I wonder if one had
Insane Army Cache Boost to boost the army camps
Insane AV to embiggin the returns from the first African market
Insane money cache boost [cash cache?] to embiggin the cash from Suriname and Paraguay.
and Insane Merc discounts to get almost triple the mercs for your cash that you would almost get

I know you can reach the army cache on the coast of Brazil, and should be able to reach the market in Africa without SAC or Free Cache. I wonder if it would be enough to reach the Ustuansky Army cache without having to use an IM.

If not, how short would one be.

Super quick estimate, so dont shoot me if I made a mistake. This is how I would approach the question:

With insane army cache arti (and no tech)
* Parauapebas gives 0.029B
* Espirinto Santo gives 2.258B

With 150% AM
* Southwestern Amazonas Merc camp gives 0.244B
* El Caura gives 9.25B
* Kayes (Africa) gives 7.5B
* Ibadan (Africa) gives 10.5B
* Western Ajdabiya (Africa) gives 19.75B

Lets assume a fairy comes and gifts you all those armies for free. then you have in sum 49.5B

* you need roughly 3B to reach the africa market
* you need roughly 6B to reach the 3 MCs in africa
* you need additional 42B to reach Ustuansky

That would be a need of 51B...

So without SAC/FC I dont see how that would be possible...

Ah jeez that is soooo close though.
What about Tacna with 4 billion in Ecuador and Chipas in Central 'Merica for 15.5 Billion

So for mercs we have [approx because too lazy to whip out the calculator

2.3 billion for Army Caches
SW Amazon 250 million for 1.7 b cash
El Caura gives 9.25B for 110B cash
Tacna 4 B for 500B cash
* Kayes (Africa) gives 7.5B for 1 trillion
* Ibadan (Africa) gives 10.5B for 1.6T
Chipas 15.5 B for 1.5T
* Western Ajdabiya (Africa) gives 19.75B for 5.3T

For a total of 49.2 if you go for Chipas for about 4.7 T in cash plus another 500 billion+ spent on Ajdabiya to get the few extra needed
or
51.25 and about 10 trillion in cash
Not counting pumping up the first army camp 11 or so levels and doing a clam request although you really need a SAC to help.

However, if you max out AP bought merc discount and have the passive merc discount artifact at insane levels, the cost goes down to about 18% so about a trillion in the first open or almost 2 trillion if you go through Libya.
Can you get a trillion if you max out AP money cache and AV and have insane Money Cache Boost and insane AV.

I guess I'll have to pay more attention next time I go through.

It would be grand if you could go through without using any actives or powers.

As i prefer the very lazy approach, i'd rather just go with an insane IM and be on the safe side without much calculation...

I don't recall the details, but I believe the only fully 0 IM approach for Hex Earth involves using TS and/or QS (depends on your arti types & levels/advancements) on the largest territories on the way to get enough armies to make it to the Ustuansky army cache

And if you're using TS or QS, may as well just pop an IM (artifact @ insane level, not a power)

It might be useful if you don't have insane IM

But with insane IM, insane AV, insane MD, insane AcacheB and maxed out adv's in alloy values, merc discount and (could be wrong on this value but it's in the ballpark) 30% Additional Mercs, it can be cleared with just 1 IM

And if you botch it and strand yourself, repeat IM/TS/QS/TW until you're back on track