Facts about army income

Army income is a powerful way to gain enough armies to clear levels

Until it becomes useless and you need to rely on mercs

Everyone knows this to some degree, but to put #'s to it:

Amount of armies required to clear a level that are generated from army camps are as follows:
- 10-40% in the early stages of Idle
- ~3% in the mid stages of Idle
- <1% once you have played Idle for a while

Some players don't realize this simply b/c they haven't calculated it or invested in Stats to properly observe this or just haven't spent the time looking at the stats at the end of the level

Once you get to the "advanced" stage of Idle, armies from army camps are only useful at the very start of a given level in order to get to the merc camps, hospitals, markets and other army camps simply in order to benefit from a SAC+FC

Definition of "armies from army camps":
passive income generated from army camps (ie: by simply waiting/being idle/doing nothing)

Definition of "armies from other sources than army camps":
armies generated by FC powers, army caches, drafts, mercs, reductions by hospitals, CW buffs, artifacts (TS/QS/FH/DT), Clan Requests, etc

TLDR: in advanced stages of Idle, army camps are merely a vessel to get benefit from SAC+FC, drafts & Clan Reqs, the direct army income they provide is negligible

it's actually 4 for insane, 0h, 2h, 4h, then 6h

caught the off by one :)

Edited 6/14/2023 08:01:01

In Copper Creek Castle, the Silver Fair bonus awards the Silver Bar recipe for the smelters.

@pi
You referring to my post? What specifically was off by one? Lemme know and I'll edit it so it's correct for anyone reading

Yep, it was your post

"Fun facts about Idle" is an anagram for "fateful abductions"

Just like how Idle will abduct your time :)

AAQ weakness exposed on Hex Earth

On Hex Earth, a weakness of the Advanced Auto-Conquer algorithm can be consistently witnessed.

In the northeast side of the map off the coast of Russia there are 2 small islands, the westmost territory (circled in yellow below) is a 197B territory named Western Kotelny, ie: one that you really want the benefit of Joint Strike from (saves 49B armies).

But AAQ has ideas of its own, and as you can see in the pic below, AAQ correctly captures the territories in that vicinity wisely using JS, including the the one (Allaikhovsky) nearest the 3.8B territory east side of the island, which is the efficient way to get to Western Kotelny, in order to get the JS savings. But then instead of entering from there, it just busts onto the island straight through W Kotelny, JS savings be damned.



The reason is the AAQ algorithm itself, which does this in priority:
1) Capture all territories that are available at no loss of armies (due to hospitals)
2) Capture the largest territory available to be captured by Joint Strike
3) Capture the largest territory available

So here all the 'free' territories are captured already, and we see in the pic that W Kotelny isn't available via JS, nor is the 3.8B territory, so it defaults to #3 and just captures the biggest territory available even though it isn't JS. Thus you eat the full cost of the 197B territory

And after that, it will capture the 67B territory shown in the pic, also without JS, then finally the 59B territory becomes available via JS and we start reaping JS benefits again

NOTE: This algorithm isn't perfect but those 3 concepts are definitely a part of it. One of the reasons I say that is b/c you can also see on the left side of the pic a bunch of 1.8B to 8.2B territories which remain uncaptured, all of which are available via JS captures, yet for some reason it decided to jump into the island to snag W Kotelny - why is this? We may never know [mysterious music plays]

Edited 6/21/2023 13:27:43

More of a "sad fact about idle"

true that, but REALLY good to know
3) should have been smallest territory available

aaq really should prioritise 1)2)modified 3) for all

Edited 6/21/2023 14:11:27

@krinid that does make sense though as without knowing the map, you won't know that going behind is cheaper. Maybe there's even bigger territories in the fog

no it doesn't. because JS should always be priority

@stef
Sad fact indeed! LMAO ... the totally ignored JS-able territories not being captured baffles me; it's like the algorithm goes out of its way to halt its normal JS captures to make the inefficient large territory non-JS capture

@pi
Yea it is good to know. If you're low on armies and aren't sure if you can smash through everything in one go. But if you have 5T armies (max 100% army caches, insane 64% AcacheB, capture the first 2 big army caches in Europe & Russia), then you'll be fine even with this inefficient capture order, and even if you run out of armies (maybe only have 500% army caches & 32% Leg AcacheB, etc), still likely fine b/c you'll have >100T money by that point and can buy mercs to finish what's pending; this is still better than manually capturing thousands of territories

@LL
You can absolutely make a map to create situations that will foil the algorithm into making inefficient decisions

However, in this case, it's fairly clear that any reasonable person would hit the 3.8B territory and peek into the fog a bit, rather than just eat the guaranteed 49B loss of hitting the 197B territory straight up

There are of course scenarios where hitting the larger territory first makes sense, notably when it's JS capable ... for example if you have exactly 100B armies and you have only a 100B territory & a 25B territory (both JS-able) left on the map left to clear, taking the 25B territory means you now drop below 100B and can't take the other 100B territory, but snagging the 100B first means you still have 75B left to easily take the 25B one

But when JS isn't in the picture, perhaps it should be reversed in hopes of creating JS opportunities for the big territories?

1) Capture all territories that are available at no loss of armies (due to hospitals)
2) Capture the largest territory with Joint Strike benefit
3) Capture the smallest territory available w/o Joint Strike
4) Capture the largest territory available w/o Joint Strike

By separating non-JS territories into small first then large, the chance of creating more JS captures increases, including for those large territories that are currently non-JS; ideally you don't want to capture those until you're sure only worse options exist in the fog (even bigger and still non-JS capable territories)

Edited 6/21/2023 14:18:32

Yeah the algorithem isn't great and that's why I'll never get AAQ and just keep using AQ. It's good enough for most maps. I beat Hex Earth with L1 Hosps, 800b to spare and only a leg ACacheB. AUH would be better then AAQ in my eyes, since that allows L3 Hosps with 1 TW use, which should make it possible even without Increased Army Caches adv ones I have Ins ACacheB

The clan request for armies is based on your current ₳PS (e.g. Being able to request ₳246M instead of ₳56M in my case, for a boost of about ₳190M armies, by using an SAC power).

@L.L.
AAQ isn't perfect but it's a hell of a lot better than flat AQ; you're right that AQ is good enough for most maps iff you have enough armies or are careful

On Hex for example, you _can_ use AQ to clear it, but you have to ensure you set up all the 280B, 155B, 135B, 218B, 120B and lots of 20-95B territories up for JS or just capture them ahead of time to ensure you don't waste armies and get stuck; on average I'd say on an average clear of Hex, AAQ takes about 8-10 mins to clear and is "safe", AQ takes about 15 mins to clear b/c of the extra caps I have to do manually, and it takes a bit of babysitting after enabling AQ to ensure you don't get stuck (eg: run of of armies before you capturing the Russian money cache [to buy mercs with] or the last army cache); if you get stuck, kind of have to drop an IM to dig out of the mess

My fastest run of Hex Earth is 10mins Session age, 13mins Real time because lag. Didn't use AAQ, just all ACaches, all hospitals, AQ without any setup and had more then 500b to spare, and I also don't have Ins ACacheB or a CB arti yet.
There's no reason to ever use AAQ

Edited 7/9/2023 15:22:06

*clicks like crazy* yep that's fine

in sengoku, the best alloy to buy/sell is the first one in the list for all 3 markets

Buying a full insane artifact set by only buying poors costs $128125 at 100 coin per $, while buying a full set by buying leg artis costs just $9963, which is a 92.22% discount.