I picked Alloy Values as my first insane. It's contribution to the market. Strategy is wonderful. However, it's contributions to WZIB is negligible.

If you want to play in WZIB keep your legendaries. I'm happy with my InsaneAV bu completing HEH in 1 day 6 hrs. But WZIB would be fun too.

generally ACacheB would be someone's first insane due to ins AV not helping with high AP rate levels

Is that really true?
For me, when looking to statistics, the army camp plays a smaller role as I thought before.
With reaching phase 4 and increasing the advancements there, I stop even using SAC, as that just is not longer worth, blocking a slot for 16h. With maxed out phase 4, army camps deliver 1/30 of the armies needed, to conquer EH. The problem in most cases before, is the missing money to buy mercenaries. So you need to start mining. This delays the advance of the level, as money put to mines, pays back with a 30h to 40h delay.
For me the TS seems to be the far better insane, especially when looking to the high AP levels. This will deliver with 320% of the biggest territories a much better income per level. For the two biggest regions in HEH you will get 4.7T within 32h (if no TW is used) In EH its 1.85T for the two.

Edited 7/23/2023 13:23:29

But insane ACacheB gives ~1t on EH and 2t on HEH with no waiting required, and that's more then enough. And why TS if QS exists? Most large territories you'd want to use TS on can also be QSed

Edited 7/23/2023 13:26:30

Sorry I write messed up with ACampBoost!

I never looked into that :-(, I talked about ACamp boost, even when taking over the name ACacheB :-(

Need to calculate this

Edited 7/23/2023 13:38:01

I don't know the exact numbers for EH, however the most AP comes from SAsc levels. And on my last run on Hex Earth I got 8t total armies and 7.9t from caches(with just leg ACacheB). ACaches are everything on those maps, which is why I think it's the obvious first insane

Edited 7/23/2023 13:37:36

I am in preparation for SAsc, so all my calculations are bases on the base levels.
And I realize, that I have started to late, collecting statistics of my levels.

I would even go as far as saying the 2nd insane should be CB, as it also boosts ACaches(aswell as all other caches), though not as much

Hello,

I have done now some calculations comparing Army Cache Boost against Triple Strike.
And the winner is: Triple Strike!

Level                  | ACache ph3 | ACache ph4 max |  TS 2x | TS 3x  | TS 4x
-----------------------+------------+----------------+--------+--------+-----------
The Siege of Feldmere  |      277 M |          554 M |  844 M | 1140 M | 1430 M
Far Land               |        4 B |            8 B |   12 B |   16 B |   19 B
Europe Huge            |      370 B |          740 B | 1640 B | 1730 B | 1810 B
Hardened Ursa:Luna     |      106 M |          212 M |  240 M |  330 M |  414 M
Hardened Peloponnesian |      134 M |          268 M |  700 M |  950 M | 1170 M
Hardened Far Land      |       12 B |           24 B |   36 B |   46 B |   57 B
Hardened Old Town      |       52 B |          104 B |   87 B |  129 B |  168 B
Hardened Scandinavia   |       76 B |          152 B |  127 B |  182 B |  220 B
Hardened Rise and Fall |      147 B |          294 B |  336 B |  421 B |  485 B
Hardened China         |      165 B |          330 B |  326 B |  433 B |  533 B
Hardened Triskelion    |      640 B |         1280 B | 2470 B | 2662 B | 2850 B
Hardened Europe Huge   |     1088 B |         2176 B | 4700 B | 5000 B | 5272 B

* The first column shows the win of insane Army Cache Boost, before reaching phase 4
* The second column shows the win of insane Army Cache Boost in phase 4 with maxed out army cache to 100%
* The third column shows the win of Triple Strike with the two largest territories
* The next column shows the win of Triple Strike with three largest territories
* The last columns shows Triple Strike with the top four territories

As for the first Ascension you need to compare the first and the last column, as levels will last some days, so you will use more TS, but have not reached phase 4

So I will continue, getting my insane TS before SAsc. Insane Army Cache Boost may be the artifact for the second SAsc, as that starts to support you in the last part before SAsc, where levels only last hours, not days.
But to gain the AP for reaching that state, TS seems to be much better qualified

Edited 7/24/2023 10:26:49

The unit that matters here isn’t armies but time. 1 million armies before the first market can be more valuable than 1 billion armies at the end of the level.

Army Cache Boost is the best Insane artifact because it:
- helps with all phases of the game (pre-first market and post-merc camps)
- has no cooldown (you should be completing more than one level per 16 hours)
- uniquely enables 1IM strats on Hex Earth

None of this is accounted for in your analysis

Even in the early levels of a SAsc, ACacheB is better because you definetly can do more then 1 level per artifact cooldown with a decent AV. And as said by leon, ACacheB doesn't just give alot of armies at once somewhere at the end of the map, it gives alot of armies no matter at what stage of the map you are. On top of that TS locks a slot permanently, while ACacheB only needs to be equiped when you're getting an ACache, meaning you can also use other artis, such as HB and other Cache Boosts more easily.

Edited 7/24/2023 14:37:14

Responding to a few points I've read in the posts so far

The best AP comes from HEH & Hex, so playing those levels multiple times on a single Asc / SAsc is how to get the highest AP returns; they are easy to clear once you have sufficient Adv's & know the best patterns for them; remember that it's not just a matter of how much AP a level offers, but how easily you can clear that level, so more of matter of AP per time spent, and I and clear HEH and Hex about 5-10x quicker than other levels such as Hard China, Hard Trisk, 7 year war, 30 year war, etc, which also have high AP but just aren't worth it when you consider AP earned per time spent (AP/hr)

If you're not spending a lot of your time clearing either EH (b/c you need to re-Ascend to reset the AP amounts), HEH or Hex, you're probably not earning AP as quickly as you could be

Each of AcacheB, AcampB, SAC, TW are super useful for WZIB

For SAC, Insane level is great for WZIB and not at all required for regular WZI, b/c Poor SAC is still 20x army camp increase, so you just need to pound the FCs quicker. Uncommon or Epic SAC gives you plenty of time to get the benefit in WZI, but the full Insane 8hrs in WZIB is undeniably useful and can often be the differing factor on 1st vs 2nd place (except Floating Rocks where you just throw TW)

For AcacheB, it is not an exaggeration to say it's a requirement for the post SAsc levels; it's also one of the best for WZIB

For AV, Insane is a great boost for WZI and some (Cryptic - one of the most common 1st placers) has had success using AV in WZIB in combo with Auto-Sell, Auto-Market, Auto-Mercs, Money from Bonuses, Reduced Tech Cost, Auto-Tech, etc - but you need to build your Adv's out to make use of it; notably if you pop SAC & TW, that's an instant 8hrs of selling alloys & buying mercs & clearing territories

For TS, QS, IM, these are useful in the post SAsc levels and also the pre-SAsc levels but are kind of useless until you get them to at least Legendary, and are ridiculously strong @ Insane; but if you're rushing through levels quickly (ie: highly active WZI player), you will only get 1 max 2 invocations of them each per map, and they'll likely be on cooldown when you start your next map; but if you are a chill player (ie: a more idle player of WZI), then this is just straight up free armies while clearly territories; one of my favourite strats in using only IM, TS, QS & TW to clear maps; start map, clear as far as you can, then pop 1 each of IM, TS, QS, TW, clear as far as you can, come back in 8 hrs, pop IM, TS, QS again, come back in 8 hrs, pop TW again which then reduces each of IM, TS, QS back to usable state, so pop them all again, repeat; depending on your Adv's, this might take longer or might be quicker (it depends), but it will DEFINITELY be less effort for you, ie: less active time playing; whether this is a Win or a Loss depends on how you want to play

CB is also quite useful, again only at Insane level, b/c it helps with each of armies, money (the most important 2) but also resources (for Techs, which means you get the additional AV Techs more quickly, which is really the only important Tech when you're fast clearing levels, I often don't bother with any other Techs b/c they take too long vs getting the armies from other means [IM, TS, QS, SAC, etc]); using CB with AcacheB is an additional 25% armies from caches in addition to the 64% from AcacheB and the 100% from P4 Adv's, so gives you +189% armies, so it can be the difference between (for example) 1T armies or 1.89T armies, and this often makes the difference on whether you can fast clear a level (get the important markets, get the hospitals but don't upgrade them, get the caches, drain the merc camps and just enable AQ or AAQ) or whether you need to go slow, be careful, upgrade hospitals 2-3 times, carefully drain each market, etc

[All artifact references below are @ Insane level]

When I play HEH, having P4 100% army caches & AcacheB & Cache Boost equipped while following the trail of army caches over to the 1.1T territory then pop QS is enough to then get all markets & hospitals and clear the level

When I play Hex, I use 1x IM (artifact), use AcacheB on all the army caches, 1x QS on Vyazemsky (don't need this but it means I don't have to meticulously capture territories to ensure JS and that I get the east Russian army cache before armies run out, I can just pop QS and enable AQ and walk away to finish the level), then get all artifacts, get AAQ, then start Hard Copper, pop SAC, enable AAQ, pop TW (reduces both SAC & QS) and now the level is ~25-30% cleared, all that's required is to get the 2nd market and that provides enough money (Insane AV) to buy all mercs (Insane Merc Discount) to get to all the caches (Insane AcacheB) to be able to clear the level and snag the free Epic before either re-SAsc'ing or going on to other levels

Good work!

I have five Epic.

This is my current lineup, in the picture above. The SAC and TW are necessary, and the other epics are all great to have.
Here is my assessment of the "market strategy" for doing WZI with this lineup.

The Supercharge Army Camp and TW are necessary, at some level. The other epics, also I enjoy playing with and use all.

I recommend a strategy that is diverse in cards. You need different kinds of cards to do different things. That's why Ivan0 has more than 21 slots at this writing. Krinid has who knows how many?

I would rather have waited and played with 8 or 9 legendaries for a while. At least have epics in my strategy before leveling up another card to legendary or insane. With this lineup, Midway Phase 4 I can do Hardened Europe Huge (HEH ) in 1 day and 6 hours. Given this, It's easy to like the Insane Allow Values. That's the most expensive on the map preSuperAsc.

Edited 7/25/2023 03:54:29

@thegreatLeon:

Army Cache Boost is the best Insane artifact because it:
- helps with all phases of the game (pre-first market and post-merc camps)
- has no cooldown (you should be completing more than one level per 16 hours)
- uniquely enables 1IM strats on Hex Earth

None of this is accounted for in your analysis

of course:
- TS helps in most levels very early: You need to change the strategy, and go for some expensive territories early.
- cooldown is no problem, as i said, that I expect after my first SAsc, that I still need several days per level, so cooldown is no big problem for that big benefit
- right now i can already play all levels (without HT and HC) without any IM, in case of HEH with two times legendary TS.

I will do Hex earth not before my second SAsc. I decided against upgrading my legendary AV to insane, as more money will not help me, when I need armies. So I will SAsc, as soon, as I have upgraded TS to insane. And than SAsc with insane TS and legendary AV and TW. With 12 epics and a bunch of rares, I am halfways there.

General consensus is that ins AV isn't that useful (though for WZIB, yeah its useful)

yeah @LL

Edited 7/25/2023 13:11:49

It's useful for HEH, aswell as just having money and just be able to spent it absolutely everywhere without needing to care. It also helps a bit on SAsc maps

Edited 7/25/2023 13:09:10

@Red why TS and not QS then? QS just gives even more armies

Imho, if you have a QS at Epic or higher, upgrade it to Leg or Insane instead of TS, as LL said, simply more armies. A snitch more setup required (4 borders) but it's worth the additional 64% armies (320%->384%)

As waiting for 2nd SAsc to complete Hex, perhaps wise; clearing Hex isn't the issue, rather getting to Hex, as the new levels are tedious (use Skip Levels Adv @ max so you only have to complete a couple of them)

And if you're going to complete all the Techs on those levels to get the achievements, make sure you get all the level bonuses for ore, Adv's for ore/smelting/crafting/etc, so when you need to make 35,000 hars of something or 5,000 items of something, it takes only an extra 3 days instead of 2 weeks