Well, I finally did it. I finally ascended for the first time. From other people’s stats I’ve seen here and there… I think it took me a lot longer than most of you! Over 2 years!
Not sure why, really. It did take me a bit to hone my strategy, but it looks more or less looks like this (input welcome!):

Strategy:
1. Upgrade my army camps as quickly as possible at first. Use the Supercharge Army Camp atifact on my first army camp once I have it upgraded a few times.
2. Aim for hospitals and army camps as directly as possible. Usually use joint-strike, but skip it if it adds too much expense to the direct route.
3. With techs, I generally go for the cache-bonus tech as directly as possible, though without neglecting army camp increases and money increases. Next, I go for mercenary discounts.
4. As army camp upgrades become less effective with large numbers of them, I shift focus to upgrading hospitals. I try to get them all (except the first, smallest few) upgraded to near the max, though it seems like one or two get out of a reasonable price range, so I skip those.
5. Whenever a hospital puts things in free-land, I pick all those up. I generally leave everything I can behind until it’s free. Though caches I may leave behind even after they’re free, waiting until I pick up the cache-bonus tech. (Obviously, in order to do that, I pick up needed mines and recipes along the way.)
6. Once I have all mercenary camps and hospitals, I target further needed mines and recipes, as well as markets.
7. Now I milk the markets for all the money I can get.
8. Usually by this point I have all mercenary discount techs achieved, and I begin using and aiming for the rest of the mercenary camps.

Stats:
Here’s my overall stats from ascension time. I’ve missed some days here and there, but I’ve checked in almost every day since I started playing.

Amount of real life money spent: $0
Tutorial Level first played: 2021/03/02
Europe Huge begun: 2023/05/24
Europe Huge completed: 2023/06/16
Time to Ascend: 2 years, 3 months, 14 days

Hardened Levels Played

• Ursa Luna
  
• Peloponnesian War
  
• Siege of Feldmere
  
• Copper Creek Castle
  
• Far Land
  
• Old Town
  

Largest (non-hardened) level played more than once: Europe 1066AD

Artifacts
Epic

• Army Camp Boost (80%)
  
• Territory Money Boost (200%)
  
• Army Cache Boost (16%)
  
• Triple Strike (80%) – never used
  

Rare

• Bonus Money Boost (40%)
  
• Money Cache Boost (16%)
  
• Resource Cache Boost (40%)
  
• Cache Boost (3.2%)
  
• Hospital Boost (8%)
  
• Mine Boost (14%)
  
• Tech Discount (6%)
  
• Supercharge Army Camp (60-mins)
  
• Mine Discount (10%)
  
• Army Camp Discount (6%)
  
• Hospital Discount (6%)
  
• Draft Boost (16%)
  
• Mercenary Discount (8%)
  
• Ore Values (36%)
  
• Alloy Values (28%)
  
• Item Values (16%)
  
• Smelt Double (6%)
  
• Inspire Mercenaries (12%)
  

Uncommon

• Speedy Crafters (15%)
  
• Efficient Crafters (2%)
  
• Craft Double (3%)
  
• Speedy Smelters (15%)
  
• Efficient Smelters (2%)
  

Also have a Poor and 2 Uncommons to be spent on future upgrades.

Advancements
1313.78 points to spend (after beating europe huge, after ascending)
* = maxed
Phase 1

• Increased Army Camp Production: 250% / 500%
  
• Increased Copper Production: 25% / 200%
  
• Increased Cache Money*: 100% / 100%
  
• Join Strike*: 25% / 25%
  
• Increased Ore Sell Values: 55% / 100%
  
• Discounted Mine Upgrades*: 25% / 25%
  
• Mine Visibility: 3 / 66
  
• Increased Tin Production: 25% / 200%
  
• Increase Smelters Speed: 15% / 50%
  
• Additional Mercenaries: 55% / 150%
  
• Statistics*: 4 / 4
  
• Increased Idle Time: 300 minutes / ~~
  

Phase 2

• Auto-Conquer: 20% / 50%
  
• Increased Cache Resources*: 100% / 100%
  
• Army Camp Discounts*: 30% / 30%
  
• Mercenary Discount*: 50% / 50%
  
• Increased Alloy Sell Values: 20% / 100%
  
• Increased Draft Sizes: 50% / 300%
  
• Auto-Upgrade Army Camps: 10% / 100%
  
• Increased AP: 15% / 25%
  

Phase 3

• Start with Tech: 1 / 10
  
• Increased Money from Bonuses: 15% / 100%
  
• Tech Discount: 4% / 30%
  

Require 19,883 AP to be spent in Phase 3 to access Phase 4.

Edited 6/17/2023 03:08:26

From other people’s stats I’ve seen here and there… I think it took me a lot longer than most of you! Over 2 years!
Not sure why, really. It did take me a bit to hone my strategy, but it looks more or less looks like this (input welcome!):

Still great results. To speed things up, you might google "market strategy" on Warzone forums or read the Idle guide (which has links to market strategy), and adapt your strategy correspondingly.

I don't know FS if he is having fun this way then doing it our way might seem like more of a chore. It is of much quicker...

I've seen people talk about the market strategy. I think I must be missing something, though, because I don't know how to use the markets more efficiently than what I'm doing.

1. I wait until my techs for alloy/item prices are obtained.
2. I put in my allow/item value artifact boosters
3. I purchase as much as I can of an alloy/item up to the point that the purchase price equals the sell price, i.e. right up to the point where, if I would continue buying, I would start losing money on the sale
4. I take the profits and purchase mercenaries (assuming all my merc-discount techs are obtained)

To take better advantage of this, I think I need to focus on increasing my Additional-Mercs and Alloy-Sell-Values advancements.

But in reading, I've seen people talk about heading straight for markets and exploiting them, even before hospitals or army camps it seems. And certainly before any of those techs are obtained. I don't understand how that provides such a great advantage. You get some money, yes, you can turn it into some mercs, yes, but not a ton. Certainly not enough to finish an entire level.

Isn't the base amount of mercs on the board ~20% of the total needed? If so, then a fully advanced "Additional Mercs" at 150% would still be only 50% of the total needed.

I'm baffled, for example, at functor's screenshot of Africa here: https://imgur.com/a/KkCLFY6

Total Armies Earned: 329B
From Mercs: 249B -- ~75%, WAY more than 50%! I figure he must have used a super-power 10x Inspire Mercs?

So, I'm interested in understanding it, but don't feel like I've caught the strategy quite yet.

Edited 6/18/2023 18:17:18

You get some money, yes, you can turn it into some mercs, yes, but not a ton. Certainly not enough to finish an entire level.
...
Isn't the base amount of mercs on the board ~20% of the total needed? If so, then a fully advanced "Additional Mercs" at 150% would still be only 50% of the total needed.

Let's count:
- Fully additional mercs = 37.5% of level totals
- Army caches (with 50% tech) = 15%
- Joint Strike = 25%
- Hospitals (with +20% tech) = 25-30% (or even more depending on level)
Totals: ~110% of level totals. (add more cool arties and you get even more)
With full market strat, one can finish almost any level in <7 hours. (your actual limiting factor in that case will be cooldown of active artifacts)

Or you may try the other way around. Calculate, how many armies, do you have to generate from camps to fill the "level deficit" (totals - hospitals - caches, etc), and you will see, that all your time to generate armies from camps actually helps you to fill only 10-15% short of total armies required to complete the level.

I think I must be missing something, though, because I don't know how to use the markets more efficiently than what I'm doing.

You are not maximizing the Alloy Values and Mercs. These are the 2 parameters, that one should max for market strat.

Edited 6/18/2023 22:24:54

I'm surprised that after 2 years you don't have any legendary artifacts. are you not digging frequently?

"Europe Huge"

I'm om Europe Huge right now. I don't know how to see the date when the map was started but over 3 weeks. No end in sight because I'm focusing on Central/Russia for the army caches.

Generally I've gone for the army camps 1st > mines > equally grabbing hospitals/markets in the path.

I've been using the markets to buy Techs to increase drafts/camp/mine production.

Got Artifacts @ Epics: SAC, TMB, ACB.

Edited 6/19/2023 01:33:58

Yes, but you need way less armies than the total count to win because hospitals

Yes, but you need way less armies than the total count to win because hospitals

@mateop:

I certainly understand your dubiousness about the market strategy. Its usefulness is often implicitly predicated on having useful advancements and (Legendary+) artifacts. It will become more natural and usable as you progress.

First, a quick look at the statistics on that Africa screenshot. Note that that image was posted a bit before the 5.15 patch, which re-generated all the levels, so the current figures are different but not too far out. According to the level stats at https://pkmx.github.io/wzi-levels/africa.html , that level now has:

* Total armies required: 633.1 B
* Total base mercenaries available: 95.2 B
* Total base army caches: 56.6 B

With +150% mercenaries and +50% army caches, that would yield the following:

* Mercenaries: 238 B
* Army caches: 84.9 B

(An Army Cache Boost artifact would increase the latter figure.) The total is 322.9 B, over half the amount required.

The screenshot showed figures of 249.5 B for mercenaries and 80.1 B from army caches, so it's plausible that the screenshot was made with those figures maxed and the differences are due to the changed level data.

From that screenshot, we also see that 263.6 B armies were saved from hospitals and 94 B were saved by Joint Strike. If one were to get similar figures from the current Africa, we can see that these saved armies are enough to cover the gap between the mercenary/army cache figures and the level total.

So that is the basic statistics behind the market strategy: Once you have high enough figures for increased mercenaries and army caches, the level can be completed without needing further army income. Money is the limiting factor, and markets are exploited for that. The key to exploiting the markets is Increased Alloy Values, both the advancement and preferably a Legendary artifact.

So for a typical level where the market strategy applies well, the process is: Some initial messing around taking territories to get income to boost army camps to get more armies to take territories... until you have enough armies and a clear path to a market. Then exploit that market for enough money to make everything else so far irrelevant, and buy enough mercenaries and/or take enough army caches to enable you to get to the next significant thing, whether that be the next market or a useful hospital or a mercenary camp. There are pathing decisions to be made and experience with the map certainly helps, of course. At some point you take a two-hour break to upgrade your current set of hospitals, possibly using a Time Warp to skip the wait, and then continue. Overall, the timing tends to depend on the number of hospital upgrade cycles you will need.

For example, my current favourite level is Hardened Old Town, for which I only need one hospital upgrade cycle. With my current advancements (I am deep in level four, just waiting on some more artifacts and a few more AP before superascending) I spend maybe half an hour doing the initial acquisitions before I hit a nice cascade of army caches that gets me to the first market. After exploiting that I can buy enough more armies to reach the second market, and then on my way to the third I get two useful mercenary camps and the first somewhat useful hospital. Spidering out for the rest of the markets and hospitals is easy enough now I know where everything is, taking mercenary camps along the way to ensure I don't get caught short. That all takes around an hour, then I upgrade all the hospitals. Once they finish, it's ten to thirty minutes to take the rest of the level (depending on if I have Advanced Auto Conquer or not, and on how distracted I get).

Note that one can ignore most of the tech tree -- pretty much just three columns matter -- which means not needing as much from markets so you can sell more. It all synergises quite handily. Starts With Tech at 4 or more is also very useful since it can bypass a need for copper early on.

tip: don't play idle

tip: don't tickle Tacky

*tickles tacky*

*tickled to death*

Thank you FTWW

That was a very informative and useful post for me to read,
I understand so much more now
thanks thanks thanks !

*tickles tacky too*

Oh, and our 5 Smith was super helpful too, as always
I didn't know army camps weren't as necessary as I thought with this strategy

I did Euroep Huge first asc in about 9 days thanks to market strat

*tickled to super death*

im in tickle heaven now

*tickles tacky twice*
*tickles tacky thrice*

*tacky is now twickled and trickled* (credit: zinthos)

Edited 6/19/2023 13:57:08