets so early, wait for techs (unless IASV is quite good/good AV)
Stage 2
Use markets to buy upgrades for hospitals, wait for upgrades, and conquer free stuff
Stage 3
Buy all mercs
Should be enough


I notice that early game SAC is much more OP than late game SAC, am I doing something wrong or is this normal?

Edited 10/11/2022 03:05:41

That's normal. Early level SAC is powerful b/c early level is fairly easy to make progress. You can easily clear the first 25% of a level in 15-30 mins, whereas the last 25% can often take hours/days, especially if you mess up your merc/hospital/money management.

The armies to complete the last 10-25% of a level simply need to come from Merc camps or active artifacts like Triple Strike or Quad Strike (on the large territories), and you will never get enough to clear them from army camps, SAC+FC, Clan reqs, etc.

Once you get beyond ~50% through a level, SAC in general becomes fairly useless either with or without FCs. The only thing SAC is good for in the end game is if you're trying to set a new record for largest Clan Req - which to my knowledge is currently held by Hunter @ 132B.

But use them in early and early-mid game to get a good start and good progress into the level.

Once you get to late phase 4 and/or have good Army Cache artifacts, you can start HEH, pump SAC+FC then follow the Army Caches all the way to the largest territory territory (1.1T), then pop Trip or Quad Strike, then easily snag all the hospitals, merc camps & markets, and ride out the level with ease. You would get lesser results if you haven't invested in Army Cache Adv in phase 4 though, would have to likely hit some markets & merc camps along the way to reach the end, or pop TS/QS on the way there, then once again once you arrive.

Early game SAC affects 100% of army camps and gives a weighted average 20x increase in army production.

Late game SAC affects ~5% of army camps and gives a weighted average 2x increase in army production.