Thanks Splat, I have never use it. I just got mine @Uncommon a few hours ago. It is 6%.

Krinid, yeah I just know it from DJ Storm post. Good thing it happen before I throw my @Uncommon.

I have quite weird question. Lets say that we do not need/want to use artifact for the first 16 hours and we have three DT artifacts (@same or different level). Could we use them one by one, occupying each and every slot. It could be applied on same territory or different ones. Haha, I don't know whether anybody have try it before.

That's impossible, as you can't have more than 1 of the same type of artifact equipped at once, even if another is on cooldown.

Edited 7/19/2021 06:14:58

This DT strategy is almost certainly bad. All else being equal, you should prioritize capturing lower value territories/bonuses/caches at all points in the game to accelerate income growth. Using an active artifact which will ‘kill’ fewer armies but drive army/money income is better than using an active artifact that will ‘kill’ more armies regardless of what simple arithmetic says. Exponential growth is very very powerful.

There may be an edge case for a late-game hospital that’s accessible early-game on a map like Far Land but I haven’t seen this before.

@graemes
That's an interesting idea if you could actually somehow accomplish getting a late game hospital which might have >100M benefit. This could vastly change the early game, immediately letting you capture >25%+ of territories for free or at little cost.

But you'd never actually be able to cap it as DT is exponential decay (Epic 24% damage each hit) so b/c there is no access to the territory, you can never finish it off, it just creeps closer to 0, the worth of the DT hit reducing each time, but with a non-reducing, significant 16h penalty on a slot each time. It's a significant early game investment for medium level mid to late game benefit, so I agree with you that there are better strategies to get earlier benefits with more lasting & compounding effects.

Tbh, assuming a 100B territory and 24% Epic DT, the value of using DT (24B) seems to be on par with (maybe even less than?) the increased value of the Drafts after buying lots of mercs. Buy 100-200B mercs mid-game often gives a benefit of 2-6B per Draft for a # of drafts in succession, and this comes as a free side effect of buying the mercs, so I'd rather spend my artifacts focused on generating money (bonus/territory/army income/crafting speed/item sell values/etc) to buy mercs and get the additional armies as a secondary draft bonus.

Now if you don't actually have 3 good passive artifacts and 16h downtime on a slot is a non-factor, then that changes things. But then I'd likely recommend an artifact strategy change as well. (;

@Graemes, Krinid

I think you're partially misreading mobtrio's question. Mob's asking if you can put 3 DTs into the equip slots for the artifacts to do this. I do get both your points, but they don't fully address mob's question. Even if this strategy could be useful, it is impossible to do, as like I said in my previous post, and Fizzer can confirm this, is that you can't have more than 1 of the same type of artifact equipped at the same time. If you have 3 DTs, you could only ever have 1 equipped at a time, even if another is on its cooldown.

If he was asking that (3x DTs) then yes, I missed that, and you're correct, it can't be done. It's not theoretical nor relying on attestation from Fizzer - you can test this by trying it with an artifact, and you'll see the message "You cannot equip two artifacts of the same type".

Figured I'd just hijack this thread instead of starting a new one.

What I have:

Epic: Army Camp Boost, Mine Boost, Bonus Money Boost

Rare: All 4 Discounts, Draft Boost, Hospital Boost, Item Values, the 3 Cache Boosts.

Uncommon: Army Camp Boost, Mine Boost, Fog Buster

2 Commons and 2 Poors.

I'm nearing the end of my last level before ascending and am planning on spend much less time playing (not drafting or switching as much) and was wonder what to do with my Artifacts. My first thought was to upgrade Hospital Boost and either Item Values or Mercenary Discount to Epic. Then I got Uncommon Army Camp Boost and Mine Boost and I'm now thinking I should sacrifice all my Rares and Epics to upgrade my Bonus Money Boost to Legendary since I'll still have a Army Camp Boost and Mine Boost.

Any thoughts?

This is closely aligned with my ethos to the game and my artifact portfolio as well

I don’t think a Legendary is in the cards yet with your current equipment. Personally, I would sacrifice Mine Discount, Army Camp Discount, Draft Boost plus whatever odds and ends you need to get the Merc Discount to Epic. Definitely keep the Rare Item Values and the Hospital Boost, getting these to Epic should be the next big investment in my opinion.

On the 3 cache boosts, this one is really up to you. I personally have found these tricky to use from a return on user time perspective but there’s no question they are value additive if you don’t mind swapping in and out.

Should definitely keep your eyes open for a Ore Values at some point as well!

My current roll out is:
*Rare Mine Boost
*Epic Bonus Money Boost
*Epic Army Camp Boost
Epic Hospital Boost
Rare Mercenary Discount
Rare Item Values
Rare Ore Values

Hindsight being 20/20, would definitely have pushed Merc Discount and Item Values to Epic before Army Camp Boost but it is what it is.

Oh and for what it’s worth I agree with Bonus Money Boost being the first Legendary, just don’t think you have quite enough to justify it yet.

Before you upgrade, there's one thing you should consider. The faster you can beat a level, the less money you'll generate with Bonus Money Boost. It's a good artifact to have, particularly for challenge levels, but it'll lose value as you upgrade your advancements. The same is true for Army Camp Boost.

About Mercenary Discount. I have the Advancement max out and if I get the 4 techs it's 72% discount. The rare only brings that up to 74%. Considering I buy most of my mercs late I generally have at least 3 if not all 4 on larger levels. It just doesn't add much.

Like Master Jz said most Artifacts aren't as useful the faster you complete levels combined with Advancements. I can already see Item Values not being as useful if you don't have time make things. I think Ore Sell Values Advancement plus Ore Value Artifact and Mine Boost Artifact might be really useful after a third or fourth ascension. Also if you don't have time to upgrade hospitals than Hospital Discount and Hospital Boost aren't as useful. Almost think Cache Boosts are the ones to upgrade if I end up playing this long enough.

The one fun thing about upgrading one to Legendary is that digs will be intriguing again since there will be certain Artifacts that I'll be looking forward to getting instead of whatever cannon fodder I'm getting now.

Still don't know what I'm going to do.

@Master Jz: What do you think should be the first 1-3 Legendaries? I would’ve said Bonus Money Boost, Hospital Boost, Merc Discount in some order but I’m curious on your late game perspective since I’m still wrapping up ascension 2.

@asdfgh: It’s still an 8%/16%/32% discount on a LOT of money, regardless of what nominal amount an unupgraded player would pay. I think this example illustrates the opposite to be honest, the “discount” from -72% to -74% feels good while the “boost” from +400% to +410% feels underwhelming.

Below are some artifacts to I would love to upgrade to legendary first, if I ever get enough epic artifacts to sacrifice.
* Craft Double
* Mercenary Discount
* Speedy Crafters
* Time Warp

Note that the effects of these 4 artifacts stack multiplicatively.

About Mercenary Discount. I have the Advancement max out and if I get the 4 techs it's 72% discount. The rare only brings that up to 74%. Considering I buy most of my mercs late I generally have at least 3 if not all 4 on larger levels. It just doesn't add much.

2 comments. Merc Discount to Epic might be good, but also raising Additional Mercs - this is actually a sort of Merc discount as well, b/c it gives you more mercs at each camp, including more of the cheap mercs for the first 10 or so merc camps. So you'll approach a point where you don't need army camps much at all to clear a level, just get what you need from mercs, caches, JS & hospitals, and eventually if you max it out, will be able to leave mercs in the expensive camps behind = less crafting time to get enough money to clear the level = faster clear time. I'm only @ 88% additional mercs now, but when I get it 150%, I suspect I'll be able to leave all the expensive mercs in the later pools, not upgrade hospitals as much = save money & time = buy more mercs = finish faster. As as Jz pointed out, finishing faster means getting less benefit from all Advancements and Artifacts that are time based like ACB, BMB, TMB, so need to focus on event driven buffs like buy mercs, caches, hospitals, speedy crafters, etc.

My last level before 2nd Ascension was Netherlands, and I had 62B drafting on it, army camps 23B, merc 373B, hospitals 417B (I pretty much maxed them all out), JS 193B. Heavy focus on mercs, and it's working out for me. Drafting earlier gets me that 60B draft and even still I thin it's too low, I did leave a lot remaining in the pool, I was still getting 2B drafts at the end of the level.

Also, if you're only buying @ end of level, you're missing out on opportunities, esp if you have Discount Mercs maxed out. You're missing the value of buying the cheap mercs early on and getting more bonuses/caches/crafters/recipes/etc = more money = faster clear. Also, more mercs bought = better drafts. If you end your level still getting massive drafts, it means you've left armies in the draft pool, and you could have moved those merc purchases earlier and got (just example #'s) 20-60B additional benefit from the draft pool.

My first Legendary was ACB

I did it a few weeks before learning how powerful Crafting Speed was. Oh well

@functor

I am surprised about the fact that you said to upgrade time warp that you will upgrade to legendary since it's just 4 hours.

This might be a dumb question but does the Time Warp artifact cool itself down?

I think some of us are talking past each other because the “best artifact” (and best AP advancement for that matter) probably differs by stage. I think it’s possible that the best rare artifact is something like Army Camp Boost or Bonus Money Boost while AP advancements are still low. I think it’s simultaneously possible that the best legendary is something like Merc Discount or Hospital Boost and the best Insane is something like Army Cache Boost or Money Cache Boost.