Hi all, after reflecting on my previous thread and digging through the forums I have some more questions for you, thanks in advance for any guidance!

1. Upgrading mines
Are there any general or specific rules for deciding which mines to upgrade? Is it generally best to save and spend for more costly upgrades? My sense is that it is, but I can't seem to find a way to determine this outright. Any mine upgrade logic appreciated!

2. Tech tree
Because I am still pretty early on (L12), when I calculate the cost of upgrading beyond the second level of the tech tree it does not generally seem worth it. When costing tech tree costs, I include the loss I incur for processing raw materials into bars which is generally significant as I earn way more on raw materials thanks to other advancements that increase ore values. When re-playing early levels with my earned benefits, I can go a whole game where I only process enough copper and tin to get parts of the tech tree I want. Processing almost always loses me money at this point.

3. Markets
At the moment, when I get a market I buy and resell items until it does not make sense to do so as inflation takes over. Is there any other purpose to markets, or are they just a kinda weird way to make some extra cash?

Thanks again!

Mines: I'll upgrade the first few to get the draft tech early on (unless I have enough of the phase 3 starts-with-tech advancement), and otherwise leave them alone unless I can't get a particular bar from the markets.

Techs: Depends on where you are; the ones for alloy sell values are great whenever there's a market, merc discounts are almost always good, the hospital techs are good on later maps, and the army camp and drafting techs are good until you've moved beyond army camps. Others are situational and have fallen out of favor with the reworking of markets in v5.14.

Markets: in addition to money from arbitrage, they also let you grab techs without a ridiculous amount of smelting and crafting (though sometimes you'll want to craft anyway so you can save the market juice for arbitrage).

edit: also the 50% cache boost tech is awesome.

Edited 5/25/2023 18:51:32

1. Upgrading mines

First, when you invest in a mine, bring it's per second rating up to about 40-50, start producing bars. (As you are new you may get by using 30-50 because your bar production will be slower) You want your ore production to be slightly higher than bar production. When you get a metal's production in the 70-80 range, stop investing in that metal. Also, do not invest in mines that have a lesser metal. For example, I would not invest in a mine that had Tin, Silver, Gold. If you need to jack up your silver and gold, just go for those metals. Having stated that, if you have a surplus of ore, sell it. An Ore Values artifact raises this sale value of ore.

I follow the three metal rule - Upgrade mines that have the first three metals, Copper, Tin, Iron. Then when you get those high enough, focus more on Zinc, Nickel, Lead. Continue this process as you acquire more metals.

Unlock Statistics 4. You can track all of your resources and allocate them efficiently.

2. Tech tree

In the beginning, you will be finished with levels long before the tech tree is complete. The further you go, the more tech tree you are able to unlock.

3. Markets

Markets are good in the beginning but eventually leads to diminishing returns. Acquire 5 MR power and let them accumulate in the Unclaimed Powers. Use 1 or 2 when you need to, for example, you need material for the tech tree, then go to unclaimed powers and keep your count at 5. Market Raids become more useful the further you go. I save MR for my endgame. I find MR most useful towards the end rather than beginning or midgame.

Edited 5/25/2023 19:08:58

All that was already said is totally valid, just another point of view:

1. The output of mines in general follows a mathematical formula, but for mines with a low level (level 3 and below) there is an additional penalty to the output (check the wiki for details), so they don't produce as much as the formula would suggest. That on the other side means that upgrading early on will increase the ore production signifiantly, while the differences for higher levels seem to decrease with prices still significantly going up. That, combined with the fact that you generally don't need an overly high production, I tend(ed) to upgrade my mines up to level 4 only, with certain exceptions if I'm (/was) really running low on specific ores. You don't need as much production as one smelter consumes if you are fine with switching recipes in case, but even on level 4 you can sustain most recipes. And while having surplus ores is great for selling them, you always have to consider the upgrade price you payed to get this surplus ores. Given that you will most likely speed up at some point and levels won't go on as much anymore, there is less chance for the mine upgrades to "pay for themselves". So, I'd generally be more conservative and not level up too much especially not the cheap ores as they aren't worth that much (one of the reasons why Auto-Upgrade Mines might be the or at least one of the worst auto-advancements, it will max out the first mine at some point without any real use for that much Copper.

2. Do you want to unlock all the techs at some point to earn the achievement? If so, doing it on your first run where you usually can't be really fast because of missing artifacts and advencements won't slow you down much. Trying to unlock all on a later run where you are more focused of executing certain strategies might require more mental commitment. Otherwise, it is totally fine and generally the theme to only unlock the techs that you deem useful for you. And that might depend on your strategy.

3. Yes, markets are pretty much only money printing machines at this point and could very well be replaced my money caches. They once were different, but got turned into their current form a while ago. I think they enabled speed-runs that weren't possible before but this change also reduced the amount of (competitively) playable strategies, hence my general dislike of this change or similar ones. And, they can greatly help you completing your tech tree, too.

Hi all, thanks for the replies, much appreciated! A couple of follow up qs...

For upgrading mines, I get the sense that most of the advice is anecdotal / instinctual, and pretty much inline with what I feel myself. I am interested if anyone has done any real math or picked up on any hacks / tricks, or models.

I have models for determining whether smelting or crafting is worth it (it rarely is for me based on raw ore value bonuses), and a model for determining whether upgrading a hospital is worth it. I wonder if building a model for mine upgrades would yield any insights.

Also, what is the bonus for unlocking all advancements?

Thanks again!

For what's the bonus of unlocking all advancements, I assume you mean 100k AP in Phase 4. That's Super ascencion, read the Super ascencion leaderboard thread for the details.

Ahhh, I meant unlocking all techs...

For completing all techs you get achievements and hence profile points that lets you reach higher profile levels quicker than just be completing the levels itself. But WZ profile levels don't do much, so unlocking all techs is more of a reputation thing in the end.

Got it, thanks!

I started off being heavily into mines. I used the wiki information to determine the formulas and would upgrade a mine if it would pay for itself (recover the cost of the upgrade by selling the extra ore it generated) within a suitable timeframe. I tended to be a bit arbitrary about that and settled on a day as my typical repayment period for an upgrade. (Obviously not if I expected to finish the level before then.) In most cases the "later" mines had worse payoffs (longer time to recoup costs), but occasionally there are some massively underpriced upgrades to be had.

I don't particularly regret that, but I will note that there was an opportunity cost to this -- the money spent on mines was not being used for something else that might have accelerated me faster. And then at some point (maybe when I got a nice alloy values artifact?) I transitioned away from that and used markets for my materials needs.

These days I almost don't touch mines at all, beyond ensuring a good copper flow early on for those maps without copper in the first market, and sometimes tin or iron (e.g., Afro-Eurasia Gargantuan).

With respect to the markets, they are both a great source of extra money (once you have a good alloy values artifact) and a timely source of materials for the tech tree. And the tech tree becomes pretty important, especially the hospital and caches branches.

One of the big things your first go around that determines ones stragety is the Artifacts that you have. If you have a Mine Boost and Ore Value, invest in Increased Ore Sell Values AP then level those mines up. If not it's proboaly better to wait and invest in Increased Alloy Sell Values AP and not bother with mines too much. Also incressing smelter and crafter speeds makes Alloys and Items more valuable and Ore less so. So Mine upgrading matters more on your current Artifacts, current AP spending, how you plan to use future AP and Artifacts you hope to get.

Tech Tree:
Column 1 & 2: I upgrade anything Markets lets me with a couple of exceptions.
Column 3: Just the first couple although if you're into sell Ore, probably get all you can.
Column 4: Generally skip unless I happen to unlock one by chance, even then I might not.
Column 5: Just the first three. That being said, on my first go around I tried to get double smelt and craft unlocked.
Column 6: Generally all of them.
Column 7: First 4 are a must, plus the next two are nice on your first couple of play throughs.
Column 8: All. The last 3 with drafting are the best 4 techs IMO
Column 9: Maybe one or two. Big exception is if I get to the end of the level and I run out of mercs, then I'll do several of them as I put all my money into Army Camps.
Column 10: Almost never. If you're doing an Ore strat, than probably the fisrt couple.

Markets: Make money and buying needed tech.