I have the 4th artifact slot and Epic SAC and TS. My strategy is to start a map, build up army and mine production, and unlock drafts. Then I use my SAC to really speed things up for the next two hours. However, about 38% of my armies come from the draft. So I watch the timer for about 5 1/2 minutes and switch the territory $ boost to draft boost to collect the draft bonus ASAP. Then switch back to maximize income. I do this 19 times. Once I get deep enough into a map and starting hitting the bigger territories, I change over to TS. This is okay for now (I'm retired so the 2 hour game play every 16 to 24 hours is not a big deal) but I can't imagine doing this for 4 or 8 hours after I upgrade the SAC. The problem is that the draft doesn't really align with the whole "idle" theme and collecting it every 6 minutes gets a LOT more armies than collecting it every hour, or so. This is big when you have a 20x multiplier running (really a 4x, or so, after you unlock several camps). So, is there a better way to play?

P4 has the wonderful auto draft that just keeps going while youre idle ;)

Besides that, playing for hours just to draft doesnt really sound ideal, given that with market strat you can clear an entire level in about 2,5 hours (of which 2 hours is spend waiting for hospitals to upgrade).

Take a look at this guide for some tips and tricks on how to beat levels quickly:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1EHCM-n_4vq_Hv7V1wo9QSTcRP2ba4qRqBh8fOh5PiKk/edit

I can see how the market strategy can be better but my artifacts are mostly rare (territory $, tech, hospital disc, army camp disc, mine disc) and epic (Army Camp boost, bonus $, alloy values) so using money on hospitals is difficult. I just opened P3 and haven't yet used any AP there. Once I get some artifacts to legendary, I will switch to market strategy but, right now, army camp and SAC seems like the best approach. My additional mercs and draft are almost maxed out so the switch will happen sooner than later.

JK, I think the market strategy is more legendary / insane gameplay. Without reduced hospital upgrade time, max mercs,max merc discount (which I do have) and max alloy values, I currently take days to weeks to get through a map. Right now it takes 2 hrs to upgrade hospitals just 1 level and several days to find those that save more than a few million troops.

I'd like to hear from players in the middle range of rare to epic artifacts and phase 2 to 3 attributes.

Just to be clear, I'm not shunning the market strategy. In fact, I just raided the markets in Old Town after completing the techs and raised 1.2T in a few minutes. With only 200 territories left, it was not worthwhile to spend the money upgrading hospitals (around $17 per troop vs mercs at $5-7 each). So I increased my army production from 155k/sec to 228k/sec and will probably complete the map in the next 16 hrs with the epic SAC and buying mercs. In all, it will take just under 7 days to complete this map.

he shunned market strat :(

Market strat is quite valid at rare or epic alloy valley. You need to beeline for markets and hospitals then upgrade hospitals / get the merc and hospital cache techs Upgrading a hospital with a few territories left suggests you don’t know where hospitals are or (on mostly sasc levels) don’t know where the money caches are

Cryptic, the problem I'm having right now is that SAC has really reduced my map time but my income has not improved as much. So I'm spending more money on mining, digs and army camps than on hospitals. I am raising my hospitals to L3 but not higher. You are right, though. I tend to race to army camps faster than hospitals and I probably rush too much to recipes and mines (to get techs done ASAP). As I advance I will try to raid markets sooner to get money instead of using markets to buy alloys mainly for crafting. I almost never smelt tin or iron, preferring to buy them at markets for techs. I also prefer to craft items instead of buying even copper or barbed wire. Finally, I am too focused on using JS rather than heading straight for camps and hospitals.

Do you have Stats at max level? If you do you can see where your armies are coming from.

As a bad example as I am just digging right now with little concern for AP...

Hardened Rise and Fall of Rome
8b form Army Camps
895b form Merc Purchased
495b from Army Caches
6b fixed draft
249b from sliding draft
366b saved from Joint strike
1T saved from Hospitals.

With LAV you will have more money than you can use with EAV you will need to slightly manage your money.

The tactic to remember is beeline to market places than get all hospitals and upgrade one to two times than take everything else to max the benefit of hospitals.

You have the epic alloy value artifact, which should be good enough for market strat for most levels, except for a few special money-short levels like Triskelion or China.

You mentioned Old Town. Today I completed Old Town within a few hours with 0% Increased Alloy Value advancement and Legendary Alloy Value artifact. That gives a total of 112% sell value boost, which should be similar to what you'll get with 55% Increased Alloy Value advancement together with your Epic Alloy Value artifact.

If you're constantly find yourself not having enough money to buy all the mercs, some potential causes may be:
-Trying to get too many irrelevant techs instead of only going for the few important ones
-Not investing enough on Mercenary Discount advancement or Increased Alloy Sell Value advancement
-Not getting the relevant techs before buying mercs
-Inefficient pathing

Hard to tell what's the issue without seeing more data.

Sorry, I was digging in Old Town for 5 days after finishing the map in 6 days, 11 hours, which is well below the 12 days, 11 hours needed for 30% chromium. Not bad, in my opinion, for only my second pass through the maps. Now, let me make it clear - I have no legendary artifacts. That's why I called it "epic game play". I can complete the first few maps in 2 hours, but that's it. Everything else takes days to weeks. My hospital upgrade time is still 2 hours ( just began phase 3) so completing a map in a few hours while upgrading a hospital 2 times is in violation of the laws of physics, as I am moving nowhere near the speed of light through space. I do have EAV and epic bonus boost, but I still have rare territory $ and rare cache boosts so money is still an issue. I use the markets to buy tin, iron, zinc and copper wire to finish the techs (rare boost) before I use them to buy and sell alloys to raise cash. With ESAC, I get large pools of armies to complete the maps faster but I primarily use money for Army camp, mines, mercs, markets, digging and hospitals (in that order). I realize I need to move hospital spending up my list but, right now I get a lot more armies from SAC in two hour blocks that I can ever get from hospital upgrades. With the 16 hour cool downs (really 14-20, depending on sleep), the first few intervals are focused on army camps and mines. I don't start upgrading hospitals until the 3rd interval (also, the first two hospitals are practically worthless and the upgrade cost is far too expensive early in the game). I also tend to save my mercs for getting army camps and hospitals, rather than buying them right away. Finally, and this may be the most important, I only play Idle so I have no coins and no supercamp.

Mark, dude there’s five very experienced players in this thread telling you that you’re confused and you don’t seem to be listening.

At your stage in the game, of the 100% of armies needed to clear a level:
- Roughly 25% will come from Joint Strike
- Roughly 35% will come from Mercenaries
- Roughly 15% will come from caches
- Roughly 20% will be saved by hospitals

These numbers are not exact and will vary slightly by map but are close enough for this discussion. The remaining ~5% of armies need to come from army camps and drafts. Yes, this is tedious but it’s tedious on the order of hours, not days or weeks. You must be doing something fundamentally wrong.

1. Do you have Joint Strike at 25%? Do you use Joint Strike as much as possible?
2. Do you purchase all mercenaries on each level you play?
3. Do you delay collecting most army caches until after you have the +50% tech bonus?
4. Do you delay collecting most territories until after you have maxed hospitals?

If you are doing all of these things, then the vast majority of armies will not need to come from army camps and drafts.

Gameplay should be:
a. slow to the first market
b. intermittent (every two hours) to the last hospital
c. very very fast until mercenaries are exhausted
d. slow as you clean out the very last territories

Artifacts help phase (a.) go faster and help reduce phase (d.) from ~30 territories to 0 territories. They are not super impactful on most levels although for some (Hardened China, USA Huge, Hardened Triskelion, etc.) you need Alloy Values so you don’t run out of money.

I think these experienced players have legendary game play mindsets that don't yet apply to me. My JS is maxed and I use it to a fault. I buy mercs but mostly at the end after I clear the discount techs. I collect army caches much sooner but I have a rare boost artifact. And I collect territories as I go to raise as much cash as I can (and here is where I am probably going wrong).

As an example, I am playing orbis and, after 2 hrs and the epic SAC, I have 6 army camps, with the first one at level 13, 2 hospitals that save a measly 50K (but are being upgraded), mines and recipes through silicon and I have cleared Europe, Britain, Ireland, and some of northern Africa and Asia Minor. Haven't entered any of the cities yet (side maps). I've taken 345 territories with over 1000 to go and 60 out of 251 bonuses. I have only 1 market and only a handful of techs, with 3 smelters and 2 crafters.

The big problem I see with your comments is how am I supposed to get the 50% cache tech so fast? It needs metal sheet and glass. That's several days away. Particularly when I am only collecting 16k armies/sec during the cool down. And I am currently making zinc and nickle.

Honestly, I feel like I've learned basic arithmetic and I'm currently taking algebra and the rest of you are preaching calculus.

Edited 1/30/2023 19:46:11

I understand where you are in the game. These strategies were developed in the early days of the beta when we all had similar advancements to what you have and artifacts either hadn’t been invented or were very new (i.e. no one had Epic let alone Legendary artifacts)

Phase A - relatively continuous play
1. When you first start a level, use your SAC artifact. This is the best time to use it because it will boost all your army camp production rather than just one of several army camps.

2. Move in the general direction of the first market. When you get there, use the market to get billions of wollars.

3. Use this money to leap frog from merc camp to merc camp, optionally stopping at markets #2 and #3 to make sure you don’t run out of money.

Phase B - intermittent play
Every two hours (or more), grab 1-3 hospitals, 1-3 merc camps (as needed for armies) and 1-2 markets (as needed for money). Upgrade any hospitals you get to and wait two hours while these are upgrading before proceeding.

Repeat.

Phase C - one time
Once you have all hospitals fully upgraded and access to all markets, complete the +10% hospital / +50% cache / +10% hospital tech tree. Buy all mercenaries and use joint strike pathing to go through as much of the map as possible.

Phase D - drafting
You may have a handful of territories after your mercs run out. Army camps and drafts will clean these up.

Troubleshooting
It’s not clear from your post whether you are running out of mercenaries or running out of money. If you’re running out of money while there are still mercenaries to buy, focus upgrades on alloy values. If you are running out of mercenaries while there are still territories, focus upgrades on additional mercenaries.

I suspect you either don’t know how to use markets or are spending a *lot* of money on mines and army camps.

If you don’t know how to use markets, equip your alloy values artifact and buy any alloy until the marginal cost to buy exceeds the marginal cost to sell. This should generate billions of wollars.

If you’re spending money on army camps and mines beyond the first market, don’t. These facilities are moderately useful to get to the first market. Once you get to the first market, these are no longer useful. Army camps are very slow as you have described at length. Mines have a payback period of several hours and won’t move the needle for your economy.

Check also this site: https://pkmx.github.io/wzi-levels/21.html. I switched it to Orbis for you already.

As you can see, ALL the ingredients you need to complete the 50% tech tree can be bought from markets (thats the color coding). That means, that you do not smelt or craft at all.

Go get the markets (using Merc camp hopping). Buy the tech tree (and not smelt/craft it). Go get the hospitals. Upgrade the hospitals. Finish the map.

It's as simple as graemes described it!

Aha! The light came on. Thanks.

Wow! What a difference. I'm now up to 6 hospitals, 3 market places and about half the techs collected. Just 16 hours into the map. I suspect I'll shave several days off of the last map's time. Thanks for your patience and help.

Okay. I've been on Orbis for under 3 days and I'm over half done. I figure another 2-3 days to finish. Which is fine because all the digs require 13 days. I have a few observations about this market strategy.
1. It's very good. I have received 10B from territories, 20B from bonuses, and 950B from alloy sales.
2. For me, 2-3 hrs per map planning is foolish. I still am thinking days. I have 10 hospitals (out of 13) and have upgraded each to level 4. At 2 hrs per upgrade, that's 60 hrs so I plan to use that time wisely.

A. Some smelting and crafting makes sense, particularly copper bars and tin cans (I needed these for techs before I found the market).
B. Upgrading army camps to about $1B (money is cheap, drafts and epic SAC are still important)
C. Epic SAC every 16 hrs is like getting an extra merc camp.
D. I need to maximize mercs in phase 1.
E. I need to visualize merc camps and markets in phase 3 (the map resolution on the imgur web site is too low)
F. I need to get hospital discount, hospital boost, tech discount, and merc discount artifacts to epic before territory $ boost.
G. I need to continue to focus on digging over collecting AP.

Finally, thanks for the help. The paradigm shift was hard but ultimately very useful.

Edited 2/1/2023 04:22:55

Hey Mark, I will just offer a little bit of advice as someone who recently implemented the market strat. I saw that you are upgrading all hospitals to level 4 and maybe beyond. In my experience, any hospital upgrade beyond level 3 is not really worth the cost. Those upgrades are typically very expensive, and they don't really save you many armies. I would stick to level 3 hospitals, especially since your AV artifact is epic and not legendary. Have fun with the new strategy!

Mdg23 - I have taken over 2T from the markets and can still take plenty more so upgrading the hyospitals is only costing me time. In fact, some of them can't be upgraded that far so I overestimated the game time. I am nearing the end, with 50 territories to go, and my merc count is going to be very tight so I am waiting for 1 more epic SAC play. My in-game time for this level is going to be about 2 days, 6 hours. A far cry below the last map (6 days, 11 hrs). My total time was just over 4 days (sleep, taxes, and life in general) but I still have 9 days of digging before the next map. (Actualy, I just realized I spent a whole day playing the original army camp strategy so I could have completed this map about half a day sooner.)

Edited 2/1/2023 16:27:49