For a player who has not yet ascended (or shortly after first super I guess) and doesn't have additional mercs maxed, is it generally accepted to skip trisk and US? Is EH doable without the AP from those? Should any others be skipped? I realize powers are most valuable when AP is low so what's the best option?

I am by no means a fast idler but I find Triskelion painfully slow and obnoxious to play so I would skip that one.

You don't need to beat them all to ascend right? Just EH?

yes, skip trisk and US. EH beatable without those

Not heeding advice..
When I first play Triskelion, I was stuck there for a month...

Almost all the big names say skip Trisk, and US is pretty high on the skip list

Other than that skips are very useful for avoiding plateau assault after your first super

See Hex routes thread on how to take down Hex Earth easily, do it multiple times even is worth it

OH sometimes it is OK to do a level again with the 70% reduction in AP.

@ShadowHawk, you never "need" the AP from any specific level, just repeat other levels if you don't have enough AP, but the real question is, what is it that you think you need the AP from those levels for?

If you're talking about Ascension, just skip Trisk; I'd say do USA as I think it's not so bad esp if you use the online unfogged maps (but others say it's terrible and to skip it, and if you don't have much invested in Add Mercs, then maybe it would be tough, but then so will EH) and definitely do EH, then you can Ascend right away

Trisk is quite worth skipping once you can do so without consuming a SL power to do it. US is significantly less bad, but still short on money. If it's your very first pass I would say just go ahead and do both, they're going to be slow but everything is slow at that point. I do suggest picking up the Epic TS from HCCC first though if you haven't already, that will help a lot.

Honestly I think that the epic TS is just good for fodder. It only is worth it for one territory every 16 hours and ones like SAC are way more worth it.

Not really. Trisk for example has a whack of 20B+ territories at the end, an Epic TS shaves away 80% of that cost. We'll be generous and say you have a Legendary SAC already (very unlikely at this point), but for that SAC to generate at least 20B*.8 = 16B armies, you would need an army camp with a base income of 16B/(60*60*4)/20 = ~55k/s simply to break even vs a TS of one level lower quality. It's been awhile since I've played Trisk, but if you're hitting even 20k armies/s from one army camp you probably put way too much AP into IACP, which would have been better spent on AM (hi JK_3!).

Also, you can of course use both SAC and TS at the end of a level when you're stuck waiting on army camps, which you most likely will be on your first pass. But if you're foddering a TS for a better SAC for this specific purpose, it is not in your best interests.

Hmm maybe I am a edge case then after doing AD having a legend ACampB and SAC.

I meant "need" as in dumping it all into AM so you have enough to complete the level without relying on camps. I'm right at the edge of that - I need to draft to finish each level but not wait on camps after that.

As others have said, the US isn't that bad.

It is possible to do Trisk & Hard trisk probably by the second time through with powers if you have the superpower ability. If you combine SAC, one SM with a decent mine and then superpower FCs, you'll save a lot of time and have some money to boot. You can also superpower IM the biggest merc camp which lets you clear everything out quickly after that.

Just remember powers only appear twice on each level no matter how many ascends or superascends you do.

IM really comes in use on Hex Earth. I'd save them for that as much as possible, if you think you will keep playing the game long term.