Oh wow, I'm glad i never invested any AP into that. What a worthless advancments if it doesnt even show you what the recipe is.....

Well, taking into account that you won't get all those powers on the third attempt, I was planning on getting some of those visibility advancements eventually to make up for the fewer Fog Busters. Now I might reconsider.

Oh wow, I'm glad i never invested any AP into that. What a worthless advancments if it doesnt even show you what the recipe is.....

While I was also surprised by this limitation I ultimately found it really helpful and it is not that expensive. What you do see is where there is a recipe and how much that zone costs to conquer. It still takes away a lot of the exploration guesswork to try and find a specific recipe.

For example, if you find a zinc bar recipe in a territory costing 500k, and you see a territory with an unknown recipe for 800k, chances are that one is nickel bar.

That's a good argument for the advancement, but still this is in contrast of the game being quite open with some other information without having to spend APs. I guess you will see the recipe before conquering if you have claimed a neighboring territory or used a Fog Buster, like it is without the advancement. But still, you need contact to reveal all information. But for all the bonuses that are on an idle map, you see the reward even without having to have contact. So, if the game required you to have claimed a neighboring territory to some bonus in order to see the bonus's reward (*), then the visibility advancement would be more in line. This way, it seems not worth it. And introduced another type of fog in idle. Prior to this, there only is "visible" and "fogged". What you describe sounds like "semi-fogged" (you see the cost, but not the reward). This gets worse, if you have two or more visibility advancements. How to figure out what you might find on this territory? Is it a recipe, or perhaps a mine?

(*) Take the map Small Earth which should be the idle Tutorial, right?. Either way, say you start in South America, Peru to be precise. If you conquer Brazil the game would reveal the Africa bonus reward, if you conquer Venezuela the game would reveal the North America bonus reward.

EDIT: or did you mean, you actually see the recipe icon, but don't know which you will find? Then this is even more confusing to me, because a recent update changed the game such that you will always know a Army Camp's name even without having it claimed. Sure, the name doesn't tell you anything, but still, if you see an Army Camp, you will always know its name.

Edited 5/12/2021 08:42:53

What you describe sounds like "semi-fogged" (you see the cost, but not the reward). This gets worse, if you have two or more visibility advancements. How to figure out what you might find on this territory? Is it a recipe, or perhaps a mine?



Here is a picture on my current level. As you see the region is "semi-fogged". All we see is the army cost, and a recipe icon on map. We also see some mines in "semi-fogged" territories. Here we won't know the name of the mine until it is completely visible, same as we won't see exactly what recipe is there. But it is clear if it is a mine, or a recipe.

Interesting....

That slightly reduces the effectiveness of Recipe Visibility, but Mine or Smelters/Crafters Visibility would still be great. Same with Mercenary Camp or Market Visibility. Or even a hypothetical something like Cache Visibility would be nice.

It would allow you to see a wide spread of the map, and as you pointed out, it would allow you to visualize the strength of different regions by what you can see.

On that note, once you are able to purchase those higher visibilities, you should have ascended enough that you have a general idea of the layout of the map.

I have the first Smelters/Crafters Visibility and it's pretty nice. The 3rd one is always the first crafter so it's easy to get it really early.

Hmm, now that I see how it works, I am actually tempted to get Smelter/Crafter Visibility. It can be handy in replaying levels since Crafters are such cash cows.

So the first Smelters/Crafters Visibility shows the first 2 Smelters and the first Crafter. It kinda sucks because generally that first Smelter is easy to find, so really it's just for showing the second Smelter and the first Crafter. Still worth it IMO. Not sure I'll ever do a second upgrade on it though.

Along the recipe visibility aspect, the Copper Wire is still fogged, not that that matters much since it's always paired with the first Crafter.

------edit------

also it doesn't appear as:

Visible unconquered territories:
Armies on visible unconquered territories:

with your level stats, still counts as fogged.

Edited 5/12/2021 20:58:05

does that mean those territories count as already viewable when you use fogbuster? so advancing several of those would give you view of maybe a hundred free territories on later maps

Edited 5/13/2021 04:34:43

Given the screenshot from Fafzor, I'd assume they count as still fogged. Which makes this a strange advancement. From what was said before, I assume that you will strictly get to see the first n recipes. If one of them is a bonus reward, you will most likely not get another revealed. If one is semi-fogged, a Fog Buster will still fully unveil it which will count as one territory.

Yes, these are all assumptions, but I don't like what that would mean for their usefulness.

I'd invest my AP in so many upgrades before I go for a crafter visibility. At the end all the upgrades are good, but some upgrades are just better. Maybe starting from the 7th ascension visibilities are worth it

Maybe starting from the 7th ascension visibilities are worth it

Maybe after I have started not getting Fogbusters from levels anymore.

Maybe after I have started not getting Fogbusters from levels anymore

6-12 visible items won't do much. If you invest go to the max. And for maxing mines+recipes+crafters+markets you'll need AP that you can better invest somewhere else. The only exception for me would be Mercenary Camp Visibility

why? do you buy out each mercenary camp as soon as possible?

6-12 visible items won't do much.

Not for map visibility, but for tracking down the Crafters.

Crafting generates ~1/3 of my total income. And definitely more than I can produce with Bonuses/Territories.

@Dangermouse

no mate. it's for the end phase of the game

@Z

Smelters/crafters without mines won't do much. so you'll have to max both of the visibilities together then

Edited 5/14/2021 08:00:27

Mines are more plentiful, but yes, that’d help.

I’m just saying that being better able to track Crafters can help by boosting income.

@Z

fully agreed.

but don't you find that investing first in Increased Money from Bonuses and Increased Item Sell Values will generate you a bigger income?

Agreed

I was more implying after third Ascension. So you should have a decent amount in Phase 3 already.

Besides, 615 AP to max it out won’t slow you down by much.